Advent I [C]: Jer 33:14-16; Thes 3:12–4:2; Lk 21:25-28,34-36

We have reached a new beginning, the first Sunday of a new liturgical season, Advent, Year C. Every year the Church leads us through the different liturgical seasons. The first season is Advent, followed by Christmas. After Christmas we have a few weeks of what is called Ordinary Time. Then we begin the season of Lent, which leads into the Easter season. And with Pentecost, we get back into Ordinary time, 34 ordinary Sundays. Each one of these liturgical seasons has its own meaning, and along with its meaning, it has its own characteristics. Why do we have to revisit the same celebrations and seasons every single year?

The Catholic Church is a wise spiritual mother, guided by the Holy Spirit, and the liturgical seasons are an expression of this wisdom. The seasons are designed to help us grow in grace. The seasons of the natural world create rhythms of light, temperature, and moisture that enable plants and animals to grow, spread, and thrive. This is why you can tell the age of a tree if you count the rings exposed by a cross-section of its trunk. Each ring is a year, a series of ordered and inter-related seasons. God designed the natural world to work that way. And he has designed the supernatural world, the world of faith and grace, to work in a similar way.

The liturgical seasons help us grow spiritually in a balanced and healthy way, avoiding spiritual staleness and stunted growth. As we go through life, the truths of our faith stay the same, but we change. And so, every time we revisit them, we see new aspects of them. For example, it is one thing for a child to celebrate Christmas and welcome Jesus into the world. But it is a very different thing for someone who has become a parent to contemplate God becoming a little baby. (The Christmas pageant that the Children will put up next Sunday will be seen by children and adults in different angles. A particular character may touch you differently this time not because the cast was your child or grandchild, but the cast spoke to your heart in a different way than it did before). It's the same mystery of divine love, but seen and appreciated from vastly different perspectives. God always has something fresh to say to us, and he says it through our contemplation of his Son, Jesus Christ.

Each event in Christ's life, celebrated through the liturgical seasons, is a flowing fountain of wisdom, and every time we go back to it, we are refreshed and strengthened anew; and we grow in grace.

God has something ready for each one of us during this Advent: maybe a new insight that will make us grow in wisdom; maybe an experience of forgiveness or spiritual liberation that will bring us deeper interior peace; maybe a word of grace that will heal us of an old and festering emotional wound; maybe a personalized spiritual vitamin that will strengthen and inspire us for a new mission he has in store.

Only he knows how we are meant to grow during this Advent. And the best way for us to find out is to cooperate with him, to make a decent effort to do our part. Something should be different in our lives during these next four weeks. Something should be different in our homes, in how we spend our time, in what we think about.

Advent is about the coming of Christ: his first coming two thousand years ago, his future coming at the end of history, and his present coming in our lives today. Our job during this month before Christmas is to focus our attention on that, to pray about it, to reflect on it, to let it touch our lives. Sister Lynn is suggesting some simple family advent activities that you can do home with rest of your family. Check the bulletin for information, if you are interested, how to access it. Advent calls all of us to take a deep look into our way of life and make necessary modifications as the season demands from us.

Michelle Malkin, the renowned American journalist and social commentator, tells a true story about how she temporarily lost sight of the bigger picture, and how it almost caused a horrendous tragedy.

Michelle, a Catholic mother of two, was living and working in the Washington, D.C. area. She was writing, speaking, and giving television commentary on political and social issues, frequently appearing – and even hosting – the most watched cable TV news stations, and publishing her articles in the most read print and online publications.

People were so thirsty for her point of view that she kept taking on more and more responsibilities. She also began acquiring a taste for the glitz and excitement of life in the spotlight. She was always in fifth gear, enjoying notable professional success, but spending less and less time with her family. One day she was driving home between shows. Her neighbors’ children were playing in the yard, and as she pulled her SUV into her steep driveway, she saw her son’s face in the living room window. She was so eager to get inside and be with her son that when she turned off the engine she forgot to set the parking brake. As she made it into the living room, her SUV had started rolling backwards down the steep driveway, heading right towards her neighbors’ children. By the time she ran back outside, it was too late; the car was gathering speed and she couldn’t do anything but watch in horror.

At the last second, the large vehicle collided with the trunk of a young, little birch tree, which stopped it. The sound of the collision caught the children’s attention, and only then did they realize the danger they had been in. Michelle described later how this experience was a wake-up call. It made her realize that the pace and priorities of her life were out of whack. It sparked a family decision to relocate and radically restructure how they used their time, before it was too late. We may not be television personalities, but we live in the same frenetic culture that had begun to unravel Michelle Malkin’s life.

The liturgical seasons are regular wake-up calls, scheduled by God himself for resetting our priorities. We don’t have to wait until tomorrow to start our Advent activities: we can start right now, with this Mass. Christ will come to us during this Mass, faithfully entering into our lives through the Eucharist, just as he entered into the world at the first Christmas. Let’s make sure he finds plenty of room in our hearts and lives.