Readings: Jer 33:14-16, 1 Thes 3:12-4:2; Lk 21:24-28, 34-36
In the first reading, God says through the Prophet Jeremiah that the days are coming when He would fulfill His promise to the Chosen People that He would raise up a just or righteous shoot for David. This promise was made through the Prophet Isaiah about two hundred years before the time of the Prophet Jeremiah. The days were, indeed, coming, but it would still be another five hundred years before the promise was fulfilled in the Person of Jesus.
In the Gospel reading, our Lord speaks about the events that will happen as the end of the world nears. He speaks in two ways, one of the future events (“there will be,” “people will die of fright,” they will see”) and the other as if it is happening presently (“stand erect and raise your heads”). Regarding the latter, Jesus does say “when these signs begin to happen,” but He does not follow this with something like “those who are alive should,” but makes it sound like this will be happening during the lifetime of the Apostles.
Obviously, since these words were spoken two thousand years ago, they were not meant for the Apostles, but because of the way our Lord spoke, it is clear that the words will have reference to people of every generation. Whoever reads the Gospels is reading in the present, so the words of our Lord pointed to the future but at some point in time, those future events will be present for those who are alive at the time. Therefore, every age is potentially the time of the fulfillment of our Lord’s words.
It is with this in mind that we need to apply our Lord’s warning in the Gospel to ourselves. He tells us to “beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you like a trap.” The Jewish people fell into this trap when Jesus was born. They all knew the prophecies regarding the Messiah, but instead of thinking it could potentially happen during their time, they assumed it would happen at some time in the future.
If we just consider what we have already seen from the first reading, it was true for seven hundred years that the Messiah would come at some point in the future, but eventually He arrived in the present for those who were alive. It seems that many were disinterested, but I suspect many fell into the trap of thinking “it would happen someday, but not in my lifetime.” When our Lord came into the world, the people were unprepared and, consequently, unresponsive.
This is why Jesus instructs us to be vigilant at all times; we know neither the day nor the hour and we do not want to be caught off guard. For over two thousand years people have been able to say that the end will come eventually, but not during our time. That remains true today. But the temptation is to think that if this is not the end, I can relax and just focus on enjoying myself because I do not need to be concerned. It is precisely this kind of attitude that has led to so many losing their faith and falling away from our Lord and His Church.
To ensure that we do not fall into this trap we need to look at the exhortation of St. Paul in the second reading. He prays that the Lord will make us increase and abound in love so we will be blameless at the coming of the Lord. He also exhorts us to conduct ourselves in a way that pleases God.
In order to grow in love two things are necessary. First, we must pray because prayer places us in union with God and allows our relationship with Him to grow and develop. As this happens, we become more conformed to the Lord and grow in love for Him. This leads to the second point: the more we love God the more we will be conformed to Him. This conformity implies that the way we live our lives will change to become more Christlike. Put another way, we will conduct ourselves in a manner pleasing to God.
Advent is a time of preparation and a good time to renew our commitment to our Lord in order to guarantee that our hearts do not grow cold or drowsy. By this renewal I especially mean our commitment to prayer. If we have a time of prayer set aside each day, then prayer becomes the center of our life and everything revolves around it. Our hearts will grow in love and in peace and we will find ourselves prepared for the Lord’s promises to be fulfilled in us.
Fr. Altier’s column appears regularly in The Wanderer, a national Catholic weekly published in St. Paul, Minn. For information about subscribing to The Wanderer, please visit www.thewandererpress.com.
