“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here. For previous Green Room entries, click here.
This morning’s Gospel reading is Mark 13:33–37:
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come. It is like a man traveling abroad. He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his own work, and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch. Watch, therefore; you do not know when the lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’”
Today we enter into a new liturgical year with the season of Advent, more popularly experienced as the Christmas season. We enjoy the season differently at different stages of our lives. As children, we anticipate the bounty of gifts and food that will arrive on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, depending on family celebrations. As adults, we look forward to getting together with family and friends. Parents hope to see their children enjoy the day as much or more than they did as kids, and grandparents plan on spoiling everyone to the best of their ability — and occasionally stretch the limits of common sense. I’ve done that more than once myself. (I could tell you stories, but suffice it to say that when a five-year-old child gets tired of opening gifts, it’s pretty clear you’ve overdone it.)
These secular senses of Advent have one common quality — anticipation. For most people, it’s a joyous anticipation, in the sure knowledge that something wonderful awaits. We spend weeks preparing our homes and ourselves for the event. The radio gets tuned to music that evokes our joy through nostalgia or playfulness. Seasonal wardrobes emerge, and we go out of our way to contact people whom we may only reach at Christmas each year through greeting cards. We even measure our readiness in terms of our “Christmas spirit,” the level of joy and camaraderie that we both feel and exude.
Our liturgical season has the same sense of anticipation and preparation, and that comes from a long history of waiting for our salvation from our own sinful natures. In our first reading today from Isaiah, the prophet makes it pretty clear why we’re waiting for that divine intervention, and the wait in this case is not a joyful type of anticipation. “Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful,” Isaiah says. “[A]ll of us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.” The people of Israel have forsaken the Lord in favor of worldly ambitions, material pleasures, and their own designs instead of God’s word. These “polluted rags” are not anticipating a joyful reconciliation, but instead a painful reckoning with the consequences of their sin.
That changes in Scripture as the prophets, especially Isaiah, promise a Messiah and a resurrection that will reconcile people with the Lord. Given the wretched state of the Israelites as Isaiah prophesies, it’s no wonder that this reconciliation produced a much different kind of anticipation — even while the nature of salvation was still misunderstood, and the Messiah along with it. A king would be granted unto Israel that would lift it from its misery and heal the wounds of sin! Who wouldn’t celebrate the coming of such a gift? Whose spirits would not be raised from despair and despondency?
This is the path to salvation that Advent recalls for us. We are called to experience that same journey from sinfulness to exultation in deliverance through Jesus Christ in this period. The season of Advent only last a few weeks each year, while the arc of salvation from Abraham to the birth of Christ took many centuries to unfold, but that is the anticipation we should recall at this time of year. The days get progressively shorter and gloomier, but we have a promise of light and salvation at the end of it.
In fact, we have a great advantage over those who kept the faith through the darkness of those times. We already know how the story ends; we know how we can make ourselves part of it. Jesus has already accomplished our salvation, and the Apostles, the Church, and Scripture illuminate our way to it. That does not diminish our sense of anticipation, though; if anything, it should sharpen it and make us more vigilant to walk the path at all times.
Jesus advises us to do just that in today’s Gospel. We know that salvation will take place, but not when. We are called, therefore, to walk that path at all times — to stay on watch and tend to the tasks our Master has given us while He is away. Those of us who know the path cannot wander off or fall asleep at our stations, because the Master may return without notice, for each or for all. We cannot, therefore, put aside our anticipation and our preparation; our knowledge of salvation means that we have to anticipate and prepare at all times.
Advent gives us that opportunity to renew our zeal for this task. We form ourselves in joy during this season for lots of reasons, willing ourselves to experience and exhibit the “Christmas spirit” and the joy of the season. There’s nothing at all wrong with that, as long as we use it to form ourselves in joy all year by experiencing and exhibiting the joy and peace of salvation that Jesus Christ brings for each person who chooses it. This was the greatest gift of all, and our joy in receiving it will be everlasting. Why not share that joy all year long?
Today’s front-page image is The Annunciation by Giovanni Battista Pittoni (1687-1767).
Note: My apologies for the delay in publishing the reflection today.
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