1st Sunday in Advent A

1st Sunday in Advent Year  A – Stay Awake! Stand Ready!

How ready are we for Christmas? How ready are we to start this season of Advent? If you are anything like me, life seems to be one day of rushing about that runs right into the next, with hardly any time to catch your breath.

Here we are at the start of a new church-year when we can all make our New-Year’s-Resolutions about being better or holier or more devout or something like this. When we can make grandiose gestures that might make us feel good or proud or even saintly but which we know will be just like our ordinary New-Year Resolutions – forgotten and cast aside within the week or at best the month!

Advent is our time of preparation. It is our time to think about where we are at in our readiness and preparedness to receive Jesus on Christmas Day. It is not so much a time when we start counting off the days until Christmas is here; opening the next door or window on our Advent Calendars and eating the next chocolate piece.

Rather, it is a time when we need to slow things down. We need to cast off the unnecessary things that are driving us to distraction, that are worrying us: that are weighty and unwieldy but are simply not needed. We need to assess ourselves and our needs.

We held our Confirmation Mass this past week and I felt that it was  the culmination of a great preparation program and the chance to breathe a huger sigh of relief that we all got to where we needed to be in the end, in one piece, full of joy and of celebration.

To help them think about the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit, I had spoken within my group of the benefit of thinking about a Coaching-Term, called GROW.

This equated to Goals, Reality, Opportunities and What they Will do to make things happen. I asked them to think about Goals they could set for themselves: things like improving their prayer-lives by saying their prayers more often or more meaningfully or going to mass more often or being stronger in their profession of their beliefs.

Their Realities were strong and hard and in their faces every day. Possibly the speed of their lives they felt prevented time for prayer or for mass. Possibly the fact that they mixed with peers who didn’t believe or who openly scoffed at religion and faith and made it hard for them to live as Catholic Christians: to live openly and proudly as a Christian would invite scorn and derision.

Their Opportunities were those that there were there and available to them every day or week: things such as mass every day and several times over each weekend; opportunities for prayer at every minute of every day in every situation they could find themselves. Prayers of thanks, of praise, of request, of glory and of celebration. And opportunities for living their beliefs in and amongst their friends and gatherings: to say when challenged, “Yes. I am a Catholic. Yes. I go to church of a weekend. Yes. I believe that God loves me.”

And their Will to take up some or any of these Opportunities and to turn them into their new Reality. To take some of the Opportunities and to make them into their new Action Plans of What they Will or Would do in the coming days and weeks and months.

I think that this as an idea, resonated with them and they seemed willing to consider it as an approach. And so I put it to you this weekend. Can you GROW this Advent? Can you set yourselves a Goal for each week of Advent, whose attainment will enable you to become better Catholic Christians by the end of each week, maybe making use of some of the Goals they had discussed?

Can you assess in honesty what your Reality is, here and now? What are you good at and not so good at? Where are you poor and wanting? How could you improve?

Can you use  the many Opportunities made available in and around the church to change from what you are to what you need to be or become. Can you stop old and bad practices and start new and better ones? Can you become better at using the Christian skills and strengths that you have, such as listening to others, making time for them, visiting those in need or very simply doing what our Minnie Vinnies did this past week and that was sending some Get Well cards to Peggy McAllister. A simple act that lit up her face, her day and her time in hospital! Or simply call in on your next-door neighbour – just as maybe we did or used to do, at the start of Covid!

What is your Action Plan for Advent? What Will you do? What Will you set yourself as Goals for each week so that when you reach them, you can celebrate with the Lord?

We all need to GROW throughout this Advent. We can help each other to GROW through our prayerful attendance at mass each weekend and maybe by taking on one extra prayerful action each week, maybe attending the Holy Hour each Sunday afternoon?

We need to stay awake and to stand ready to receive Jesus at Christmas. We need to GROW in our awareness of what He wants from us and how we can work together to bring this about.

Bidding Prayers

1.      For our young people who were confirmed this past week that they continue to grow in love of and for the Lord. Lord in your mercy

2.      For the families and friend of our Confirmation Candidates that they continue to provide support, care and direction to enable them to grow in their faith. Lord in your mercy

3.      That our Holy Father, Pope Francis, our Bishop, Mark and all the clergy continue to lead us in the practice of our faith and demonstration of God’s love for us. Lord in your mercy

4.      For an end to all war and conflict across our troubled world and a growth in an everlasting and widespread peace. Lord in your mercy

5.      For the sick of our parishes and those who are housebound and possibly feeling alone and unloved that through our prayers and actions they feel the love of God through our community. Lord in your mercy

6.      For those who have died recently that they might find eternal rest with the Lord. Please pray especially for the repose of the souls of Mr. Geoffrey Williams and Mr. Joseph Kelly whose funeral services are this coming week. Lord in your mercy

7.      We ask Our Lady, the Mother of our Saviour and the Mother of our Church to interceded for us as we now pray together, Hail Mary, full of grace. . .  .