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Homily for the first Sunday
of Advent - Year A - Mt. 24:37-44
by
Canon Dr. Daniel Meynen
" As were the days of Noah,
so will be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days before
the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in
marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not
know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the
coming of the Son of man. Then two men will be in the field; one is
taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is
taken and one is left. Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day
your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the householder had known
in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched
and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also
must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not
expect. "
Homily:
" As were the days of Noah,
so will be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days before
the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in
marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not
know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the
coming of the Son of man. "
A new liturgical year
begins, a year that, as always, will be dominated by the feast of
Easter, March 27, 2005! Whether it is Advent, Lent, or the Ordinary
Time of the year, Easter is always celebrated: each Sunday announces to
us or reminds us of the central event of the liturgical year, which is
the Sunday of the Resurrection!
By Baptism in Jesus Christ,
and through the grace of God, by the virtues that accompany the
sacrament of regeneration, namely the virtues of faith, hope, and
charity, we are already resurrected. By Baptism, we are made
participants in the divine nature, through participation in the Passion
of the Lord Jesus. By Baptism, we all await the Return of the Lord!
By Baptism, of which Noah
and the flood he underwent are an image (cf. 1 Peter 3:21), we already
touch blessed eternity, in the measure that we participate in the
Passion of the Lord. By Baptism, we have accepted, or our godfather and
godmother have accepted on our behalf, to accompany Christ in his
Passion, to complete what is lacking in his sufferings (cf. Col. 1:24),
in order that, by our own merits, lost among the immensity of the
merits of Christ Jesus, we might be found worthy of eternal Life!
Resurrected, we await the
Lord Jesus. But we do not await him in idleness: we await him while
doing the Work of God, we await him while believing in Him (cf. Jn.
6:29), that is to say as we accomplish all of our temporal tasks in and
through faith, in a supernatural spirit, remaining perfectly detached
from the goods of this world, in order to be attached solely to the
Lord himself.
" So will be the coming of
the Son of man. Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one
is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one
is left. "
Jesus does not say to his
disciples that, at his Return, people will be awaiting him here or
there, perhaps watching the sky, or the television, just as, a few
years ago, we watched the Apollo capsule land in the ocean... No,
nothing of the sort. Jesus offers as examples people who are diligent
in their daily work.
Why will one man be taken
and another left? And similarly for the women? Simply because, among
men and women, there are few (50% maximum) who live and act with
sufficient detachment from the goods of this world to be found worthy
of eternal Life...
" Watch therefore, for you
do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the
householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming,
he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into.
Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an
hour you do not expect. "
Let us suppose for a moment
that the Lord Jesus had told us that he would return after so many days
and years; and that, by chance, we would be able to calculate the exact
day of his Return. Of course, this is a completely arbitrary
supposition, one that rests on many probabilities, the principal one of
which is lacking at the moment: that is, we cannot precisely calculate,
for example, the number of days separating us from the birth of Christ.
Even if the Lord had given
us a date for his Return, we would still have to believe him! And so we
see that everything comes down to this: believing in the Lord, in hope
and in charity! Let us ask Mary, our model and our Mother in the faith,
to deign to watch over us, in order that we might remain watchful in
our faith in her Son Jesus and that we might thus already be
resurrected, each day of our life! Amen!
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