TEXT: First Sunday in Advent, December 1, 2024
December 1, 2024 Father De Celles Homily
1st Sunday of Advent
December 1, 2024
Homily by Fr. John De Celles
St. Raymond of Peñafort Catholic Church
Springfield, VA
Today is the first day of Advent,
when we begin to prepare for both
the celebration of the first coming of Jesus 2000 years ago at Christmas
and His second coming at the end of time.
Advent is an exciting time to be a Catholic.
It is a season of looking back on Advents and Christmases past,
with their many fond memories of
family, friends, decorations, traditions, and gifts.
We also look forward with hope,
especially to celebrating this coming Christmas
and making new cherished memories.
We have to admit, though, that
our fondest memories and the things we look forward to the most
often have very little to do with the real meaning of Christmas.
While memories and hopes of time spent with loved ones and all that
have a strong pull on our heart strings, and understandably so,
in the grand scheme of things, they pale in comparison to
the true meaning of Christmas.
As Christians we believe that the first Christmas 2000 years ago
radically changed the world, as God became man and dwelt among us.
Without His birth, Christ could not reveal the depth of God’s love for us
or teach us the truth about how to live in His love.
And without His birth, there would have been no Cross or resurrection,
and the font of grace and the gates of heaven
would have remained closed to us forever.
This Advent, then, must be more than a time
of fond memories, much less presents, decorations, and visiting.
All that is fine and good.
But our true focus must be on preparing to celebrate
the Birth of Christ, and to meet Him when He comes again in glory.
This necessarily means Advent must be a time of
increased awareness of our sins, and repentance.
While the birth of Christ is joyful news, that joy is soured by the reality of our sins.
If God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe,
humbles Himself to become a vulnerable baby
in order to save us from our sins,
how can we prepare to receive Him without humbly repenting
our many sins against Him?
If God the Son was so obedient to His heavenly Father
that He would become the obedient son of merely human parents,
how can we prepare for His coming
without recognizing our disobedience to Him?
Advent must also be a time of increased self-giving.
By this I don’t mean merely giving presents,
or even giving to the poor
—although those are important and can’t be overlooked.
Even more importantly, God the Son came at the first Christmas
to give us Himself, and with that a share in everything He has,
including eternal joy and happiness.
We in turn must give ourselves to Him.
This gift of ourselves must manifest itself particularly
in our sincere acts of love for others:
“As you did for the least of my brothers, you did for me.”
So Advent must be a time of kindness and patience with everyone we meet,
whether friend, stranger, or enemy;
whether a troubled co-worker, a lonely child at school,
or an over-worked store clerk at the mall.
This is often extremely difficult.
But by the grace of Christ, we can and must love one another
as He has loved us,
humbling ourselves before each other
as He humbled Himself before us as a babe in a manger.
That grace only comes to us if we give ourselves to Jesus first and foremost.
Of course, this begins with our avoidance of sin
—living and loving as He taught us to.
This, in turn, involves loving our neighbor.
It also involves placing Jesus at the center of our lives,
as the origin and end of everything we do.
And that, in turn, requires that we acknowledge His presence
and talk and listen to Him.
This requires, in turn, that we pray.
So, above all, Advent must be a time of increased prayer.
St. John reminds us, “The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.”
Jesus came to speak to us—and to listen to us.
Do we speak and listen to Him?
That is what prayer is—conversation with God.
What will you do in this regard in the next few weeks?
Will you come to confession or Eucharistic Adoration more frequently?
Will you pray the Rosary or read Scripture or holy books more often,
perhaps as a family?
Most importantly, will you come to Mass more frequently,
or at least when you come to Mass, come to truly pray?
All this—repentance, self-giving love, and prayer—
are essential to having a truly Catholic Advent.
And all of these find their ultimate perfect expression at Holy Mass.
The Mass is not merely a celebration of community,
nor is it even merely coming together to pray.
Rather, the Mass is the framework, if you will,
that holds in place and time the miraculous and eternal event
of the actual life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
made present in the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Here, Christ becomes truly, really and bodily present:
The Word truly becomes flesh and dwells among us,
unfolding before us the mystery of His complete gift of Himself to us
which culminates on the Cross.
Is this not the mystery of Christmas?
Here, we repent our sins acknowledging,
“I confess to almighty God…that I have sinned…”
Here, we talk to Him and praise Him
and listen to His word;
we shower Him with adoration as He showers us with grace.
Here, we give ourselves to Him and, through Him, to His Father.
And, here, He gives Himself to us in Holy Communion,
where we receive His grace to give His love and our love to others.
_____
Think of this: Sometimes we have family traditions of Advent and Christmas
that we keep doing every year because that’s just what we always do.
Sometimes, though, we’ve gotten so used to it we forget why we do it—what it means.
For example, why do we have a Christmas tree?
Just because we’ve always done it?
This year, from time to time, stop and think, or maybe talk to your children,
about how it symbolizes the tree of life in the Garden of Eden
and the wood of the Cross.
The same thing can happen in the Mass.
We’re aware of what’s happening,
but sometimes we can forget why we do what we do here.
So, during this Advent, take time to stop and think about what and what we do at Mass and why.
In particular, think about the most amazing thing that happens at Mass:
Just as at Christmas, Jesus comes to us here, in the flesh.
Same body, same Jesus.
The rites of the Mass that prepare us to receive Jesus in Communion
correspond perfectly to the preparations we make during Advent
to prepare to receive and celebrate the Baby Jesus at Christmas.
So, consider the three aspects of preparation during Advent that I spoke of earlier:
repentance, self-giving love and prayer.
Taking the last one first, of course the Mass is not only full of prayers,
it IS one big prayer.
And it manifests the greatest prayer we can say,
as at the consecration, Christ on the Cross becomes present on the altar,
the great prayer of God the Son praying to His Father for His people.
Second, consider that during Advent we repent,
just as we do all during the Mass.
As I mentioned before, we begin by confessing,
“That I have greatly sinned…
through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”
And we continue to do so all during Mass,
even just before we receive Communion we pray, “Lord, I am not worthy.”
Third, consider how the Mass is all about self-giving love,
the self-gift of the loving sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.
So, for example, the priest refers to the Eucharist as
“this pure victim, this holy victim, this spotless victim”:
A victim is the thing or person sacrificed,
and in the case of the Mass, as we speak of the “victim,”
we remember that the Mass is the sacrifice of an actual person:
“This victim” is Jesus personally giving Himself to the Father and to us.
The Mass is also supposed to be a gift we give of ourselves
to Jesus and to His father.
So, we offer bread and wine as symbols of our lives and all we have and are,
and the priest prays, “That my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God,
the almighty Father.”
Two sacrifices: the priest’s, which is Jesus’ sacrifice, and yours.
____
Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “Be watchful! Be alert!”
As we celebrate Advent with so many long-time family and cultural traditions,
it’s easy to lose sight of their underlying Christian meaning
and the meaning of this season.
We must be watchful and alert and prepare for the coming of Christ
by repenting our sins, giving of ourselves in love,
and going to our Lord in prayer.
May this holy gift of the Advent Season remind us
to focus not so much on the passing treasures of times and seasons,
but rather on the profound mystery of Christ’s coming to us in Love–
at Christmas, at His second coming, and in the miracle of every Holy Mass.