1st Sunday of Advent 2022

There are different moments in our daily lives. Sometimes there is only unproductive looking at the past. Then we wonder what if…. We usually create our own scenario, more or less plausible.  And that’s the end of it, because the past, which we deliberately try to enhance, overshadows what happened. It falsifies the truth about ourselves. What has already happened has become a fact. The Gospel reminds us today: ” If the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake….”       Is the thief supposed to announce himself? After all, it’s not in his nature – he acts by surprise. The host, on the other hand, must be vigilant not to be taken by surprise.   Advent is not a surprise. It is a clear and concrete call:   “Let us go with joy to meet the Lord” .

These words of the Psalmist resound on the threshold of a joyful four-week period of sorting out conscience and lives, waiting to meet the coming God.  Today’s preoccupations with worldly matters fills too much space in our earthly lives. Therefore, especially in Advent, man, must learn to weigh the difference between the temporal and the eternal. Today, one does not build a material ark, but builds an ‘ark’ of principles, ideas, good gestures and deeds of  mercy.     The advice Christ gives us in the Gospel is a call to vigilance. ” You must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”    To watch is to believe that Jesus will come.  To be alert is to be ready for an encounter with the Lord, to be aware that it is He, more than we, who desires this encounter, so that through it we may gain what human reason cannot comprehend and human words cannot express. To watch means not to waste the opportunity to meet the Lord. How important it is that we: ” know the time has come”, as St Paul writes to us in a passage in the Letter to the Romans.                                                       This important moment is Advent, which is alertness, readiness, attention.  Let us look carefully to see those situations in which the Lord comes, here and now.                                                   We ourselves know, from the experience of past years, how quickly and irrevocably this Advent time passes. Advent sounds the call:  “Decide so that you don’t regret it later. Now!”.              Let us therefore ask God for help in the words of the psalmist:  “Show us your grace, Lord, and give us your salvation”.   May the Blessed Virgin Mary, our hope, also accompany us on our Advent journey. Together with her, it will be easier for us to prepare so that the coming of the Lord does not find us distracted by other matters that have little or no significance in relation to Jesus.