We wait for God’s Dream: The First Sunday of Advent, 2023

                                                    We wait for God’s Dream:

The First Sunday of Advent, 2023 

December 3, 2023

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Isaiah 63:16-64:7; Psalm 80; 1 Corinthians 11:3-9; Mark 13:33-37

 

 

At the beginning of Advent, we pause to ponder the God who is to come into our lives as a Christmas experience. We may even ask, “What is God?” and “Why has God bothered to be born to us?” We know that God is the gift, and that God has given God’s self wholeheartedly to us in the birth of Jesus, a vulnerable infant. God has chosen to be, for our sakes, not any greater or more powerful than a tiny, helpless infant, dependent upon the love of a human family for survival. It shows us that the gift of divinity is hidden in our humanity. God chose to assume our human fragility and vulnerability.

 

In the Gospel, Jesus asks his disciples to remain awake and to be vigilant like a watchman attentive to the evolving times. Advent is a time of awakening ourselves to a new consciousness that all that we have is a gift freely given, and we are to receive this gift in spirit of poverty and thankfulness. In the Incarnation, God embraces human poverty and dependence upon others. The poverty about which we speak is dispossession. The poor person is not one who lives without things, but lives without possessing things. Christmas reminds us that God’s gifts are found at the manger: the poor, the humble, the forgotten, the weak, the simple, the laborer, the immigrant, the unwed, the old, and in the suffering.

 

In Advent, as we wait for the news of God’s arrival in Jesus, we are called to abandon the illusion of self-sufficiency, the belief that we can get along well enough on our own. We need God, we need a savior, we need each other. Jesus of Nazareth created a new community that he gathered to himself around God. He went where people lived and worked. He taught us that the shared life was the way we would find God. We do not go to Church to find God. We go to Church because we join a community of believers who want to give thanks. We find God by going into the world. Church is a symbolic gathering of what God is doing in this early life – reverencing that all life is sacred and is called to greater wholeness, bringing people together in compassion, teaching us the power of forgiveness, becoming engineers of peace and unity because we believe in God’s dream for the world.

 

We experience Christmas when we are at Eucharist because our lives become entangled with God’s in a sacred exchange. As we offer ourselves, God reciprocates so that our lives become God’s and God’s becomes ours. This is the way God breaks into our world; the incarnation occurs when we let God’s life become ours. God is a giver of life and abides by us in absolute fidelity that cannot be vanquished. God remains our hope and our future. 

 

This is what we look for in Advent, as the watchperson or gatekeeper. We look for signs of hope that God still remembers us. We look for the promise that God still cares for us. We hold onto the expectation that God’s dream for the world is still unfolding despite all the messiness of world events. We hope that our God will still come to save us and offer a seat at the table of friendship. We hope for a future of peace, harmony, and goodwill, a time when strife comes to an end, and we choose to build a world of possibilities together as God dreams for us.

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (Isaiah 4) On that day, the branch of the Lord will be luster and glory, and the fruit of the earth will be honor and splendor for the survivors of Israel.

 

Tuesday: (Isaiah 11) On that day, a shoot shall sprout from Jesse’s stump, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.

 

Wednesday: (Romans 9) If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

 

Thursday: (Isaiah 26) On that day, they will sing this song: A strong city we have to protect us. Open up the gates to let in a nation that is just, one that keeps faith.   

 

Friday (Isaiah 29) Lebanon shall be changed into an orchard, and the orchard into a forest. Out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see. The deaf shall hear.  

  

Saturday (Isaiah 30) O people of Zion, who dwell in Jerusalem, no more will you weep.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Matthew 8) When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and said, “My servant is lying at home, paralyzed, suffering dreadfully. Come and cure him.”

 

Tuesday: (Luke 10) I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you had hidden these things from the learned and the wise, you have revealed them to the childlike.

 

Wednesday (Matthew 4) Jesus saw two brothers, Peter and Andrew, casting a net into the Sea of Galilee. He said to them, “Come after me and I will make you fishers of men.”

 

Thursday (Matthew 7) Jesus said to his disciples: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father.

 

Friday (Luke 21) Consider the fig tree. When their buds burst open, you see summer is near. Learn to read the signs of the times. All these things will pass away, but my words remain.

 

Saturday (Matthew 9) Jesus taught in all the towns and villages proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom. The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few.

 

Saints of the Week

 

December 3: Francis Xavier, S.J., priest (1506-1552) was a founding members of the Jesuit Order who was sent to the East Indies and Japan as a missionary. His preaching converted hundreds of thousands of converts to the faith. He died before reaching China. Xavier was a classmate of Peter Faber and Ignatius of Loyola at the University of Paris.

 

December 6: Nicholas, bishop (d. 350), lived in southwest Turkey and was imprisoned during the Diocletian persecution. He attended the Council of Nicaea in 324. Since there are many stories of his good deeds, generous charity, and remarkable pastoral care, his character became the foundation for the image of Santa Claus.

 

December 7: Ambrose, bishop and doctor (339-397) was a Roman governor who fairly mediated an episcopal election in Milan. He was then acclaimed their bishop even though he was not baptized. He baptized Augustine in 386 and is doctor of the church because of his preaching, teaching and influential ways of being a pastor.

 

December 8: The Immaculate Conception of Mary is celebrated today, which is nine months before her birth in September. The Immaculate Conception prepares her to become the mother of the Lord. Scripture tells of the annunciation to Mary by the angel Gabriel. Mary's assent to be open to God's plan makes our salvation possible.

 

December 9: Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (1474-1548) was a poor, simple, indigenous man who was visited by Mary in 1531. She instructed him to build a church at Guadalupe near Mexico City. During another visit, she told him to present flowers to the bishop. When he did, the flowers fell from his cape to reveal an image of Mary that is still revered today.

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• December 3, 1563: At the Council of Trent, the Institute of the Society was approved. 
• December 4, 1870: The Roman College, appropriated by the Piedmontese government, was reopened as a Lyceum. The monogram of the Society over the main entrance was effaced. 
• December 5, 1584: By his bull Omnipotentis Dei, Pope Gregory XIII gave the title of Primaria to Our Lady's Sodality established in the Roman College in 1564, and empowered it to aggregate other similar sodalities. 
• December 6, 1618: In Naples, the Jesuits were blamed for proposing to the Viceroy that a solemn feast should be held in honor of the Immaculate Conception and that priests should make a public pledge defend the doctrine. This was regarded as a novelty not to be encouraged. 
• December 7, 1649: Charles Garnier was martyred in Etarita, Canada, as a missionary to the Petun Indians, among whom he died during an Iroquois attack. 
• December 8, 1984: Walter Ciszek, prisoner in Russia from 1939 to 1963, died. 
• December 9, 1741: At Paris, Fr. Charles Poree died. He was a famous master of rhetoric. Nineteen of his pupils were admitted into the French Academy, including Voltaire, who, in spite of his impiety, always felt an affectionate regard for his old master.