READINGS
Isaiah
63:16b-17.19b; 64:2-7
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1Cor1:3-9
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Mk13:33-37
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THEME OF THE
READINGS: “ STAY AWAKE UNTIL THE LORD COMES”
As we
celebrate this important liturgical period, Advent, we are all invited to stay
awake until the Lord comes back. There
is a story of a man who dreamt a big and
angry lion chasing him. A man tried his
best to run away from a lion, yet as soon as he run faster to escape the lion,
in front he saw the tiger coming in his
direction he was running, when he tried to turn to the other direction also he
saw a leopard coming to his direction, the question is that how would he have escaped these dangerous
animals? The answer is to wake up.
By waking up
one enters a whole world of reality different from that of the dream world.
What was the problem in a dream state
becomes non- issue in the waking state. In this context as we celebrate the
first Sunday of advent we are all invited to have a new focus in our spiritual
life. We are asked to strip away the old
way of doing things and acquire the new ways of spiritual maturity.
Spiritual maturity entails the capacity to love and to be Christ like. With the
above example we are invited to make a distinction between the dream
consciousness and awake consciousness. A Similar distinction can be made when
we become awake from a state of being
spiritually sleep to spiritually consciousness.
In today’s
gospel Jesus encourages his disciples/followers to stay awake and to remain
conscious in spirit, it is because he was to leave them about unknown length of
time. By their faith in Jesus the disciples are like people who have been
aroused from spiritual sleep. However, with the absence of Jesus, this will be
a time for the disciples to undergo trials and temptations in their life of
faith thus Jesus encourages them to stay awake
so that when he comes he finds
them awake and thus ready to welcome him.
Today we
enter the season of advent, a time of special preparation for the coming of the
Lord. Mark portrait of the doorman watching out to be ready to open for the
Lord whenever he comes, we can pose this question to ourselves that “who is
this watchman keeping the gate/door waiting for the master to come”? The answer
is very clear, the gatekeeper/watchman is every person who has been baptized in
the name of Christ, more especially spiritual leaders, Parents, guardians,
Catechists, Priests, Bishops, and Pope, all of these have been mandated to take
care of the group of people they have been entrusted by the church. Recognition
in this perspective is crucial because the master/Lord does not come the way we
expect. Where do we recognize the Lord
Jesus? We recognize him/ he comes to us through our brothers and sisters
yearning for basic needs like food, clothes and medication etc, when these vulnerable
of the society are neglected we cannot be in a position to claim that we are
awake in Jesus Christ. For example at Bethlehem he came in the form of a baby
and people did not recognize him. Moreover, in the parable of last
judgment, last Sunday readings, he said he came to people in the form of the
most needy and disadvantaged of this world and many did not recognize him.
Faith is a gift of seeing and recognizing from God.
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