Gospel reading: Matthew 24:37-44
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Jesus said to his disciples: “As it was in Noah’s day, so will it be when the Son of Man comes. For in those days before the Flood people were eating, drinking, taking wives, taking husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and they suspected nothing till the Flood came and swept all away. It will be like this when the Son of Man comes. Then of two men in the fields one is taken, one left; of two women at the millstone grinding, one is taken, one left. So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may be quite sure of this that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come; he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house. Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” Homily On all levels, international, national or personal, things happen with a suddenness that often we do not expect, and because we are not expecting or because we have become complacent, we are unprepared for what is occurring. On 9/11, not one of us was prepared for the attack on the twin towers, and yet the signs were all around. If we are to believe the stories that we are told, the highest authorities in the land were warned that something was afoot, yet complacency was the order of the day and so the price was paid. In many ways we were like the people of the time of Noah “eating, drinking, taking wives, and taking husbands, right up to the day that the flood came.” Only Noah who paid attention to the signs and built his ark was saved. This theme is repeated again in the Gospel passage, “You may be quite sure of this that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house.” What then is the Church trying to teach us as we begin the season of Advent? It is a very simple lesson but one that is essential for success in every aspect of our lives. Unless we are alert to the things that are happening around us, we do not make the correct decisions in life. That is why the scope of intelligence gathering in the USA, as revealed by Wikileaks; that is why investors read the business pages every day and that is why good coaches send spies to watch other teams play. To have a successful spousal relationship, spouses must always be alert to what the other is feeling and experiencing. To be negatively surprised is not a good formula for success. If we need to be alert to be successful in these areas of life, how much more alert must we be as Christians when the ultimate goal of our life must be the welcoming of Jesus Christ as he makes himself present to us in the vicissitudes of life and when he comes to us finally at the end. The issue of course is that complacency and alertness are habits which cancel out each other. We cannot be complacent and alert at the same time. Either one is developed and the other lost, or vice versa. In this season of Advent then, at the beginning of the Liturgical Year, the church invites us to meditate on and to celebrate that which is most essential to our ability to recognize and welcome the living God into our lives, our alertness. We celebrate it in the lives of the saints who were able to discern very quickly what was of God and what was not. We think of saints like John Bosco who began works for the building of the Kingdom when everyone else believed that they were crazy to do so, and yet history shows that they were correct. May this Advent season help us to develop the habit of alertness in our relationships especially our relationship with Almighty God. Prayer All powerful and ever-loving God, We thank you for the season of Advent and the reminder to be alert which the Gospel passage brings us. Give us the grace to stay awake so that the enemy does not break in and steal your grace from our hearts. We ask this through the intercession of Mary, our mother and Jesus who is to come. Amen
