First Sunday of Advent Read more
Homily
During the season of Advent, the liturgy invites us to lift up our eyes and open our hearts in order to welcome the one for whom the entire world has been waiting: Jesus. So many people are longing for a new age and a new world. They are citizens of the countries racked by famine, injustice, and war; they are the poor, the weak, the lonely and the abandoned. The Advent liturgy gathers together this great longing and directs it towards the day of Jesus’ birth. He is the one who will save the world from loneliness and sadness, and from sin and death. A little more than two thousand years have passed since the day that changed not only the way we count our years, but the very history of the world. The prophet Jeremiah had foreseen this day centuries earlier: "The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring from David." (Jer 33:14-15)
The days are coming. And yet we are so stubbornly concerned with ourselves and our affairs that we do not realize how near they are. The lives we lead are often marked by an unengaged and lacklustre style. We generally resign ourselves to a banal life with no future, no hope, and no dreams. But Advent is proposing something that shakes our resignation and our habitual way of life. The Word of God guards us against being overcome by an egocentric way of life; it warns us not to succumb to the hectic rhythm of our days. The words of the Gospel of Luke are true for us as well: "Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipations and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert, at all times, praying" (Lk 21:35-36).
Be alert and pray. This is how we need to live from now until Christmas. Yes, we need to stay awake and be alert. Sleep comes from the drunkenness of always revolving around ourselves and staying stuck in our own lives and our own problems. Here is the root of the frenzy and the laziness we hear about in the Gospel. Advent invites us to broaden our minds and our hearts and open up to new horizons. We are not asked to flee from our daily life and even less to chase after illusory goals. Quite the contrary, Advent is a good time to develop a realistic sense of ourselves and of life in this world; it is a good time to ask ourselves concrete questions about how and for whom we are spending our lives. But that does not mean making some psychological effort or creating a superficial state of renewal. God’s time, which is breaking into our lives, demands that each one of us make a serious commitment to vigilance. "Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near" Jesus says (Lk 21:28). It is time to get up and pray. People get up when they are expecting something, or better, when they are expecting someone. In this case, it is Jesus. We cannot stay stuck in our self-centeredness, in our own problems, or in our own joys and sorrows. The Word of God exhorts us to turn our thoughts and our hearts towards the One who is coming. This is why it asks us also to pray. Prayer is closely tied to wakefulness. Those who are not waiting for anything do not know what it means to pray; they do not know what it means to turn to God with their whole heart. The words of prayer start to flow when we lift our heads from ourselves and our horizons and turn to the Lord. "To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul," the liturgy has us sing. In this season of Advent we all must join our voices and cry out to the Lord, imploring him to come quickly among us. Come, Lord Jesus.
May these days of Advent be days of familiarity with the Gospel, days of reading and reflection, and days of listening and prayer. May they be days of reflection on the Word of God, individually and together. May not one day pass without the Word of God descending into our hearts. And our hearts will be transformed from dark caves into the stable where the Lord Jesus is reborn. Let us welcome the blessing of the apostle: "May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all" (1 Thess 3:12). This is the right way to take our first steps in this time of Advent.
Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
