Advent Comes Before Christmas

2nd Sunday of Advent Dec. 5, 2010 (Mt 3:1-12)

In those days John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: "A voice of one crying out in the desert, 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.'"

John wore clothing made of camel's hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.

When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Aside from the Lenten Season, Advent is a season when the Church reiterates the constant call for repentance. Everyday, we are called to return to the path God set for us as we journey to find Him. But Advent reminds us in a special way that God Himself is coming to us and that we should prepare a way for Him.

The message of John the Baptist, therefore, is an important part of the Advent message. John reminds us that when someone is coming, the natural response is for us to prepare. Now since our expected visitor is Jesus, we must remember that the preparation we must do is not just decorating, feasting and buying gifts. These lose their meaning when we forget to prepare our hearts for Jesus.

Christmas for most of us today has become a meaningless joyful season. Little by little, we are removing Christ from Christmas. This is because some of us don't participate in the Advent season's journey of repentance and joyful spiritual preparation. Every year, we celebrate Christmas; but how does this yearly celebration change our lives aside from emptying our pockets? Christmas joy will always fade if our joy does not come from Christ.

John the Baptist reminds us not to be indifferent with affairs of the soul. As the Advent season continues, we are reminded to prepare for Jesus a road that leads to our hearts, without fear, anger or sin as obstacles along the way. We are invited to turn away from sin and to focus on welcoming the God who desires to enter our hearts. Instead of cleaning and decorating our homes and feasting, we must remember to clean our hearts defiled by sin, furnish our souls with holiness and to feast on God's Word in order to prepare for Jesus' visit.

The Pharisees and Sadducees in our Gospel today symbolize the people who refuse to prepare for Jesus' coming because they don't see the need for it. John, in exhorting the Pharisees, in effect also reminds us that simply being a Christian is not enough. We must live fruitful lives and our repentance must be made manifest through a life of holiness. Anyone can say he's repentant, and many people say they believe in God. Nevertheless only a few really live as children of God.

Jesus always comes to us in our daily lives. And finally, He will come again to be our judge at the end of time. This is a reality that we must not take lightly. Christmas is not just a mere reminiscing of how Jesus once came to be born here on earth. It is a reminder that He will indeed come again to gather those who are His, and to condemn those who were not fruitful and who did not prepare for His coming. In the end, the peace that was foretold in today's First Reading will be the abode of those who belong to Jesus.

May the message of Advent remain in our hearts and minds even after the season. May we always remember to care about our spirit, for when Jesus comes, He will care, not too much about how we made merry, but about how we prepared for His coming.

Keeping the Faith Alive and Awake

1st Sunday of Advent Nov. 28, 2010 (Mt 24:37-44)

For as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark. They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away. So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left.

Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

Advent is all about being ready. When we know that someone is going to visit us, we prepare a lot for them. This is why we have an Advent Season. As Catholics, we know Jesus came to this world as man; we remember that in our yearly Christmas celebration. We also know that He comes to us everyday in the Mass. Lastly, we believe that He will come again in His glory, at the end of time. Therefore, Advent is our commemoration of Jesus' coming in the past, and our preparation for His coming again.

Jesus talked a lot about His second coming. An example of this would be our Gospel for today. Jesus reminds everyone of us that His second coming would be like a robbery. We are aware that robberies may happen anytime, but we don't know when we might be robbed. The common solution for robbery is locking our doors well. In the same way, we must lock our hearts so that sin cannot enter. We must let only goodness enter our hearts. That way, when the Lord comes, we may open the doors of our hearts to Him, and He will be pleased about how well we maintained our hearts clean for His coming.

In today's Gospel, Jesus exhorts us to stay awake. This means that we should keep our faith burning. We must nourish our faith and live it everyday. As we wait for Jesus, we don't just remain idle and simply live in this world while keeping our faith to ourselves. We must not be content with just having faith and simply believing that there is a God whose story we read from the Bible. The Lord asks us to keep our faith alive and awake in everything we do, even as we live our earthly lives.

We must not treat our faith as if it was just a thing we set aside and then use whenever we need it. We do not just "re-activate" our faith every time we need to have someone baptized, when we get married or when we need to have our houses blessed. Faith is something we must live everyday. It is something that must work in our lives, as familiar and as common to us as our breathing. We must not separate our faith from every thing we do, no matter how temporal our activities may be. If we keep our faith even as we do temporal activities, we avoid committing sinful acts and we remain true followers of Christ

Indeed, this materialistic world is not our true home. Nevertheless, the Lord asks us to remain here to wait for Him, and to build His kingdom here on earth while we wait. He expects us to live our lives as His true followers so that the whole world may see Him and come to believe in Him through our example. St. Paul, in our Second Reading, asks us, "Throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light (Rom 13:12)".

As we begin this new liturgical year, we are reminded of our mission as Catholics. We are reminded that it is our task to tell the world that there is a Christ who came, comes and will come again. By word, and most importantly, by deed, we are to show the world how to become citizens of God's kingdom which is already arriving.

Finally, when He comes in all His glory, may we not be caught unprepared. Instead, may He find us steadfast in faith, untiring in building His kingdom here on earth, and zealously living as citizens of this eternal kingdom.

Always Put Your Best Foot Forward!

First Sunday of Advent Nov.30, 2008 (Mk 13:33-37)

Jesus said to his disciples: "Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.

"It is like a man traveling abroad. He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his own work, and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch. Watch, therefore; you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!' "

Today, we begin a new liturgical year as we enter the Advent Season. Advent literally means "coming". In this season, the Church invites us to reflect on and be ready for Jesus' Coming. We are reminded of the fact that Jesus came to us in the past. He lived with us and even died for us. Aside from that, we are also reminded that we should be ready for Jesus' return and that the exact time of His return is unknown to us all, except to God, of course.

We Christians are all in waiting. We believe that Jesus will come again to judge us. This act of anticipation is not at all alien to us. We wait for many things in our lives. We wait for the arrival of a visitor. We wait for the birth of a baby. We wait for the results of important exams. We wait for our favorite TV show. We wait for our favorite love team to go steady. We wait for so many things, important or not.

Our Gospel for today appropriately opens the Season of Advent. Today, Jesus invites us not just to wait; he invites us to watch, to be vigilant. We have no idea when Jesus will be coming to judge us. Nevertheless, we are given a task as Christians and also as individuals. Each of us has a special task in this world. As Jesus said, "He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his own work..." (Mk 13:34). He expects us to be faithful to this work or task until He comes again. He tells us, "May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping." (Mk 13:36).

When we are expecting a critic or supervisor who will check the efficiency of our work, we always put our best foot forward. We make sure that he will see us at our best. This isn't bad. But sometimes, this has a negative bearing. The tendency is that we only give our best when we know that we are going to be evaluated. In the case of Jesus' coming, this kind of attitude will not work. How will we know when to put our best foot forward when we have no idea when He will come to "evaluate" the way we lived our lives? What if He comes when our "best foot" is being rested and our "inferior foot" (If there is such a thing!) is forward?

The solution: We should always put our best foot forward! We shouldn't give our best just because someone will evaluate us. We should always give our best in everything. Applying it in our daily lives and our spiritual lives also: we should be good always. We should live our whole lives as Catholic Christians. Holiness is not a mask that we wear only when inside the Church or when we want to make a good impression. It is a garment that we Christians should feel naked without.

There is wisdom in the words, "Live today as if it were the last day of your life." In the same way, we should always live as if Jesus were going to judge us soon! The Gospel is telling us to be good all the time. But it does not tell us that we should be good just because we might be punished. We should not do good just because we "dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell." (Act of Contrition). We should grow from this reward-and-punishment morality to a more mature one. We should do good because of our faithfulness to and our love for God who is "all-good and deserving of all our love." (Act of Contrition).

Blessed are we if Jesus finds us faithful when He comes again! To end this reflection, let us take a glimpse at a character from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: the lamplighter. This lamplighter is ordered to light his lamp every night and to put it out every morning. The planet where he's staying rotated more rapidly as time went by. Eventually, a day in his planet became as short as a minute. Therefore, he had no time to sleep for he had to light and put out his lamp every single minute. He may be absurd, but he is faithful to his orders! When Jesus, our Master, comes back, how glad will He be if he finds us faithful to the task He left us with!