Jeremiah 33: “The Word the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah. In those days, in that time,I will raise up (in the line of) David a Just Shoot.“
Luke 21 Gospel: ”There shall be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright… pray that you have the strength to (handle) the tribulations that are imminent.”
The spiritual weather report by the Lord seems dire for the time of the Second Coming. We are told of signs coming in the stars above and one involving the sun darkening, along with something happening with the moon, and its resulting roaring of the seas, and that nations on earth will be in dismay— What in the world is coming?! Has it to do anything with solar flares? Electromagnetic disturbances? Is it about a comet or asteroid coming? What will alarm us so much as to have everyone so alarmed or frightened of it?
People who study our sun describe of some of its 2024 activities. It was not catastrophic, however, it is noted that a series of powerful solar storms and geomagnetic storms occurred from May 10–13, 2024 that was the most powerful geomagnetic storm to affect Earth since 1989. It produced auroras in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres at latitudes that were further equatorward than usual. It hasn’t been seen like this in 500 years. On November 6th, too, the sun emitted a strong solar flare, peaking at 8:40 am ET. Did you feel anything that day at 8:48 a.m. when it reached earth? Likely not!! (It was the day after election day.) But things are happening upon us from the skies. The moon affects tides–but what could make a roaring of the sea and waves? We do know waters are rising by three to four inches a decade now, and waters are warming and ice is melting, and turbulent storms and flooding took place in weather calamities in 2024. Should we be all so frightened of the end of things, then? The Gospel says how people will even die of fright—even before the actual things doing the havoc comes!
What are we to do? –
Pay Sacred Attention: Focus on Jesus.
Watch out! Today’s Gospel has this word pairing of exhortation for us from Jesus. The exhortation first concerns of our being too distracted or pre-occupied with earthly things to miss the big religious occasion of Christ’ Return or of His present Presence among us.
Watch out for all of the secular turn of things today. As the K of C slogan goes: Keep Christ in Christmas. Try to minimize the world’s spin on Christmas and Jesus.
Make this season of Advent and into Christmas as first a holy time, and one to honor Jesus and to be used by Him to be a blessing to the world and a witness to Him. Jesus mentions how people will become too drowsy for holy things due to all their busy non-spiritual activities or efforts, or of their partying of themselves and carousing of the self, or from being drunk and filled up in self-pleasures and idols. Doesn’t this sound like an indictment on our times and culture of 2024?
Yet Jesus is to return in Glory to earth. He says so. These three behaviors are named as for people being unable to have faith, but instead to fall in fear. Jesus adds a fourth behavior to lead one to be caught off guard and caught like in a trap. He says that anxieties of daily life will do many in—being so weak in faith or hope.
So He asks us, instead, to handle things wisely ahead. “Be vigilant at all times
and pray that you (can) have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent (so that you may be able) to stand before the Son of Man.”
That’s your Advent Week 1 advice from The Master.
An ADD-On to the homily….To be vigilant is mostly about present awareness of things. As Christians—we live in the anticipation of the Glorious Lord appearing, but even now we should welcome Jesus openly in our lives and souls as to inspire us into many graced moments. How can we find them? If you attended our Advent talk by Fr. Jean Marie Vincent, then you heard his personal testimony of having experiences recently in his ministry of noticing and living in the inspired moment. I was at the morning reflection, so I looked to apply his principle on Sunday. I got called by Deacon Chike (our parishioner studying for the priesthood) and was told he was free to visit us for three Masses on the weekend—during his break from classes in Philly. I said: Please do!! Then a while later an idea came to me and Helene of our staff: We could have the children in the 9 am children’s church time of Mass make him a giant card of encouragement. This they did. Then we had them process up with the card along with a nativity set with porcelain figures and a small Christmas tree with ornaments, for him to receive as a thank you for his planned life of service as a priest—one that would make many future children’s Christmas times blessed. This is what the children did and Deacon Chike received it well. It was a witness of our parish living in the holy present to inspire our seminarian along.
The Gospel had told us to be aware, be vigilant—and we were doing to celebrate a visit from our parish’s first ordinand, Chike Egbufuoama. ###