{"id":1499,"date":"2014-11-30T12:52:56","date_gmt":"2014-11-30T17:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1499"},"modified":"2014-11-30T12:52:56","modified_gmt":"2014-11-30T17:52:56","slug":"1st-sunday-in-advent-year-b-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/1st-sunday-in-advent-year-b-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"1st Sunday in Advent, Year B – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

1st<\/sup> Sunday in Advent, Year B<\/a>
\nIsaiah 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7
\n1 Corinthians 1:3-9
\nMark 13:33-37
\nNovember 30, 2014<\/p>\n

Today we mark the beginning of a new liturgical year with our celebration of the First Sunday of Advent.<\/p>\n

In the first reading, Isaiah speaks of how the people realize their need for a new beginning because they have wander from the Lord\u2019s ways and hardened their hearts, becoming an unclean people.\u00a0 For this, the Lord had delivered them up to their guilt by letting their enemies defeat them and many were taken into exile in Babylon.\u00a0 They ask the Lord to return into their lives and the Lord grants them a new beginning setting them from Exile.<\/p>\n

Just like the Israelites of old, we wander at times from the Lord\u2019s ways.\u00a0 When we do, the Lord lets us face the consequences of our guilt.<\/p>\n

The good news is that Jesus offers us a new beginning from our sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.\u00a0 Advent is a time where we might be more aware of our sins.\u00a0 This coming Saturday we will have our annual Advent Penance Service as a time to reflect on our sins and to celebrate the Sacrament individually.\u00a0 We will have several priests here so I invite you to come and celebrate with us.<\/p>\n

If this is all we see Advent as, it can seem a lot like Lent.\u00a0 After all, we talk about our sins in both and the color for both Advent and Lent is violet.\u00a0 In both Advent and Lent, we do not sing the Gloria.<\/p>\n

So there are a lot of commonalities between Lent and Advent but there are differences too.<\/p>\n

Lent is officially called a penitential time to reflect upon our sins.\u00a0 It is a time when we give up something as a sacrifice.\u00a0 We abstain from meat on Fridays and we fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.<\/p>\n

Advent is different.\u00a0 We don\u2019t give up stuff in Advent and we don\u2019t have days of universal fasting.<\/p>\n

Advent is more a time of waiting<\/em>.\u00a0 If you look at the secular world, Christmas is already being thrust upon us with stores having Christmas sales and decorations going up but here in the Catholic Church we have not decorated for Christmas.\u00a0 At Christmas our banners and vestments will be white.\u00a0 Our manger scene will be out and the flowers will be plentiful.<\/p>\n

But not yet.<\/p>\n

For now our church is decorated with violet banners and vestments but beyond that remains relatively simple.\u00a0 During this time, we patiently (or maybe impatiently) wait for Christmas.<\/p>\n

Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah the Israelites had been waiting for.\u00a0 They waited for a 1,000 years.\u00a0 We hear Jesus say, \u201cBe watchful!\u00a0 Be alert!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

As we wait, we think about the first coming of Jesus at Christmas.\u00a0 We should also think about the Second Coming.\u00a0 Are we ready?<\/p>\n

Asking about our individual readiness is what can lead us to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and that is a good thing.\u00a0 However, I think we do well to think about not just our individual readiness but how our human world is doing.<\/p>\n

In the Lord\u2019s Prayer, we pray thy kingdom come<\/em> but we can struggle to see God\u2019s kingdom in this world.<\/p>\n

We can think about other parts of the world like the Middle East where there is much war and violence.\u00a0 We can think about violence in Africa that includes kidnapping of hundreds of children.\u00a0 We can think about violence in schools and colleges in our own country.<\/p>\n

This week we have the turmoil in Ferguson, Missouri when the grand jury handed down its decision concerning the shooting of Michael Brown.\u00a0 We knew regardless of which way the decision went there would be disagreement and protests.<\/p>\n

But why the looting and the fires?<\/p>\n

What does looting and setting fires do to help the situation?\u00a0 I think it is more a sign of how we are slipping as a society.\u00a0 When the Israelites slipped and wandered away from God, they were defeated by their enemies.\u00a0 Our ultimate enemy is evil.\u00a0 Is evil getting the upper hand?<\/p>\n

Perhaps but the Lord stands ready to give us a new beginning.\u00a0 As we wait for Christmas, I hope we all take some time to think about how we can come closer to God.\u00a0 Christmas shows us the gift of God\u2019s love.\u00a0 May we embrace and share the love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1st Sunday in Advent, Year B Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 Mark 13:33-37 November 30, 2014 Today we mark the beginning of a new liturgical year with our celebration of the First Sunday of Advent. In the first reading, Isaiah speaks of how the people realize their need for a new beginning because …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘1st Sunday in Advent, Year B – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-ob","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1500,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions\/1500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}