First Sunday of Advent: Living the End Times in the Present

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

No, I haven’t forgotten or am I confused about the date. But today is the beginning of a new year in the church otherwise known as liturgical calendar. 

Why is the church year more than a month ahead of the world calendar?  The “out of sync” liturgical calendar seeks to reframe our lives beyond the order and systems of this world. The church year invites us to fit our lives into the Big Picture of God’s time and work from creation to redemption and final reunion with God.

The first day of the church year is always the First Sunday of Advent. Advent is the first liturgical season of the church year consisting of the four weeks before Christmas. Advent comes from the Latin word, adventus, which means ‘coming, arrival’. The coming and arrival that the church highlights in Advent is the return in glory of Jesus at the end of times.

Contrary to the conventional activities during this season which are preparations for Christmas, Advent is more about contemplating and celebrating the coming back of Jesus in glory anytime soon! That is why, every time this season comes during this time of the year, we experience different and profound kinds of feeling, mainly feelings of joy, wonder and excitement.  We usually associate these feelings with Christmas, which is exactly right, Christmas being the birth of Jesus Christ.  But the church, through the Advent season, also invites us to dig deeper. We feel and experience profound gladness and eagerness because the final glory of Jesus will soon be fully manifested to all humanity. As St. Augustine said,

“The first coming of Christ the Lord, God’s Son and our God, was in obscurity; the second will be in sight of the whole world.”^[1]

Thus, the richer and more meaningful attitude and outlook appropriate for the season of Advent are waiting, preparing and longing. Patience, vigilance, preparedness, alertness and watchfulness are the virtues that accompany these attitudes. Jesus extolled these virtues in the gospel today.

In today’s world beset with so many overwhelming problems, we easily become impatient. We cry out to the highest heaven to annihilate all evil. We ask why injustice, violence, domination, and falsehoods continue to prevail. In the suffering and struggles of our lives and our world, we seek God but God is nowhere to be found. Then, tragically, we begin to lose hope: Nothing will change. A better world is not forthcoming. This is our fate. There is nothing we can do about it except to accept it. God cannot rescue us. Let us just rely on the gods of this world!

This dilemma is reflected in the readings today. In the first reading from Isaiah, the prophet intensely longs for the love of God but instead finds what he cannot bear: an angry God, an absent God. This experience of the prophet seemingly reflects our own experience in the midst of our turmoil: God is angry and has hidden his face; he is somewhere above the heavens and we cannot find him there.

The prophet found the answer to this dilemma, albeit, in the hard way. The reason lies in our sinfulness, the prophet says. God is not gone from us because he has forsaken us. Our sins—our weaknesses, our complacency, our pride, our failure to love, our failure even to accept the love of others—all these things have made us to falter and to wither.

The Psalm articulates the action needed to be done out of this prophetic realization. The Psalmist says, “Lord, make us turn to you!” It is a cry from someone who has wandered from the Lord. Far away from God, there is profound emptiness and longing.

These readings highlight the penitential character of advent. Advent season is a season which calls for repentance. Advent is a time to recognize that we are “sinful; all of us have become like unclean men, all our good deeds are like polluted rags.” Our personal and social sins are many: hatred, violence, oppression, indifference, selfishness, etc. Our sinfulness has hindered us from experiencing the wonder and joy of the coming of the Lord in our lives.

The gospel today from Mark happened during the critical events of the last moments of Jesus on earth. Jesus near the time of his death warned his disciples about the end times and instilled in them the necessity of watchfulness.

Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.

These words of Jesus may be read not only as a warning about the end times, but as a challenge for us today to live in the present, to engage life now, to be attentive to the moment at hand. Be awake. Do not put off the opening of your life to God.

Denial and postponement have been strong patterns in our lives especially in the matter of our sins. We try to hide the dirt under the carpet. Admission and reform are hard to come by. We project, we accuse, we complain, we evade, we distract ourselves.

The challenge of Advent is not to pretend. Let us get real. Here. Now. We need first to stop everything we have been busy about during this time of the year. Let us retreat in silence and prayer to prepare to face the Lord in the dark and sinful places of our hearts. Only through an honest soul searching that we can make real the need for God. Only through a sincere confession of our sins that we can make real God’s coming into our lives.

Let us never stop watching for you, O  Lord. Let us experience your return in glory. Here. Now.

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^[1] St. Augustine, Sermon 18, 1-2: PL 38, 128-29

Solemnity of Christ the King: We are all King

In today’s modern age, who wants a king? Although there are still living kings and queens ((King Albert II of Monaco and Queen Elizabeth II of England easily comes to mind), the very concept of King might seem anachronistic today. The image of king and queen seems to hark back to Medieval and Ancient ages which we can only marvel at movies and novels.

Yet the church, in its last Sunday of the year celebrates and proclaims Christ the king. The image of a wordly king for Jesus maybe the last thing that Jesus wants knowing that he renounced any form of royalty, authority and domination and came to serve not to be served. But this is exactly the whole point of the celebration. In proclaiming Jesus Christ as the true king of all humanity, the church presents the kingship of Jesus and the kingdom he inaugurated as a critique and diametrically opposite to all worldly kings and kingdoms, past and present. Jesus Christ the King unmasks the hypocrisy, manipulations and pretensions of bogus wordly kings. The celebration of Jesus Christ the King is in fact a calling to dismantle structures and values of domination and uproot all false kings who continue to rein power especially on the poor and powerless in our world today.

On the other hand, in celebrating the solemnity of Christ the King, the church is proclaiming to everyone that anyone can share in the kingship of Jesus. Kingship is not all about royalty, having lots of servants, wearing a golden crown and ordering many people around. All of us can become king ourselves even if we don’t have wealth, honor, royal blood and status. We can all become king through Jesus, but only if we are prepared to follow Jesus’ example of kingship by serving others especially the least, the last and the lost.

In presenting Jesus Christ as the true King of all humanity, the church is inviting all peoples to live the most basic and most genuine commandment of all—love and care for the least of our brothers and sisters. This commandment transcends all religions, culture, politics, race and ideologies. It does not only proclaim Jesus as King of all humanity but also makes us partakers of his kingship. We are king ourselves if we have followed these commandments now and for the rest of our lives.

Jesus’ commandment invites us to reflect on the difference between true love and its false imitation, between real Christianity and its fake lookalike. It seeks to rattle us when we have narrowmindedly equated Christianity with laws, hypocritical religion and superficial observances. It rebukes fake Christianity and any form of religion when it only concerns with external religious observances while being blind to all the hunger, thirsts, homelessness, captivities and sickness prevalent even in the immediate world around us.

In the parable of the gospel today, Jesus as Christ the King at the end of times proclaims who has truly lived or not the true meaning of religion. Those who have lived the truest religion are in and those who have not lived are out in his kingdom.

It may come as a surprise to some that there was no mention of the Ten Commandments. Jesus criteria of who’s in and who’s out in his kingdom at the end of times amount to the six classical works of mercy (or ‘deeds of loving kindness’ as the Jews called them). They concern food, drink, welcome, clothing, nursing care, and visiting.  Jesus proclaimed that there must never be a lost child, an unforgiven member of the community, never an un-fed, un-welcome, un-clad, un-nursed, un-visited one in our community. These are deeds in the here and now which has eternal and eschatological consequences. These are the deeds where we can find Jesus as king.

Who has recognized and reverenced Jesus’ kingship? They are those who give food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, who welcome strangers and clothe the naked, who comfort the ill and visit prisoners.

“Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

Who has not recognized and reverenced Jesus’ kingship? Those who have omitted to do, or never got around to giving food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers and clothing the naked, comforting the ill and visiting prisoners.

‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’

Is not this the most basic and most genuine commandment for all peoples to live —love and care for the least of our brothers and sisters. Does this not transcend religions, culture, politics, race and ideologies. Does caring and loving for the least in our society  not look like these today?

• Welcoming the migrant and refugee and rejecting xenophobic attitudes and heightened nationalism.
• Acceptance of people of other cultural backgrounds and faiths, building bridges of community and rejecting walls of separation.
• Renouncing corrupt wealth and power and looking after the poor, the sick, the naked, the hungry, the thirsty, the imprisoned, and the lost.
• Rejecting instruments of war and embarking on the ways of peace.
• Denouncing extra-judicial killings, torture and execution and upholding the civil rights of all persons.
• Repudiating policies and practices that harm the Beloved Community of all creation and threatening the future of human civilization.
• Embracing the way of love and justice and disavowing authoritarianism and domination.

Yes, we need to proclaim Christ as king in today’s age of fake news and religion, in words and deeds for the least of our brothers and sisters, here and now.

Jesus Christ you are the true king of the world, let your kingdom come! Let us share in your kingship by serving the least of our brothers and sisters.

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: What is a Good Life?

Photo by Mathew Thomas from Pexels

We are not just born to live but to live a good life. The good life is a central question of many philosophers since time immemorial. One of the earliest philosophers that contributed to the argument of the good life and how to achieve it was Aristotle. Aristotle pointed out that the good life is one which flourishes and which individuals live well.

Not just philosophers, though. At one point or another, we have asked this question. We need to answer this question while we are still alive lest we die without having truly lived.

Today’s readings of the 33rd Sunday in ordinary time address this question.

The First Reading gives us an image of a good life. It is a life that is diligent and industrious as a loyal and faithful wife. A perfect wife, Proverbs says, “is far beyond the price of pearls”. She is hardworking, mainly for her family, but she also “holds out her hand to the poor, she opens her arms to the needy”. Her value is not in her charm or her beauty but in her wisdom, that is, in her awareness of where the real priorities in life lie. A life well lived is a life dedicated to your family and those in need.

In the Second Reading, St. Paul describes a good life as a life that is alert, alive and always ready. He reminds us that the Day of the Lord will come “like a thief in the night”, when we least expect it, when we are least ready. “We do not belong to the night or to darkness, so we should not go on sleeping, as everyone else does, but stay wide awake and sober.” A life well lived is a well spent life always responding to the living and dynamic presence of Christ daily in our midst.

The Gospel passage goes further in describing a goodlife by highlighting the reality that our lives are worthy not just in the end but even from the very beginning. From the very beginning, God has blessed us with so much—the world, natural resources, our fellow human beings and has given us so much talents.  

Jesus in the parable of the talents told the story of an employer entrusting his property called talents to each of three servants to administer while he is away. Literally, one talent was a very large sum of money, equivalent to thousands of dollars today. Naturally, the employer expects that when he returns, his talents has grown out of the resourcefulness of the servants.

The first two, of whom one received five talents and one received two talents, traded with what they had been given and doubled their capital. The third, however, the one who received the least, “went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money”.

The parable gives us many important lessons about the good life.

First, God has entrusted us more than we perhaps trust ourselves. He entrusts to us a lot of potentials not only to become the persons and Christians he has called us to be, but also to build up the Church and God’s Kingdom. We are worthy even from the very beginning.

Second, talents are God given, it is not earned nor owned by us. Life’s worthiness comes from the realization about the giftedness of our lives. A life worth living cannot afford to be self-satisfied about our achievements. The realization that talents are gifts from God means that talents needs to be cheerfully shared to others. Freely received, freely give.

Third, with the lavish talents God has bestowed upon each of us, we cannot afford to be lazy and stagnant. Our talents are bursting with life that it cannot be stopped from being shared and utilized. It is disheartening when we hear of people whose talents are wasted either by sitting idle or being stuck in destructive habits.  Just like the third servant in the parable, sometimes, we too are scared to take the risk of putting our talents on the line. We faithfully go to mass every Sunday but fail to invest it in the goodness of people, in forgiveness when we have been wronged, in speaking out for those who have no voice, in affection that may not be answered.

Finally, the measure of the worthiness of our lives is the measure of how we were able to multiply and expand our talents in service to others. In the end, God will deem us worthy if we have led a productive life wherein our talents were put to good use in serving others.

A good life is not about what we have accumulated, what we have received, what status we have reached nor how many pleasures we have enjoyed. A life worth living is not a life of wealth, power and fame. Life’s worthiness does not come from the cheers of this world but from God’s abundant blessings and talents which God has bestowed upon each one of us. Life’s worthiness comes from the generous and cheerful sharing of our God-given talents.

In the eucharist,  we join our lives and our efforts to share our talents with the one who gave us the greatest example of giving all of his talents for others—our Lord Jesus Christ. Like Jesus Christ may we live to the fullest by being fully human and fully alive, utilizing and sharing our talents for our family, others and God.

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Living Life Wisely

Our readings for today’s 32nd Sunday in ordinary time talks about wisdom. Wisdom is not so much about having higher learning, earning academic degrees or knowledge of everything inasmuch as living our daily life worthily.

How does one live wisely? How does one lead a wise life? The readings and liturgy enlighten us that to live a wise life is to have a sense of purpose higher than ourselves and to have a profound sense of our ultimate end. Living life wisely is to live the present always according to our ultimate end.

In his highly popular book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Stephen R. Covey presents the second habit of highly effective people as: “Begin with the end in mind.” Covey says that to “begin with the end in mind” means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen.

As Christians, we believe that our “end in mind” is the coming of God’s kingdom which is “already here but not yet.” We need to always begin our day and frame our lives according to this direction and destination.  Jesus tells us, in the gospel today, to always stay awake, vigilant, and alert to this end in mind and deeper reality of our lives. Unfortunately, many of us even Catholics, rarely, if ever, view our daily Christian living in the light of the final coming of Christ. Yet, his final coming is the promise that gives ultimate meaning to our daily activities and our ongoing hope.

This implies that our lives is a perpetual waiting for the coming of God’s kingdom. It is a waiting that is active not passive. It does not imply laziness, complacency or non-activity. On the contrary, it entails being perpetually busy—doing God’s work and participating in God’s abundant grace of building God’s kingdom.

The first reading suggests that what we are awaiting is the arrival of wisdom: “he who watches for her at dawn shall not be disappointed.” It reminds us peacefully and beautifully to watch for God at dawn; to keep vigil because Wisdom (the Holy Spirit of God) is searching for those who are waiting. God’s wisdom “meets them with all solicitude.”

The Responsorial Psalm boldly expresses our waiting as craving for God. The antiphon acclaims, “My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.”

In the Gospel, Jesus tells us a parable. There are ten women waiting for the Lord. But when the Lord comes, half of these women are rejected. As the parable explains it, the problem is that five of the women are off shopping for oil when the Lord comes, and so they’re left out. They are the foolish ones. The other five women are the wise ones, welcomed by the Lord. The moral lesson, Jesus tells us, is to stay awake! Make preparations. Do not be foolish. Do not forget to be ready.

In this parable, Jesus shows us that the here-and-now is the fundamental venue for readying for his second coming. We cannot afford to sleep it away! We need to live our lives in view of the final coming of Christ and to be ready for that moment of joy (to be wise), or deserve judgment (to be foolish).

We don’t have to calculate the actual date for the return of Jesus as other people are accustomed to do.  We are already in the end times. According to the New Testament writers the end-times commenced with the advent of Jesus, especially after his death and resurrection. So we have been in the end-times for nearly two thousand years. Eternity is now. God is with us. All that we need is to be alert.

Our readings today simply puts wisdom as a life full of energy and vitality.  In Matthew’s gospel, to live a wise life is to hear the word of Jesus and doing it.  Foolishness is simply failing to do so. The wise person lives a robust life feeding the hungry, quenching the thirsty, receiving the stranger, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned.

Lord, help us to live wisely. Make us always ready. Make us always alert and attentive to your perpetual coming every day!