Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5
Romans: 13:11-14
Mt24:37-44
The Mass readings for this first
Sunday of Advent provide us with a wake-up call: St Paul
The struggle between light and
darkness is a perennial one - it is the struggle in which we are all engaged –
the struggle to keep our hearts free and not to allow ourselves to be enslaved
by false attractions – the struggle to keep our hearts free for God alone. It is the struggle about which Paul speaks in
the letter to the Romans: “no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness
and no wrangling or jealousy.” And he advises us: “Let your armour be the Lord
Jesus Christ; forget about satisfying your bodies with all their cravings.” Today
there is a lot of darkness in the world around us - at times it would seem that
the powers of darkness are let loose but we know that the light will eventually
triumph. More than ever before it is
necessary for us to “give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of the
dark and arm ourselves and appear in the light.” We must let nothing enslave us
or captivate our hearts or impede God’s light and love from shining through our
lives to a needy world. We all know how
easily we can be enslaved by trifles – holding on to mere nothings.
We remember how Augustine’s life was
transformed while reading this passage from the letter to the Romans: After
years of struggle and resistance, in one instant he was free to break loose of
his past and come into the light – or rather to allow the light to penetrate
and show up the darkness. All his fears
fade away and now he is free to let the light shine in – reminding us of what Paul
wrote to the Ephesians: “for once you were darkness, but now you are
light in the Lord; ..Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but
instead expose them…..when anything is exposed by the light it becomes visible,
for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it is said,
“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead,
and Christ shall give you light.”
Just as in the case of Augustine,
all our yesterdays lead us to the NOW of today and NOW is always new and
different and must mean letting go of whatever hinders us from surrendering to
the God who is lovingly awaiting our response.
Can we use these days of Advent to relax in the light of His presence
and ask Him to draw back the blinds of our hearts and open our eyes and ears to
His love streaming into our hearts? The
following quote from Jean Corbon’s book Path
to Freedom seems apt:
“Our ultimate
liberation is to open ourselves to a new presence, and the peak of our activity
is to relax in the gratuitousness of receiving.
The more He frees us the more He gives Himself. His gift is a presence of light. Our task is to open the blinds of our prison
and let in the rays of His light.”
May this light stream into our
hearts this Advent enlightening “the eyes of our hearts, that we may know what
is the hope to which He has called us” and
appreciate more deeply what He has already accomplished in us through Baptism –
the sacrament of enlightenment - so that a ceaseless hymn of thanksgiving will
spring forth from our hearts to “declare the wonderful deeds of Him who called
us out of darkness into His marvellous light.”
I finish with this beautiful prayer of St
Columbanus:
“Would that my lamp
might ever burn by night in the temple of my Lord, that to all entering the
house of my God it might give light. …Lord, grant me that love which knows no
fall, so that my lamp may feel the kindling touch and know no quenching, may
burn for me and for others may give light.
Do you, Christ, deign to kindle our lamps, that they may shine
continually in your temple and receive perpetual light from you the light
perpetual, so that our darkness may be enlightened and the world’s darkness may
be driven from us.”
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