Posted on 11/26/2005 9:35:41 PM PST by Salvation
Advent – He Comes! The King of Glory
Daily Meditations
Advent is the sacred season of anticipation and expectation in which we come to terms with the deepest yearning of our soul – a yearning fulfilled only in Jesus Christ. As we wait in longing for the coming of the Christ child at Christmas, we turn over to him all the false satisfactions – the compromises – of our life. To live Advent is to live in the awareness of a Presence that changes us. Our Advent preparation is marked by vigilance – custody of the heart in which we keep our soul fixed on the Lord. For what we see incarnate in the infant Jesus we desire for ourselves: purity, innocence, childlikeness restored. In the birth of this child we know the promise of our own spiritual rebirth.
These rich spiritual postings will accompany us like a beloved friend through the four weeks of Advent with poignant scriptural reflections for each day of the season. We will also find a wealth of meditative prayers, essays, poetry, an examination of conscience, and a unique feature: the Advent Stations. If we long for the nearness of God in our lives, these invaluable postings promise to bring us ever closer to the One who promised: “I will be with you always.” (Mt 28:20)
Sunday, Nevember 27
First Sunday of Advent
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark 13:33-37
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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!”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Sunday, Nevember 27
First Sunday of Advent
“Be watchful! Be alert!” We have just finished with Thanksgiving and now the “Christmas rush” is upon us! The events of life so easily come and go without having any impact upon us. In the midst of all of our activity it is like we are sleepwalking, unaware of the meaning or purpose of what we are doing. Unaware of the deepest part of ourselves which is not being moved by these hextix days.
How can I change? How can I be attentive to the fact that Advent is a season in which to become more aware of Christ’s Presence? My history tells me I am unable on my own. I need reminders, I need someone continually to wake me up and to call be back. This Advent, ask someone! Advent is awaiting the celebration of Jesus Christ coming in the flesh! Ask a friend or family member to engage in Advent with you. Make a weekly or even daily appointment with this person to come together and pray a rosary, or go to Mass together, or read Scripture or an edifying book together. Ask more than one person if more than one might be open to do this with you. You will be Christ in the flesh for each other, and you just may celebrate your most joyful Christmas ever.
~Father Richard Veras
Loving Father, let me live this Advent with attentive awareness.
Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Advent Prayer Ping List.
Like so many at this time of year, I have recently found my waking hours increasingly compressed with more meetings, visits and obligations — and all the while, the holidays draw near. It seems that our pace quickens, but do we know where we are going? This seasonal busyness so often causes us to lose focus on our destination. As such, the trappings of the season can potentially eclipse what we as Catholics believe to be the very purpose of Advent.
How heartening, then, that with characteristic candor and timeliness, our recent liturgical readings have reminded us of that ultimate horizon toward which we journey: the very purpose of our lives.
Jesus tells us in the Gospel reading for the approaching first Sunday of Advent, "Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come. It is like a man traveling abroad" (Mk 13:34). Indeed, our readings of late — if we have listened carefully — have been a wake-up call to stir us from whatever it is that might be causing or tempting us to lose focus.
"May He not come suddenly and find you sleeping…Watch!" (Mk 13:36-37).
Ever watchful, ever vigilant, our Church sets before us in Advent a time to wake up, focus, and mature as disciples. Will we take this opportunity — at the close of the "Year of the Eucharist" and at the outset of a new liturgical year — to find our Lord and Savior anew? If so, how?
Allow me to offer three of many possible suggestions.
Our destination in Advent is the welcoming of Jesus Christ ever more into our lives. The road leading there is — especially in our consumerist society — congested, lined with malls, full schedules and myriad distractions. Let us with singleness of heart focus on our destination in the coming weeks. If we do, then the surpassing beauty of God — soon to be made evident in the coming of His Son — will so capture our attention that this Christmas will find us faithful, focused and ready.
Give Thanks
Welcome Him in the Sacrament of Reconciliation
Find Him in the Eucharist
Absolutely to all three!
Thanks.
We need to be reminded of which path we should be trodding.
The path of hope that leads to Christ.
Light the first candle of Advent, Amen!
Here's hoping all of us can combine the busyness of the season with time for rest and reflection.
An encounter with Jesus is enough to be so inundated with the generative power of the Father that there is nothing but to surrender or to struggle. The Roman centurion surrenders because he knows the rich possibilities born from the interplay of obedience and authority.
Advent faith celebrates the Father’s distinctive answer as a continuing encounter with that authoritative Presence to which the centurion subjected himself and his household. Advent faith recognizes that the Father’s Word heals humanity from the inside, “under the roof,” exactly where we live, move, and have our being. It possesses a hope for that ultimate and unbounded encounter when the Word who has “pitched his tent” will allow us to take up an eternal dwelling place where he lives, moves and has his being.
Advent hope longs for communion with the Father, who has explicitly spoken the only Word by which we are healed.
We have only to surrender.
Reflection based on Matthew 8:5-11
Father Gary C. Caster
With our adult habits, it becomes so much easier to choose sophistication over simplicity, and miss the beauty of the Incarnation that is right in front of us. So many people longed for – and continue to long for – the Christ that had been given to us. That child that so many generations waited for has come and is come. But – like the adults in the “Emperor’s New Clothes” – we value our images of our own abilities and intelligence over the naked truth standing before our eyes. We become so self-absorbed that we think our own images of ourselves are actually real, when they are merely images.
This is our great tragedy. We, to whom so much has been given, throw away the beauty of the Incarnation to pursue our own vanity. Valuing our identity as “grown-ups,” we reject the path of the child, and ignore the Christ Child, sleep so near in the manger that we could touch him, if only we would reach out our hands.
Reflection based on Luke 10:21-24
Rebecca Vitz Cherico
People followed Jesus without understanding his teachings; indeed, a number of times the apostles even found them difficult to accept. It is not the content of his teachings that attracts them. It is the power of his presence. There is something different, exceptional about him.
The beginning of the Christian life is not a discourse, a message; it is an event. There is something in Jesus that corresponds with the deepest most powerful desires or needs of the human heart, and the presence of Jesus awakens those desires. These are the desires for justice, peace, beauty, truth, forgiveness and harmony that we hear in the words of Isaiah, the prophet of Advent.
Jesus awakened these desires and, in his presence, they began to be fulfilled. But do we believe that what happened to Andres and the apostles can happen to us today? Can Jesus still fulfill all the desires of the human heart? Yes! That is why we celebrate Advent.
Reflection based on Matthew 4:18-22
Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete
The Path of the Child on the Feast of St. Andrew -- that title should have been
Desire Awakened.
What cannot end, if you are a follower of Jesus, is being faithful each day to the work of love. Jesus knew it would always be something whether it was a big terrible setback or a minor inconvenience, our faith will be tested.
All around the world there can be signs of trouble and difficulty. The answer for those who are followers of Jesus is to become a mighty sign. While everyone else might be complaining or be stressed out, or indifferent or self-absorbed, we are called to be mighty signs of hope, people who believe the answer is not tin giving up, but rather standing with each other.
I watched a show the other day where the family said that for several years now they had stopped making Christmas about presents and “what I want”; they would choose this time of year to serve others. Their teenage son died tragically this year; and yet they are still going this year to Ecuador to help build a school. But the school will now be named for their son. And as I watched these people who have stuck with God and kept working, I thought what a mighty, mighty sign.
Reflection based on Matthew 7:21, -24-27
Father Gregory E. S. Malovietz
The word pity is often avoided because of its negative connotation. To pity others is seen as judging them! In Webster’s Dictionary, the word pity is defined as “feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the sufferings of others.”
When Mother Teresa walked the streets of Calcutta, she took pity on the poor but she didn’t stop there. She went right up to them and helped them! She washed their wounds, fed their stomachs, and bathed their bodies. If pity is just a feeling, it’s a negative because it doesn’t do anyone any good!
But if in our pity for others we are motivated to reach out and help them, then pity becomes a positive, and through it others are helped! Let us keep in mind that Jesus has a special place in his heart for the poor, and for all those who minister to them. “Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!”
Reflection based on Matthew 9:21, 27-31
Molly Kelly
Another great source! Thank you!
Always, even now, our Lord in approaching a soul in spiritual need asks nothing more than an open door to his knocking. He gives himself without exacting an initial cost. There is, however, a cost later, but one that must be offered with generous love. Mother Teresa often urged her sisters, “Give without counting the cost.”
Faithfulness to Jesus can be very demanding; and zeal for souls can bring frustration, even revilement. But we have received much, and we ought to have great longing for Jesus Christ to be known and loved. We can never return but a fragment of all cost to bringing knowledge of him to others.
Let us pray this Advent for souls in need.
Reflection based on Matthew 9:35-10:1, 5a, 6-8
Father Donald Haggerty
Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” The Gospel of the Lord.
John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. John was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He fed on locusts and wild honey. And this is what he proclaimed: “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
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