{"id":1728,"date":"2015-11-29T13:18:39","date_gmt":"2015-11-29T18:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1728"},"modified":"2015-11-29T13:18:39","modified_gmt":"2015-11-29T18:18:39","slug":"1st-sunday-in-advent-year-c-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/1st-sunday-in-advent-year-c-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"1st Sunday in Advent, Year C – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

1st<\/sup> Sunday of Advent, Year C<\/a>
\nJeremiah 33:14-16
\nPsalm 25:4-5, 8-9, 10, 14
\n1 Thessalonians 3:12 – 4:2
\nLuke 21:25-28, 34-36
\nNovember 29, 2015<\/p>\n

Through Jeremiah the prophet, the Lord reminds the people that He \u201cwill fulfill the promise<\/em>\u201d He had made a promise to Israel and Judah of an heir to David.\u00a0 The Lord reminds the people of his promise while they are in exile to assure them that He has not abandoned them.<\/p>\n

The promise of an heir to King David was first made around 1000 B.C. The Lord reminds the people in exile of his promise about the year 600 B.C.\u00a0 That means they had already been waiting for 400 years.\u00a0 There were many kings that came and went but none like David.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Lord\u2019s promise is fulfilled in the birth of Jesus.\u00a0 That means the Israelites to whom the Lord was speaking had to wait another 600 years.\u00a0 It is amazing that they had not given up.\u00a0 The gospels make it clear that the Israelites still believed the messiah would come.<\/p>\n

This was their hope.\u00a0 This was their faith.<\/p>\n

Turning to what Paul writes to the Thessalonians, he also speaks of the coming of the Lord.\u00a0 Paul writes after<\/em> the birth, life, and death of Jesus.\u00a0 So, the coming of which he speaks is not the same coming we hear about in Jeremiah.\u00a0 Paul speaks of the second coming.<\/p>\n

The first coming of Jesus was anticipated with great expectation.\u00a0 It was seen as the source of all hope.\u00a0 Even now, 2,000 years later we will celebrate with great joy Jesus\u2019 birth at the first coming.<\/p>\n

It is a time of great joy for us.\u00a0 It is a time when many people who don\u2019t come the rest of the year will join us for Mass on Christmas.<\/p>\n

Certainly, people get excited about the presents and the parties for Christmas but I believe it also kindles the fire of flame within people.\u00a0 We live in a world with terrorism, wars, large scale shootings, hunger, and homelessness.\u00a0 We need hope.\u00a0 People may focus on the gifts and the parties but their hearts are stirred to seek the hope that Jesus gives us.<\/p>\n

The first coming is celebrated with great joy.\u00a0 The second coming of which Paul speaks, not so much.<\/p>\n

Jesus speaks of the second coming as a time where nations will be in dismay and people will die in fright.\u00a0 The second coming can be seen as a scary time.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because we know we are not ready.\u00a0 Our redemption is at hand<\/em> but we fear we will not be judged worthy.<\/p>\n

The prophecies of the Second Coming are not meant to scare us to death.\u00a0 These prophecies are meant to get us to think, reflect, and pray about our own readiness.<\/p>\n

What do we need to do to be ready for the Second Coming?<\/p>\n

We can make a good examination of conscience of our lives to find what we need to change.\u00a0 We will find things we need to work on, sins we want to stop.\u00a0 Yet we struggle to do so.<\/p>\n

It seems so hard.\u00a0 What must we do to change?<\/p>\n

In a world that often says you have to do it for yourself, you can\u2019t count on others, I think the most difficult step that each of us needs to take is to realize that we can\u2019t fix ourselves.\u00a0 We need Jesus.<\/p>\n

As Paul writes, we need Jesus to make us \u201cincrease and abound in love<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0 We need Jesus to strengthen our hearts and make us holy.<\/p>\n

The most important step we can take is to turn it all over to Jesus.<\/p>\n

Today we start our new church year with Advent.\u00a0 The secular world rushes to Christmas and the earthly preparations for the celebration.\u00a0 We need to prepare ourselves for Christmas but the most important preparation is not buying gifts, decorating, or preparing food.\u00a0 The most important preparation is in our souls<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We need to ask ourselves what we have done wrong and seek God\u2019s forgiveness.\u00a0 That\u2019s why in addition to our regularly Saturday afternoon confessions, the next three Saturdays will have a penance service followed by individual confessions at one of our area churches.\u00a0 For those who can\u2019t make it on Saturdays, you will find two dates in the bulletin when I will offering individual confessions during the week.<\/p>\n

When we come to the Sacrament of Reconciliation to confess our sins, God\u2019s forgiveness is showered upon us but it doesn\u2019t end there.\u00a0 God\u2019s mercy doesn\u2019t end there.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s mercy includes his love and help for us going forward.\u00a0 Whatever struggles we face in our lives, God grants us mercy.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis has called a Year of Mercy to begin on December 8th<\/sup>.\u00a0 A large part of the year will focus on our need for forgiveness (mercy) and our call to show mercy to others but Pope Francis goes beyond forgiveness and calls us to do corporal works of mercy to help those in need, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and spiritual works of mercy to offer prayer and comfort to others.<\/p>\n

This is what we need to embrace to prepare for the coming of Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1st Sunday of Advent, Year C Jeremiah 33:14-16 Psalm 25:4-5, 8-9, 10, 14 1 Thessalonians 3:12 – 4:2 Luke 21:25-28, 34-36 November 29, 2015 Through Jeremiah the prophet, the Lord reminds the people that He \u201cwill fulfill the promise\u201d He had made a promise to Israel and Judah of an heir to David.\u00a0 The Lord …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘1st Sunday in Advent, Year C – 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":[148,149],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-rS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728"}],"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=1728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1729,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728\/revisions\/1729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}