BIBLE STUDY #65
FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT
November 27, 2011


READING 1
IS 63:16B-17, 19B; 64:2-7

You, LORD, are our father,
our redeemer you are named forever.
Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways,
and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?
Return for the sake of your servants,
the tribes of your heritage.
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
with the mountains quaking before you,
while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for,
such as they had not heard of from of old.
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,
that we were mindful of you in our ways!
Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful;
all of us have become like unclean people,
all our good deeds are like polluted rags;
we have all withered like leaves,
and our guilt carries us away like the wind.
There is none who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to cling to you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and have delivered us up to our guilt.
Yet, O LORD, you are our father;
we are the clay and you the potter:
we are all the work of your hands.
the son of man whom you yourself made strong.

The Word of the Lord

READING 2
1 COR 1:3-9

Brothers and sisters:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I give thanks to my God always on your account
for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus,
that in him you were enriched in every way,
with all discourse and all knowledge,
as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you,
so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift
as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He will keep you firm to the end,
irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful,
and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Word of the Lord

GOSPEL MK 13:33-37

Jesus said to his disciples:
"Be watchful! Be alert!
You do not know when the time will come.
It is like a man traveling abroad.
He leaves home and places his servants in charge,
each with his own work,
and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch.
Watch, therefore;
you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming,
whether in the evening, or at midnight,
or at cockcrow, or in the morning.
May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.
What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!'"

The Gospel of the Lord

Reflection

We begin the season of Advent this weekend and I would like to share the following with you.

ADVENT

Human beings cannot live without hope. Unlike the animals, we are blessed - or cursed - with the ability to think about the future and to fear our actions to shaping it. So essential is this to human life that human beings cannot live without hope, without something to live for, without something to look forward to. To be without hope, to have nothing to live for, is to surrender to death in despair. But we can find all sorts of things to live for and we can hope for almost anything: for some measure of success or security or for the realization of some more or less modest ambition; for our children, that they might be saved from our mistakes and sufferings and find a better life than we have known; for a better world, throwing ourselves into politics or medicine or technology so that future generations might be better off. Not all these forms of hope are selfish; indeed, they have given dignity and purpose to the lives of countless generations.

But one of the reasons why we read the Old Testament during Advent is to learn what to hope for. The people of the Old Testament had the courage to hope for big things: that the desert would be turned into fertile land; that their scattered and divided people would eventually be gathered again; that the blind would see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, that not only their own people, but all the peoples of the earth, would be united in the blessings of everlasting peace. Clearly, their hopes were no different from ours or from any human being’s lasting peace, tranquil lives, sufficiency of food, and an end to suffering, pain and misery.

Thus we hope for the same things as the Old Testament people, for their hopes are not yet realized. But we differ from them in two ways. First, the coming of Jesus in history, as a partial fulfillment of God’s promises, immeasurably confirms and strengthens our hope. Secondly, we differ from the Old Testament people because Jesus has revealed to us that God is not afar off, but is already in our midst. Hence the importance in the Advent liturgy of John the Baptist and of Mary: because they recognized the new situation, they serve as models for the Church in discerning the presence of our Savior in the world.

(Taken from “The Spirit of Advent,” Mark Searle, in Assembly, Volume 7:1, Notre Dame Center for Liturgy, Notre Dame Indiana, as reprinted in The Order of Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours and Celebration of the Eucharist 2012 for the Archdiocese of Newark and the Dioceses of Camden, Metuchen, Paterson, and Trenton).

We also begin a new gospel this week. We will be using the Gospel of Mark for the coming liturgical year, with the Gospel of John used occasionally, such as the Passion on Good Friday.

Today’s gospel comes from a longer section (Mark 13:1-37) called the “Little Apocalypse.” The “Great Apocalypse” is the Book of Revelation. It is also called the “Synoptic Apocalypse” because versions of this gospel appear in Matthew 24-25 and Luke 21.

These 37 verses talk about apocalyptic events, which are mysteries of the future and of the heavenly realm. Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple, and the disciples ask Jesus when this will happen and what signs will there be when these things happen. Jesus takes the discourse to an eschatological level; he begins talking about the end times. He warns them not to believe the false prophets who come in his name (we’ve seen many of those, and some recently).

He talks about the persecution of the faithful, that the faithful will be hated by all because of Jesus. Then there will be a desolating abomination (a dramatic sacrilege) of some kind of religious site. Then there will be such tribulation as never seen before, and before all is lost, the son of Man will appear again.

Jesus exhorts them (and us) to be faithful through all kinds of trial and trouble; if we do, we will gain the crown of eternal life. We are to keep watch because only the Father knows when all this will happen.

We can look at the coming of the Son of Man in 3 different ways. The first, and most obvious, is the Second Coming, otherwise known as the parousia or the eschaton (from which the word eschatology is derived). Shortly after Jesus death and resurrection (the time of the Apostles) most people thought that Jesus would return shortly, at least in their lifetimes. Encouraging people to be aware for this event would make a large impact and be influential in their lives. It’s been 2,000 years since that time. And it is the eschaton is not much of a motivating factor nowadays.

The second way we can look at it is meeting Jesus at our death. That’s not much of a motivating factor unless you have a serous illness or are elderly. It will happen to all of us, but we tend not to think about our death or dwell on its’ consequences.

The third way we can look at it is that Jesus wants to be a part of our lives; he wants to come into our heart everyday. He wants us to be prepared to receive him in the myriad of ways he comes to us: through prayer, sacraments, scripture, good works, to name a few. If we prepare ourselves in this way, then the first two don’t matter.



Fr. Phil