Advent I (C) 1st December 2024
Jer 33: 14-16
1 Th 3: 12 – 4:2
Lk 21: 25-28.34.36
Dear Brothers and Sisters, is it the end or the beginning?
We enter today a new liturgical year. We inaugurate a new cycle of Sundays and Seasons, of Feasts and Solemnities. We even have a new Lectionary. We direct the gaze of our hearts towards Christmas and, beyond Christmas towards Easter, the centre of the Liturgical Year. We begin again our walk towards our Father in heaven as the pilgrim people in hope, the Church.
At the same time, today’s second reading and gospel invite us to meditate on the end of time. They speak of the time when Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, as we sing in the Creed.
It is as though the end was coming to us just as we are making a fresh start. We begin again our walk, and already we see the end of the journey. A loved one is coming back after a long absence; we go to meet him, with the joy and the excitement, and also something like the dread of the encounter.
That is the liturgy: the encounter between God and His people. In the Spirit of Jesus, we walk towards the Father. At the same time, Jesus comes to meet us. Just as He came once in the flesh, as we shall celebrate at Christmas, and just as He will come a second time at the end of time, He is coming to us today.
The liturgy surrounds us with the signs of Jesus’ coming. We listen to His living Word. He acts among us through His Sacraments, especially the Eucharist. Moreover, we are signs one for another of His presence. Jesus comes to us through our brethren. Do we recognise Him? Can we see His face in our neighbours? Are we ready to welcome Him in all and any members of our congregation this morning? Do we have eyes to see and hearts to welcome so many signs of Jesus’ presence?
Because our Christian life is all about our encounter with Christ, the Liturgy, more especially the Mass, stands at the centre of it. Without our Sunday Mass, how could we be Christians? How could we live the life of Christ without listening to His Word, partaking of His Sacraments, and getting together with other members of Christ’s Body, the Church? Christ comes here, among us, and He unites us all at the level of our deepest identity. Already in Him we are brothers and sisters, one life, one family. Let us not be afraid of one another. Let us feel welcomed by all. Let us open our hearts to all. Jesus comes through them. Jesus is standing in the midst of the Church celebrating the liturgy.
This thought of the liturgy brings me to a man. One hundred and fifty years ago at the Abbey of Solesmes in France (the mother house of our community) a great monk and abbot, Dom Prosper Guéranger died. It was on the 30th of January 1875 and our monastic Congregation opens today a year of celebration of this anniversary.
The Servant of God Dom Guéranger, whose cause of beatification is open, was a passionate advocate of the centrality of the liturgy. He perceived very clearly its utmost importance and did all that he could to help the faithful to participate in the liturgy with a right understanding of what it is about. He wrote a series of volumes under the title The Liturgical Year in which he offers a commentary of the whole cycle of the Liturgy of the Church. He teaches the history of the different celebrations. He expounds the prayers and the readings. He gives advice on the way we can direct our prayer.
Just as there are different colours for different seasons and celebrations, there are, too, slightly different moods. Advent is not like Lent; Christmas is different from Easter. The feast of a martyr has a different tone from the memorial of a virgin or a pastor.
Today, for instance, the priests wear purple chasubles; we did not sing the Gloria; there are no flowers at the altar; we do not have organ music. All these are signs that we are entering a new season. Advent is a time of sobriety and reserve before the celebration and the feast of Christmas. It is also a time of joyful expectation because Christ is coming, and we know that the destination of our common human history and each of our own personal stories is the encounter with His love. This hope is the characteristic of our prayer in Advent.
We watch and pray at all times. Dom Guéranger explains that ‘Prayer is man’s richest boon. It is his light, his nourishment, and his very life, for it brings him into communication with God, who is light, nourishment, and life.’ At the same time, we do not know how to pray as we ought? Who will teach us? – The Spirit of Jesus who is praying in the Church.
As we begin a new liturgical year, let us attune our souls with the Spirit, as did the Virgin Mary. In the Spirit of Jesus, let us pray to our Father: Ad te levavi animam meam, To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. I turn to you with complete trust because I am a child of your Church.