Following is the prepared text from Bishop Olmsted’s homily for the 1st Sunday of Advent.
The Resolve to Run to Meet Christ
November 29, 2020
The opening prayer for Mass today expresses what God our Father wants to give us this Advent: “Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ… so that… they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom.” God our Father wants to give us the resolve to rush out to greet His Beloved Son. For what a blessing it is to know and love Him. What a difference it makes in your life when you are firmly resolved to know and love Him, to make Him first in your mind and heart. But how easily our hearts grow cold!
In today’s First Reading, the Prophet, Isaiah gives vent to his frustration with God, asking Him why He allows us to lose that resolve: “Why do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways? And harden our hearts so that we fear you not?” Isaiah was exasperated at the mess we can make of our lives! See how we squander the great gift of being chosen and loved by you! Why, O Lord, do you allow us to turn away from you?
Isaiah knows it’s not God who make these foolish choices. It’s us! We do it to ourselves! We are the ones misusing our freedom. We allow our hearts to grow cold. Nonetheless, the Prophet continues his prayer of complaint with God, saying, “No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for Him. Would that you might meet us doing right… There is none who …rouses himself to cling to you.”
Then, Isaiah makes his most persuasive argument: “O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hands.” In the end, Isaiah tells God, “we need not only the ability to love you, we also need from you the resolve, the desire, the determination to run to meet You.” My brothers and sisters in Christ, do you ever feel like Isaiah? Has the year 2020 worn down your resolve to put Jesus first in your life? Have you lost the desire to be with Him? …lost the determination to seek His face?
In our Gospel passage today, Jesus summons us to vigilance of our resolve to run forth to meet Him. He exhorts us (Mk 13:33ff), “Be watchful! Be alert! …You do not know when the Lord of the House is coming!” Since He is “the Lord of the House” He can come whenever He wills. After all, He created us to be His dwelling place, the Temple of His Holy Spirit. St. Augustine said, “You made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Jesus is the answer to the deepest longing of our hearts. Have we let that longing grow cold? Even though “…the Kingdom of God is at hand (Mk 1:15);” even though He remains with us through His Body the Church, even though He speaks to us in His Holy Word, comes to us in the Eucharist, Confession and the other Sacraments, do we take time to welcome Him? Or do we refuse to open the door of our heart? The great American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne feared that his heart would turn to ice! Could we allow the same? Should that be the case, then, we could say with the farmer in Jesus’ parable, “An enemy has done this.” The devil, the father of lies, is constantly at work to water down our desire, to weaken our resolve to hear Jesus’ voice and to see His face.
How great is our need, then, this Advent, to ask the Father to “grant us the resolve to run forth to meet Christ” whenever and however He comes. This requires on our part a readiness to obey the first and final words Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel:
“Be watchful! Be alert!”
Watchfulness of the soul requires three things:
First, to resist the temptation of self-indulgence. The devil has always wielded this weapon, enticing us to seek first our own comfort rather than seeking first the Kingdom of God, to put pleasure before what is just and right; tempting us to strive to be in control rather than ready to surrender to the Lord and His plan for our life.
Secondly, watchfulness of soul requires us to resist whatever could cause our love of Jesus to become lukewarm, to reject anything that finds excuses for complacency, being content with mediocrity replacing a spirit of vigilance that’s always alert to the voice of the Lord. The heart can turn to ice. It can become hard as stone.
Thirdly, the watchfulness that’s needed is deeply personal. We are not watching and waiting for some thing. We are watching and deepening our longing for Jesus, the King of kings, the Lord of lords and the Bridegroom of our soul.
In St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, (our second reading), Jesus begins this most pastoral of his many letters with words of gratitude. Notice what he is most grateful for (1 Cor. 1:3ff): “I give thanks to God always on your account for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus. …you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” What are you and I waiting and hoping for? Is it the revelation of Jesus? Is it our hope to love and be loved by Him? That is my prayer for each of you. Pope Benedict said, “Those who hope live differently.” Those who hope wait with deep trust in God. They know He has a plan; and that it is good, true, and beautiful. Let us resolve to live differently, to do all we can to put Jesus first in life.
Prayer and fasting are the pre-eminent ways to keep watch for the Lord and keep the flame of hope alive in our heart. When we pray may we put aside our own plans and surrender with complete confidence to the Lord, saying with the Prophet Isaiah, “O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hands.”
