First Sunday of Advent

By: Father José Miguel González Martín

November 28, 2021

 

Lord, teach me your ways, instruct me in your paths.

May the Lord fill you and make you overflow with mutual love and love for all.

Then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with great power and glory.

 

Readings

 

First reading

Reading of the prophet Jeremiah 33, 14-16

The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise that I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
In those days and in that hour, I will raise up for David a legitimate offspring who will do justice and justice on earth.
In those days Judah will be saved, and in Jerusalem they will live in peace, and they will call it that: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

 

Psalm

Salt 24

R/. To you, Lord, I lift up my soul.

Lord, teach me your ways,

instruct me in your paths:
let him walk faithfully;

teach me, because you are my God and Savior. R/.

The Lord is good and he is upright,

and he shows the way to sinners;
he makes the humble walk uprightly,

he teaches his way to the humble. R/.

The paths of the Lord are mercy and loyalty

for those who keep his alliance and his mandates.
The Lord entrusts himself to those who fear him,

and he makes his covenant known to them. R/.

 

Second lecture

Reading of the first letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians 3,12-4,2

Brothers and sisters:
May the Lord fill you and make you overflow with mutual love and with love for all, just as we love you; and thus strengthen their hearts, so that they may stand before God, our Father, holy and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
For the rest, brothers, we pray and exhort you in the Lord Jesus: you have already learned from us how to behave to please God; So behave like that and move on. Well, you know the instructions we gave you, in the name of the Lord Jesus.

 

Gospel

Reading of the holy Gospel according to Saint Luke 21,25-28.34-36

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples:
“There will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars, and on earth anguish of the people, perplexed by the roar of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and anxiety before what is coming upon the world , for the powers of heaven will be shaken.
Then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with great power and glory.
When this begins to happen, stand up, raise your heads; his deliverance is near.
Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be dulled with revelry, drunkenness, and the cares of life, and you be suddenly upon you that day; because it will fall like a snare on all the inhabitants of the earth.
So be awake at all times, praying that you may escape from all that is about to happen and stand before the Son of man.”

 

Comment

 

We begin Advent, and with Advent a new liturgical Year in which we will celebrate, little by little, all the moments and mysteries that mark the life of Christ, with whom we are called to identify ourselves. It is good that we welcome this new time as one more opportunity that the Lord offers us to know him more and better, to resemble him, to be reborn to the hope to which he calls us, to live fraternal charity with more authenticity, to share the pain and anguish of the people with whom we live, as Jesus himself did. Time to open our eyes again to Christ, to recognize him in those who suffer; to open our hearts to his love, to change our attitudes and encourage others to do the same with our testimony.

The word Advent means “what is to come”. Thus, we enter a period in which the Liturgy and the Word of God are going to invite us to look ahead, towards the future, towards the end, towards eternal life, towards the glorious coming of our Lord Jesus Christ at the end of the times. Advent is the time of waiting and hope. Knowing how to wait for the Lord, his step, his moment, his way, and being reborn in hope as a theological virtue that God himself infers to us through his Spirit, must be keys to prayer, more abundant and extensive at this time. Figures like Mary, mother of Jesus and our mother, or John the Baptist, will help us understand and better live waiting and hoping.

Advent is also a time of preparation for Christmas which, as we well know, commemorates the birth of Jesus, our Savior. In it we will remember and relive the coming of the Son of God in flesh. God became man so that all mankind could participate in the life of God. We will contemplate God who has become human so that we can be divinized. We believe that, the same one who already came and was incarnated in the most pure entrails of Mary, will come at the end of time to judge the living and the dead. We also believe that he comes to share our life, to accompany us along the way, to suffer with us, to illuminate our path, in the present of each one, in the depths of the heart, in the circumstances that surround us, however crude they may seem, especially in the poor and helpless brothers. There is Jesus coming, being born again, overcoming the culture of death, healing broken hearts, mending torn lives. Jesus is coming… that’s why we have to be attentive and vigilant; That is why we must watch out, lest we not discover it, or it has to pass us by, because our hearts are in something else, because the force of evil has made us insensitive to its cries for help in the oppressed and disinherited of the earth. .

In the first reading, taken from the prophet Jeremiah, we are invited to trust in the Lord, who will fulfill his promise to bring justice and right to his chosen ones through the Messiah. Injustice and iniquity do not have the last word. God never abandons his children.

Psalm 24 is a precious prayer that we should repeat many times, especially when our strength fails us, anguish oppresses us, or problems overwhelm us. It also invites confidence and calm, to walk in life with humility and righteousness.

The second reading is an exhortation from Saint Paul to the Thessalonians to live life pleasing to God, who wants us to love each other as brothers, in order to present ourselves as saints and irreproachable on the day of the Lord’s return. The good testimony and example of some will help to strengthen and reinforce the weakest or most doubtful. Please God, what a beautiful life project.

In today’s gospel, Jesus Christ announces the final day and his arrival as the Son of man on the clouds of heaven with great power and glory. For which he asks us to be prepared, without anguish, without fear, without anxiety, but attentive to his arrival. Certainly there are many things that distract us in life and lead us to lose the path of what is essential. Even good and committed actions, generous efforts, voluntary or forced sacrifices, can divert us from what is essential. The gospel speaks of the vices or concerns of life that dull the heart and make us fall or give up. We could ask ourselves what are the concerns that, at this moment, occupy my life, my efforts, my time. The essential thing is to put my life, every day, every moment, in the hands of Christ to rest in Him; so that in Him rest all my burdens and worries; so that you can experience that He, only He, knows how to open paths in the desert and makes abundant water sprout in arid lands. To wait for the Lord is to discover that He is already with us when we let Him be. Because, for the one he waits for, God is already in his heart. In a world full of contradictions and injustices, trust in the Lord, the hope that God’s justice will overcome the darkness of injustice, keep us.

 

Prayer

 

Jesus Christ, Word of the Father, eternal light of every believer:
come and listen to the ardent plea, come, Lord, because it is getting late.

When the world slept in darkness, in your love you wanted to help it
and you brought, coming to earth, that life that can save it.

The story already matures in promises, it only longs for your own return;
if silence matures the wait, love does not support silence.

With Mary, the Church awaits you with desires of wife and mother,
and she gathers her children awake, so that together they can wait for you.

When you come, Lord, in your glory, may we meet you
and by your side we live forever, giving thanks to the Father in the kingdom. Amen.

(Advent Hymn)

 

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