November 27, 2016
MT 24:37-44
It is the first day of Advent! Advent is the first season of our liturgical year, and it is important for us as Catholics to take time and prepare ourselves for Christmas by prayer and reflection. An important purpose of Advent is to take these four weeks and prepare our hearts and minds for what the true meaning of Christmas is: the arrival of Jesus Christ into our world. I believe it can be said that the hustle and bustle of the holidays can sometimes distract us from what is truly important, distracting us from why we celebrate Christmas in the first place. With that being said, Advent serves as the perfect reminder to step back and pray that our hearts be ready to receive God in our hearts. Salvation is available to us by the arrival of Jesus, who comes to show us what it truly means to follow God, and we should make the effort to practice this in our everyday lives.
The Gospel for today has Jesus explaining the unexpectedness of the coming of the Son of Man. He compares it to the flood of Noah. Everyone was involved in his or her own activities, unaware of what was to come until it came that day. Jesus urges his followers to “stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.” What great parallelism to Advent!! It’ seen even more when Jesus ends saying “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” In all the business that the holiday brings, it’s so easy to loose our focus on what is really important. Time seems to go by us, and we loose sight of where we are going. If we don’t realize what we are doing, we just might miss God’s work in our lives this Advent season. We might miss what He is trying to tell us. And we wouldn’t want that, would we? It’s important to always remain attentive to how we are using our day, because you never know when Jesus will come. And he might be coming with a message for you.