Martí Colom
We are in Advent! Today, indeed, we celebrate the first of the four Sundays that will take us to the gates of Christmas. And we begin with a reading from the Gospel of Matthew that constitutes a whole program for these coming weeks and, indeed, for the rest of the year. “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming,” Jesus tells us. And he insists: “You must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Mt 24:42 and 44)
It is pertinent advice. It is surprising, if we stop to think about it, the number of times when we are not awake but asleep, lost in our inner worlds, sometimes preoccupied with small things, sometimes distracted with inconsequential matters. And it is astonishing to be aware of the many times when we are in fact not ready to discover God’s presence among us. We are not prepared, for example, to see the face of Jesus in the people we dislike. We are not prepared to hear his voice in the voice of our adversaries. We are not prepared to catch his eye in the eyes of a sick person who needs our company. We are not prepared to listen to him in the complaints of the most vulnerable around us. We are not prepared to touch his wounds in the wounds of so many people whom social injustice or the contempt of the strongest have neglected. We are not prepared to feel his shadow in the fragility of those who only ask for the opportunity to grow without violence. We are not prepared to attend to his call to act, to defend peace, to defend the need for tenderness, the need for dialogue, which reaches us daily through the events—so often disturbing—that shake the world. We are not prepared to understand that every conflict is an opportunity to give witness to our hope, our faith in others and in the Gospel. We are not always ready to understand that the more the demons of racism, of exclusion of those who think differently, or love differently, or pray differently grow, the more urgent becomes the need for a courageous voice, filled with the spirit of the Gospel, one that is inclusive, compassionate, bold in its tenderness. No, all too often we are not prepared, and that is why we need to hear with all its force today’s announcement: “Stay awake; be ready.”
Advent is a jolt, an invitation to lift up our eyes, to remain attentive to this presence of God in the world—a presence that is both a consolation and a call. This presence gives us peace, and at the same time it invites us to commit ourselves to the reality around us, to the problems of others and to the urgent task of preparing a more just and livable world for all the children who continue to be born, defenseless and fragile, in the forgotten stables and mangers of the earth.
We are in Advent! Today, indeed, we celebrate the first of the four Sundays that will take us to the gates of Christmas. And we begin with a reading from the Gospel of Matthew that constitutes a whole program for these coming weeks and, indeed, for the rest of the year. “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming,” Jesus tells us. And he insists: “You must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Mt 24:42 and 44)
It is pertinent advice. It is surprising, if we stop to think about it, the number of times when we are not awake but asleep, lost in our inner worlds, sometimes preoccupied with small things, sometimes distracted with inconsequential matters. And it is astonishing to be aware of the many times when we are in fact not ready to discover God’s presence among us. We are not prepared, for example, to see the face of Jesus in the people we dislike. We are not prepared to hear his voice in the voice of our adversaries. We are not prepared to catch his eye in the eyes of a sick person who needs our company. We are not prepared to listen to him in the complaints of the most vulnerable around us. We are not prepared to touch his wounds in the wounds of so many people whom social injustice or the contempt of the strongest have neglected. We are not prepared to feel his shadow in the fragility of those who only ask for the opportunity to grow without violence. We are not prepared to attend to his call to act, to defend peace, to defend the need for tenderness, the need for dialogue, which reaches us daily through the events—so often disturbing—that shake the world. We are not prepared to understand that every conflict is an opportunity to give witness to our hope, our faith in others and in the Gospel. We are not always ready to understand that the more the demons of racism, of exclusion of those who think differently, or love differently, or pray differently grow, the more urgent becomes the need for a courageous voice, filled with the spirit of the Gospel, one that is inclusive, compassionate, bold in its tenderness. No, all too often we are not prepared, and that is why we need to hear with all its force today’s announcement: “Stay awake; be ready.”
Advent is a jolt, an invitation to lift up our eyes, to remain attentive to this presence of God in the world—a presence that is both a consolation and a call. This presence gives us peace, and at the same time it invites us to commit ourselves to the reality around us, to the problems of others and to the urgent task of preparing a more just and livable world for all the children who continue to be born, defenseless and fragile, in the forgotten stables and mangers of the earth.
