First Sunday of Advent 2022 (Year A)

All of my family either love, or have at some point loved, the children’s toy Lego. A few years ago, my wife and I took our children to Legoland Windsor to stay for a night in one of their hotels, as part of my daughter’s birthday celebrations. We didn’t tell the children where we were going or what for; we just bundled them into the car not long before dawn and headed off on the motorway. As we drove, the slowly lightening sky gave way to dawn and the children’s eagerness for the adventure grew. We kept the secret right up to the moment we pulled into the park and saw the sign topped by giant Lego bricks. At this point there was smiling and bouncing all round in the back seat, and as those who are parents will know, there is nothing better than seeing unadulterated happiness on the faces of your children. It was a very, very good trip.

That trip began a new year of my daughter’s life. Today, the First Sunday of Advent, we open a new year in the life of the Church. We begin in a similar way – we have been roused in the darkness and started onto our Advent journey. In the words of our second reading, ‘the night is almost over, it will be daylight soon.’ Nowhere is this beautiful analogy of darkness giving way to light clearer than in the Rorate masses of Advent. If you have the chance to attend one or more of these masses this Advent, I strongly recommend them. They take place in the darkness immediately before dawn, and if timed right one enters the church in darkness, with candles often providing the only light, and then leaves into the brightness of the winter’s morning.

Unlike the children though, we know the wonderful end of our journey: Christmas, certainly, and our great commemoration of the Incarnation; but in these first weeks of Advent, we consider in a particular way the coming of the Lord at the end of time. Our Gospel contains stark language from Jesus: ‘of two men in the fields one is taken, one left; of two women at the millstone grinding, one is taken, one left.’ Jesus is not suggesting a fifty-fifty split; he is explaining that there will be a suddenness to his return.

There is an old episode of the Simpsons, in which Bart explains to a minister that he was hoping to live a life of sin followed by a ‘presto-chango death-bed repentance.’ The minister argues that living a good life means he receives ‘full coverage’ in the event of a sudden death. It is the Simpsons, so it is all a bit blasé; but this is what we seek when we pray to avoid ‘an unprovided death.’ We are called in our Gospel and second reading to seek the ‘full coverage’ of a holy life, not just to avoid an unprovided death, but also to avoid being unworthy should the Lord return during our time on earth.

It is no secret that the early Church expected the Lord to return imminently – there is a satirical religious cartoon which portrays the Apostles running a book and taking bets on the date that the Lord will return before his feet have even disappeared into the clouds above them. The word imminent is an interesting one – its origin comes from a Latin word (mineo) which means to project over, or to overhang. The same root gives us the English word menace. In a sense the return of the Lord is menacing – it will come ‘at an hour [we] do not expect;’ and if we are not ready then yes, we should be concerned about that. But we can be prepared for it.

We can be Baptised; receive regular absolution in the sacrament of Confession; we can be with the Lord personally in Holy Communion and at Adoration. In the words of the Penny Catechism, the sacraments are ‘outward signs of inward grace.’ It is the graces received from the sacraments that allow us to ‘live decently,’ as St Paul describes it. We can put on the armour of Christ and bring about the world that Isaiah describes in our first reading; a world where ‘all the nations will stream… to the Temple of the God of Jacob.’

The first part of Advent is not seeking to cause an anxiousness in the faithful. It encourages us to reflect on what is really important as a Christian: our relationship with the Lord. To foster in our hearts his message and his promise to us; that we will one day ‘walk in the light of the Lord’ if we will but take up our cross and follow him.

As we begin this journey through the darkness of Advent, our anticipation and excitement will rise as we approach the celebration of the Incarnation. Let us also remember that we are journeying to the Lord’s second dawn too. As we make our worldly preparations, let us always conduct ourselves in such a way that we need have no fear of that day.

Collect from Mass on the First Sunday of Advent:

Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God,
the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ
with righteous deeds at his coming,
so that, gathered at his right hand,
they may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.