First Sunday of Advent
Time to wake up
Today’s Gospel calls
us to enter into a time of watchful waiting, of preparation or keen awareness.
Let us resolve to hold off the holidays for a bit, to tune in to the gospel, to
prepare our hearts for the mystery of the Incarnation, the coming of the Prince
of Peace.
See! The ruler of the
earth shall come; the Lord who will take from us the heavy burden of our
exile The Lord will come soon, will not delay. The Lord will make the darkest places
bright. We must capture that urgency today in the small flame of our candle. We
light the candle because we know that the coming of Christ is tied to our
building of the kingdom. Lighting the flame, feeding the hungry, comforting the
sick, reconciling the divided, praying for the repentant, greeting the lonely
and forgotten – doing all these works hastens His coming.
Waiting
We light a candle today, a small dim
light against a world that often seems forbidding and dark. But we light it
because we are a people of hope, a people whose faith is marked by an
expectation that we should always be ready for the coming of the Master. The
joy and anticipation of this season is captured beautifully in the antiphons of
hope from the monastic liturgies:
