Dear friends,

The church today looks quite different from what it was last Sunday. The color purple of the curtains, the absence of flowers on the altar, the omission of the Gloria during Mass, want to convey a sense of expectation. We have begun the Advent Season.  Advent is the 4 week period before Christmas when the Church celebrates the first coming of Christ and anticipates his second coming.

The word "advent," from the Latin adventus  means "coming" or "arrival" and the season of Advent is focused on the "coming" of Jesus as the promised Messiah

We Christians do not preach only one coming of Christ, but a second as well, much more glorious than the first one.

The first coming of God happened at Bethlehem and it was marked by silence, humility and poverty. It split human history in two. What was before this event is called “Before Christ” what followed is called “after Christ”.

The second coming of Jesus will be at the end of our lives or at the end of time for the whole world. We believe that “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”.

At His first coming, Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger. At His second coming he will be clothed in power.

In the first coming he was judged and crucified, ; in the second coming he will be in glory, escorted by angels and will sit in judgment.

The Saviour will not come to be judged again, but to judge those by whom he was judged.

We give thanks with gratitude for the first coming at Bethlehem while we wait, in patience, for His  second coming at the end of the world. For there will be an end to this world, and the created world will be made new..

The first reading we had this morning, captures the spirit of Advent: an ardent desire for the coming of a Savior, the longing for a salvation, the nostalgia of a lost innocence.

In the Gospel reading for the First Sunday of Advent Jesus says:  “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.”

Looking around us it seems as if everybody were under the influence of a deep sleep. All religions agree that the ordinary person is sound asleep under the spell of “illusion”.

With is cry of alarm Jesus breaks the spell:.

In telling us to be watchful and alert, Jesus is not just warning us to avoid danger. He is urging us not to miss opportunities for goodness that may come our way.

Most of us find waiting very difficult. We try to eliminate it as much as possible with fast food and ever speedier Internet connections..

The time of waiting and watching is not idle biding of time. Like parents anticipating the birth of a child, we have much work to do during the expectant months. During this time of Advent we can think of Mary, heavy with child, patiently waiting for the birth of her son.

The world too is heavy with child: Paul writes “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” - Rom 8:22

We believe that God has indeed rent the heavens and come down. And we hope for even more. The best is yet to come.

Nevertheless, many are still waiting for a messiah. I read a poem that struk me deeply. It was written by the Nobel Prize for literature: Rabindranath Tagore

Song Unsung
The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.
The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart.
The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by.
I have not seen his face, nor have I heard his voice; only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house.
The livelong day has passed in spreading his seat on the floor; but the lamp has not been lit and I cannot ask him into my house.
I live in the hope of meeting with him; but this meeting is not yet.

Happy Advent Season