Sermon by Father Alex McAllister SDS    Index

First Sunday of Advent, Year C—2003 Homily

It is, I suppose, a bit surprising to begin the Churches year with a vision of the end times. But there again it is absolutely essential to keep you eye on the final goal right from the start.

The world will end. The Son of Man will come in glory. There will be a judgement. These are things we ought certainly to keep in mind as we make our pilgrimage of faith through life.

In this short Gospel text Jesus tells the believers how to prepare themselves for this inevitability. It is very simple: Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to stand with confidence before the Son of Man.

When Christ says “stay awake” he is not actually inviting us to resist sleepiness. He is using a metaphor; he wants us to always be on the alert spiritually—to avoid spiritual sleepiness. There is danger about, after all; the devil, if you like, is prowling around looking for someone to eat. (1 Peter 5:8)

We ought not to fall into a false sense of security, thinking that if we just follow the rules and say our prayers everything will be all right. The life of a Christian is not a passive affair. Keeping the commandments and saying your prayers is not the ticket to an easy, safe and trouble free journey through life.

On this journey we are subject to all kinds of attacks and assaults. Jesus himself was buffeted by life and we are no different. Precisely because of our faith we are likely to be challenged in all sorts of subtle ways as well as direct onslaughts.

Our faith challenges us. It gives us a moral code and makes us face up to some difficult choices in life. It gives us a set of beliefs about the world and abut the nature of humanity and sometimes it is a struggle to keep all this in view.

But our faith doesn’t only challenge us; it also challenges the people around us. Some might admire us for the particular stances we take but when they do so they find themselves positively challenged and must answer the question—why don’t they take the same stances themselves?

Other people might take the opposite view and they feel quite threatened by our beliefs and choices. What we say and do because of our faith becomes a reproach to them.

I remember once being put under an extraordinary verbal attack by a lesbian prison officer in the staff canteen because the church will not conduct same sex marriages. It was her right to be upset but I found her reaction a bit extraordinary because she wasn’t even a Christian. My very presence it seemed was a threat to her lifestyle.

It was slightly bizarre. But I am sure that we have all experienced such unprovoked attacks because of our beliefs. Often we simply don’t know how to respond because anything we might say could easily lead to more disagreement. You must have had similar conversations at work, on the golf course, in the pub, or at school?

In fact, the better you live your Christian life the more you are likely to experience such challenges. This is because it is virtually impossible to keep one’s Christian faith a secret. We might never speak about it openly but people are easily able to detect our faith from the way we think and act.

Christ tells us to be vigilant. He tells us to avoid anything which demeans our faith. He tells us to pray, and particularly to pray for courage and strength. This last thing indicates clearly that Christianity is not for the weak.

A lot of people in the world do not understand this. They look at the Church and see a fairly motley crew and they laugh and say we have nothing to fear from this lot. These people couldn’t change the world.

But weak though we may be we are the possessors of a great secret. It is the secret of how to live a truly fulfilling and worthy life. It is set out clearly in that extract from the First Letter to the Thessalonians we have just had read to us.

We know that it is on the strength and consistency of our love for one another that we will be judged. We know that it is being holy that really counts. Holiness is an attribute of God and becoming holy is to become more like God.

When the Son of Man comes in great glory on the last day to draw the universe to its conclusion we want to be ready. And we will only be ready if we have prepared. And that is the message of this First Sunday of Advent—to prepare ourselves, to get ready, to stay alert for that great Day of Days.

Many will not be ready. As Christ himself says: some will die of fear.

We go through our pilgrimage of life; we have our ups and downs, we sometimes stray from the true path and at other times we recover our senses and find it again. We suffer stresses and strains but also periods of great serenity and deep joy.

But throughout that journey the important thing is never to lose sight of the goal. At least then when we do stray we will know the way back, at least when we are overwhelmed by other matters we will still know in which direction we are travelling.

The season of Advent is the liturgical run-up to Christmas. It is a holy season something like Lent but not so strict. In the Eastern Rite Churches and in many monasteries it is a period of fasting, if less rigorous than Lent.

We prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas and while doing this we prepare for his Second Coming in glory. We all prepare for Christmas by shopping and decorating the house. It is hard work but there is fulfilment when the great day arrives and we can relax and enjoy ourselves in the company of our family and friends.

But we should not fail to make that spiritual preparation as the Church calls us to during Advent. We ought to remember those who will not have such a pleasant Christmas as ourselves and take steps to include them somehow or other.

We should remember the true meaning of Christmas and try to radiate some of Christ’s peace in the things we do and say.

We must also look within and prepare ourselves spiritually to celebrate the great feast in a worthy manner. The best way to do this is to make sure that we go to confession prior to Christmas. It is easy to let this last one slip by forgotten.

But if we want to get the most out of Christmas we have to make some effort and this is one thing that we certainly can do that will make us much happier within. We have arranged a special service of reconciliation on Thursday 18th December at 19.30 and hope you will be able to attend.

A new year is a time for resolutions. As we begin the liturgical year then perhaps today is a good time to make a few spiritual New Year Resolutions.