December 2, 2012

Bulletin December 2, 2012

1^st Sunday of Advent C Readings

Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2; Luke 21: 25-28
Today is the beginning of the Advent season and the gospels this season are taken from Luke. He starts out by defending Christianity against false accusations before a sympathetic audience. Luke’s goal is to put his writing into a more historical perspective, which is all of salvation history. God’s divine plan for the salvation of the world was accomplished by Jesus who fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies; and now in His death and resurrection He saved everyone. Luke emphasizes that Christianity is a legitimate form of worship in the Roman world, a religion that is capable of meeting the spiritual needs of the Roman Empire. In this light he depicts Pilate declaring Jesus innocent of any wrongdoing three times. At the same time he argues in his second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, that Christianity is deserving of the same toleration and freedom that Judaism received from Rome.
Now the people at the time of Luke’s gospel were waiting for the second coming of Christ which would usher in the end of the world. They had witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and so many had fled. They thought this was the beginning of the end. Luke wants to shift everyone’s attention away from this ‘doom and gloom’ thinking. He wants people “each day”, a phrase he uses frequently, to be concerned in living the Christian life. He tells me and each person to do this by identifying with Jesus, who is “caring and tender toward the poor and lowly, the outcast, the sinner, and the afflicted, toward all those who recognize their dependence on God but who is severe toward the proud and self-righteous, and particularly toward those who place their material wealth before the service of God and His people.” (Introduction of Luke found in the Catholic Study Bible).
This has helped me put today’s gospel into perspective. Luke still expects the Parousia will be a reality but he is much more concerned in how I am acting and living as a Christian. The previous verses to today’s reading have this comment in the footnotes, “The actual destruction of Jerusalem by Rome in A.D. 70 upon which Luke and his community look back provides the assurance, that, just as Jesus’ prediction of Jerusalem’s destruction was fulfilled, so too will be His announcement of their final redemption.”
I was reflecting as I was meditating on this gospel what the people who witnessed the horrors of hurricane Sandy in New Jersey and New York and places near to the eye of the storm were thinking. I was especially trying to place myself with the street people who live under bridges and in alleyways and then the so very poor who live in conditions that I have seen but would never be able to live in. Did they think this was the end? Did they think that they could possibly survive? What about when those whose ‘life packages’ were wrenched from their arms and they had no more belongings, did they have hope? What about the horror of having babies blown away or trampled or swept away in the raging wind, rain and waters? This gospel was for them ‘here and now’; where did they feel their God was? Or what was God doing and why? Questions that came to me and I’m sure there are many more. I was so thankful being spared the fury; I was blessed. Others lost loved ones, their possessions, homes and hope. This gospel is for me to be present to them.
I think that so often I concentrate on my weaknesses, failings and sins instead of concentrating on that I was created in love to be love. I was created to make a difference to those who are in need and that could simply be the one, of any age, who comes in front of me crying, misunderstood, lonely, abandoned, lifeless, hopeless etc. What do I do, worry about the future or reach out and in my stumbled response? So very often when I do this, I am given direct help from God in the words, gestures and care that I give to help these unfortunate people. And I had no idea where it came from; it wasn’t from me…and God cares for every one of His creation, and gifts me to do the same. How blessed I am by God; how grateful I must continue to be.
I read this in ‘Living the Word’ which gives a scriptural reflection for today’s readings: “In Thornton Wilder’s play The Skin of our Teeth, Mrs. Antrobus tells her husband George, that she didn’t marry him because he was perfect, that she didn’t even marry him because she loved him; she married him because he gave her a promise. And she gave one to him. And over the years, as their children were growing up, that mutual promise protected all of them, moving them into the future together.

A promise can open up into an unexpected future, marked by new life. God’s promise spoken in today’s first reading offered hope to a people who had little reason to hope. The hope of a restored Jerusalem, of a descendent of David who would do what is right and just—such promises began to be fulfilled in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

With Jesus a new age began that promised to bring the old order of chaos and destruction to an end. With His birth a new power entered the world, making it possible to live in love, and allowing men and women to ‘increase and abound in love for each other and for all,’ as Paul writes to the Thessalonians. Total fulfillment of God’s promises remains in the future.

But beginnings offer hope. A new church year calls on us to live as a people of hope in what God can do in our own day. Advent invites us to renew our relationship with the promises of God made visible in the person of Jesus Christ.”
So I reflect on

• If the world would end today, what would be my priorities in those last hours?
  
• What would be important and critical for me to accomplish in the time that was left?
  
• Would part of this be spent on reconciling any anger harbored towards anyone? If so, why did I wait this long? Have I ever asked God to help in this?
  
• How do I contribute through my words and actions to the goodness and harmony of the world in which God placed me? Have I thanked God for His gifts in doing this?
  

Fr. Anthony Kadavil sums it up in this way “Advent is a season of anticipation --- as we await and pray for our God to come to us in a new way this Christmas, transforming us and accompanying us on our journey --- each and every day until we meet Him face to face at the end of time. Now that doesn’t sound so scary, does it?”