h-advent1b

November 26/27, 2005

First Sunday of Advent (B)

Mary Ann Wiesemann-Mills, OP

Isaiah 63:16-19; 64:2-7 X 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 X Mark 13:33-37

Time is God’s domain.

That may come as a surprise.

We generally think of eternity as God’s domain and time our domain.

Yet, not one of us can predict what tomorrow will bring, not even the next hour nor the next minute.

We are not even assured that we will be alive in the next minute.

Time is God’s possession alone.

In time, God encounters us and we encounter God.

Time, therefore, is a gift.

Time holds the most precious of gifts—the presence of God.

We are often told to search the horizon for the presence of God.

But it is not so much that we must search, but rather open our eyes—our inner eyes.

God is always present.

Never is there a time when we are without God.

As Church, we are about to enter the seasons of Advent and Christmas.

From their earliest celebration, these seasons were viewed and celebrated as paschal seasons.

As such, they celebrate Christ’s coming among us as Light to banish the fear of darkness and death and to lead us to new light and life.

Advent and Christmas catch us up into the Easter Event.

The Easter Event, we know, profoundly changed both time and history.

The line that separated earthly time and eternal time has been erased.

Because of Jesus’ coming and living among us, we who exist in time also exist in eternity.

Time itself participates in eternity.

Time is not just passing away.

In all that we do, we are not just passing the time.

Our time is the stuff of which our eternity is made.

We are continually in the process of our transformation.

Our death will be a mere slipping away into the fullness of God’s presence.

The Season of Advent is meant to awaken us again to that truth.

We live such frenetic lives.

Advent calls us to slow down that may be aware of God’s continuous comings to us and among us.

Jesus’ words are so needed today: “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.”

We so often miss the many comings of the Lord because we live in hyperactivity.

We are forever rushing from one thing to another.

We rush from the breakfast table (if we even stop for that meal) to school or to work.

From work we rush to bring the kids to soccer practice or ballet lessons or we ourselves go to a spa for much needed exercise.

From these activities we rush home to supper then to a PTA meeting or such, finally falling into bed exhausted only to begin the same routine the next morning.

When and where do we find the time to welcome the Lord into this beehive of activity?

That is to what Advent calls us—to make some little space in time for communing with God so that gradually we grow into the habitual presence of God.

It is not that the activities in which we are involved are bad.

It is that we do not approach them from a contemplative stance.

The contemplative stance demands a long, loving look at a thing or a person.

A long loving look is neither an analysis nor a defining.

Rather it is an entering into a communion with—an awareness and appreciation of.

We are not used to long, loving looks.

Living in a consumer-world, we value use and profit; we bend things and people to benefit ourselves.

I have a cockatiel named Gabriella.

I have read several books in order to become informed on how best to care for her.

Reading those books, I have come to know about cockatiels.

However, allowing Gabriella to be who she is without forcing her to satisfy my whims and spending time again and again with this particular bird who acts and reacts in different ways has led to a knowing her.

Advent calls us to take time in our lives to simply be.

To simply be with God—to sit with God and to look at our lives from God’s perspective.

Allowing God to be who God is within us is learning to know God, not just knowing about God.

It is the experience of Mary pondering each day just who Jesus was and what he was about.

This Advent may we consciously choose to live as if God’s presence invades us, invades all men and women, invades all human experience, invades every part of the natural world.

When we jump out of bed in the morning (or more truthfully, groan out of bed) may we drink in God as we drink that first cup of coffee and bring God with us into all we do that day.

May we truly live in God’s time.