1st Sunday of Advent, Year A

The First Sunday of Advent is here! No matter how hard we strive not to be affected by all the commercialism, it can be such a busy, distracting time of year. This beautiful reading from a sermon by St. Aelred of Rievaulx may help set your minds on “the things that are above” (Col. 3:2):

How beautifully at this season the Church provides that we should recite the words and recall the longing of those who lived before our Lord’s first advent! Nor do we commemorate that desire of theirs for a single day, but share it so to speak for a long period of time, because when something we greatly love and long for is deferred for a while it usually seems sweeter to us when it does arrive.

It is our duty then to follow the example and recall the longing of the holy fathers and so inflame our own souls with love and longing for Christ. You must understand that the reason why this season was instituted was to inspire us to remember the desire of our holy fathers for our Lord’s first coming, and through their example learn to have a great longing for the day when he will come again. We should consider how much good our Lord did us by his first coming, and how much more he will do for us by his second. This thought will help us to have a great love for that first coming of his and a great longing for his return.

4th Sunday of Advent, Year C

The Fourth Sunday of Advent - so close to Christmas! Let us accompany Mary and Joseph in our hearts as they journey to Bethlehem. Let us go forth to greet Christ, as the 12th century Cistercian abbot Guerric of Igny exhorts us:

Our King and Savior is coming; let us run to meet him! "Good news from afar country," in the words of Solomon, "is like cold water to a thirsty soul" and to announce the coming of our Savior and the reconciliation of the world, together with the good things of the life to come, is to bring good news indeed.

"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good tidings and publish peace!"

Such messengers truly bear a refreshing draught to the soul that thirsts for God; with their news of the Savior’s coming, they joyfully draw and offer us water from the springs of salvation.... Let us too arise with joy and run in spirit to meet our Savior. Hailing him from afar, let us worship him, saying: Come, Lord, "save me and I shall be saved!" Come and "show us your face, and we shall all be saved. We have been waiting for you; be our help in time of trouble." This was how the prophets and saints of old ran to meet the Messiah, filled with immense desire to see with their eyes, if possible, what they already saw in spirit.

We must look forward to the day, so soon to come, on which we celebrate the anniversary of Christ’s birth. Scripture itself insists on the joy which must fill us—a joy which will lift our spirit out of itself in longing for his coming, impatient of delay as it strains forward to see even now what the future holds in store.

Lord, open our hearts to your grace. Through the angel’s message to Mary we have learned to believe in the incarnation of Christ your Son: lead us by his passion and cross to the glory of his resurrection.

3rd Sunday of Advent, Year C

This Sunday's gospel continues the theme of St. John the Baptist, the voice crying in the desert: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths." The people wonder if John himself is the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah. St. Augustine comments:

Since it is difficult to distinguish the voice and the word, John himself was thought to be Christ. The voice was taken to be the Word. But the voice admitted his identity, lest he might displease the Word. I am not the Christ, he said, nor Elijah, nor the prophet. In reply to, Who are you? he said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, the voice of one breaking the silence. Prepare the way of the Lord, is as though he said: I cry out to lead him into your heart – but he will not condescend to come where I am leading, unless you prepare the way. 

What does to prepare the way mean, except to pray as you ought, to be humble-minded? Take an example of humility from John himself. He is thought to be the Christ, but he says he is not what people think. He does not use the mistake of others to feed his own pride. Suppose he had said: I am the Christ. How easily would he have been believed, since that was what people were thinking before he spoke! But he did not say it. He acknowledged who he was, distinguished himself from Christ, humbled himself.

 O God, who see how your people faithfully await the feast of the Lord’s Nativity, enable us, we pray, to attain the joys of so great a salvation, and to celebrate them always with solemn worship and glad rejoicing.

2nd Sunday of Advent, Year C

Today's Gospel reading is taken from Luke 3:1-6. It tells of St. John the Baptist proclaiming a baptism of repentance in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. John is the "voice in the wilderness" foretold by Isaiah, the herald who urges us to prepare our hearts for the Savior during this Advent season, as we wait for the Lord's coming.

In his Commentary on St. Luke's Gospel, Origen writes:

We read in the prophet Isaiah: “A voice cries out in the desert: Prepare a way for the Lord. Build him a straight highway.” A way by land? Could the Word of God travel such a road? Is it not rather a way within ourselves that we have to prepare for the Lord? Is it not a straight and level highway in our hearts that we are to make ready? Surely this is the way by which the Word of God enters, a way that exists in the spaciousness of the human body. The human heart is vast, broad, and capacious, if only it is pure.

[I]f what contains so much is not small, let a way be prepared in it for the Lord, a straight highway along which the Word and Wisdom of God may advance. Prepare a way for the Lord by living a good life and guard that way by good works. Let the Word of God move in you unhindered and give you a knowledge of his coming and of his mysteries. To him be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

1st Sunday of Advent, Year C

On this First Sunday of Advent, as we prepare our hearts and lives for the coming of Our Savior, we offer for your meditation this extract from the Advent Sermons of St. Bernard:

It is surely right that you should celebrate our Lord’s coming with all your hearts, and that the greatness of the consolation which his Advent brings us should fill you with joy. Indeed one can only be amazed at the depth of his self-abasement, and stirred up to new fervor by the immensity of his love. But you must not think of his first coming only, when he came to seek and save what was lost; remember that he will come again and take us to himself. It is my desire that you should be constantly meditating upon this twofold advent, continually turning over in your minds of all that he has done for us in the first, and all that he promises to do in the second.

When our Savior comes he will change our lowly bodies into the likeness of his glorious body, provided that our hearts have been changed and made humble as his was. This is why he said: Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart. We may note from this text that humility is twofold: that is intellectual humility and a humility of one’s whole disposition and attitude, here called the heart. By the first we recognize that we are nothing; we can learn this much of ourselves from our own weakness. The second enables us to trample the glory of the world under our feet, and this we learn from him who emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. When the people desired to make him a king, he fled from them; but when they wanted to make him undergo the shame and ignominy of the cross, he gave himself up to them of his own free will.

2nd Sunday of Advent, Year B

The Gospel given for the Second Sunday of Advent (Mk 1:1-8) encourages us to make straight the paths of the Lord. Indeed, it is Christ himself who makes us "straight"; we have only to open ourselves to his presence and grace. Origen, in an ancient homily, speaks of this truth:

John the Baptist, Tiziano (1542)

Let as examine the scriptural texts foretelling the coming of Christ. One such prophecy begins with a reference to John the Baptist: The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight. What follows, however, applies directly to our Lord and Saviour, since it is by Jesus rather than by John that every valley has been filled in. [...]

Now let us turn to that part of the prophecy which also concerns the coming of Christ and see whether this too has been fulfilled. The text continues: Every crooked way shall be straightened. Each one of us was once crooked; if we are no longer so, it is entirely due to the grace of Christ. Through his coming to our souls all our crooked ways have been straightened out. If Christ did not come to your soul, of what use would his historical coming in the flesh be to you? Let us pray that each day we may experience his coming and be able to testify: It is not I who now live, but Christ who lives in me.

So then, by his coming Jesus my Lord has smoothed out your rough places and changed your disorderly ways into level paths, so that an even, unimpeded road may be constructed within you, clear enough for God the Father to walk along, and Christ the Lord may himself set up his dwelling in your hearts and say: My Father and I will come to them and make our home in them.

1st Sunday of Advent, Year B

"Watch! Stay awake!," declares Christ in the Gospel for this First Sunday of Advent (Mk 13:33-37). We are called to shake off the sloth that drags us down so that we may eagerly await him and desire the things of heaven. Godfrey of Admont explains further how to spend these holy days of the Advent season:

Behold I Stand at the Door and Knock,
 stained glass detail, Geneva, Indiana

Take heed, watch, and pray, the Scripture says. By these words our Lord and Saviour admonished not only his disciples whom he was addressing in the flesh; by these same words he also made clear to us what we must do, and how we should keep watch. The three parts of this saying plainly show how all destined to be saved, who forget what lies behind them and desire to press on toward what lies ahead, can attain the summit of perfection which is their goal. [...]

Take heed, watch, and pray our text says; meaning, take heed by understanding what is right; watch by doing what is good; and pray by desiring what is eternal. And the following words show clearly why they must be so very heedful, watchful, and prayerful. You do not know, the text says, when the time will be. So since we are ignorant of the time of this great visitation, we must be always watching and praying; that is to say, for the grace of so great a visitation we must prepare the innermost recesses of our hearts by vigilant effort.