The same Jesus who has gone into heaven will come back with power and great glory.  Those who, hopeful, watching and praying, wait for him will never be disappointed.

Jesus speaks of signs in the sun, the moon and the stars.  These signs, along with the roaring of the sea and the waves, will fill people with dismay, fear and bewilderment.  But according to the Teacher also, the disciples have reason to stay hopeful even when the world is ending.  For he tells them, “when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”

We should stay hopeful, yes, because the end of the present order spells the beginning of the new.  Jesus has ushered in the kingdom of God in this world; he will come back to carry out fully what he has started.  A cloud has taken him from our sight.  But he will return in a cloud, in an exceedingly majestic and glorious way.

To stay hopeful, we need to be watchful at all times and praying.

To keep watch is to beware that we do not play the rich fool or the rich man who does not care about poor Lazarus (Lk 12, 16-20; 16, 19-31).

Watchfulness asks, moreover, that we keep abreast of what is happening around us.  Not knowing what is going on, we fall victims to the partisan and colluding followers of the Father of lies (Jn 8, 44).  They call evil good, and good evil; they change darkness into light, light into darkness (Is 5, 20).  But the watchful are alert to the use even of dangerous and inflammatory words—“immigrant invasion,” “nationalism,” “terrorism,” “radical Islam” (see Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny).

And if we are prayerful, we will be able to do anything (SV.EN XI:76).  Among other things, we will know how to be angry but without sinning (Eph 4, 26), how to be firm and gentle (Robert P. Maloney, C.M.).

But it will be all the better for us if our prayers become one with our works.  It will, then, mean we are not just standing there looking at the sky.  But also doing as Jesus in his first coming, truly hopeful even when it seems we are about to perish (CRCM II:2).  He, of course, went around to all towns and villages, proclaiming the Gospel, curing every disease and illness (Mt 9, 35).

Lord Jesus, may our eagerness to eat your Supper make us hopeful, watchful at all times and prayerful.  Help us to follow your instructions also, and grant that we get the name “The Lord our justice.”

2 December 2018
First Sunday of Advent (C)
Jer 33, 14-16; 1 Thes 3, 12 – 4, 2; Lk 21, 25-28. 34-36