Homily for First Sunday of Advent 2010

 

In August of the year 386, St. Augustine was 31, and in a state of mental anguish. After years of wandering away from the Church, he had now reached the point of conviction that the Christian and Catholic faith was true, and that it was both his desire, and his duty to embrace it. But powerful forces within himself held him back. He was filled with nameless fears. He feared what the commitment might entail. Above all he feared the obligation to live chastely; he felt he could never break free from his addiction to sexual activity. Unable to go either forwards or backwards, Augustine seemed on the verge of complete breakdown. But as he sat weeping in that garden in Milan, he heard a child’s voice calling out in a sing-song way: Tolle, lege; Tolle, lege. Take up and read; Take up and read. Convinced that this was somehow a voice from heaven directed personally to him, he snatched up the codex of St. Paul he’d been studying, opened it at random, and read out the words his eyes first fell upon.

Non in commessationibus et ebrietatibus, non in cubilibus et impudicitiis, non in contentione et aemulatione, sed induimini Dominum Iesum Christum...
No orgies or drunken debauchery; no promiscuity or licentiousness; no quarrelling or jealousy; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and give no heed to fulfilling your disordered natural inclinations (Rm 13:13-14).

The passage is from the 13th Chapter of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. We heard it today in our second reading. We also had it in the Divine Office today at Lauds and Terce.

For Augustine it was a God-sent answer: a moment of delivery, of grace, of conversion. He put the book down a changed man, his anguish gone, his way now clear; and Western Christendom gained one of the greatest Theologians and Pastors, after St. Paul himself, it has ever had.

The lectionary very appropriately offers us this passage from Romans today, at the beginning of Advent. Advent is a time of new beginnings. As such it’s a new call to conversion. It’s also a clamorous summons to wake up. The time has now come, cries St. Paul, and we must rise up from sleep. Why? Because Christ is coming soon. He’s coming liturgically at Christmas; He’s coming in glory whenever he chooses; He’s coming to meet us at the moment of our death. So in Advent we look forwards, and with a sense of urgency. Advent reminds us that every moment in our life is precious. Is our life simply fizzling pointlessly out towards oblivion? No, on the contrary. It’s hurtling headlong towards our definitive encounter with God in Christ.

So Paul cries out again: The night is far spent, and the Day is at hand. That is, the devil has been beaten, and he knows it, even though he’ll fight on to the last. Sin has lost its power; grace is at work; Christ is coming soon. But Paul knew the Roman Christians, all Christians, could be tempted to sink comfortably back into their former slumber. St. Augustine speaks vividly of his own experience of darkness as debilitating sloth, or prevaricating doubt, or simply forgetfulness of God. He knew also what it is like to live without integrity; to be appalled at one’s own behaviour, yet unable to change it. But then, after his conversion, Augustine had first hand experience of the life-giving, light bearing grace of Christ at work in his life: so he also knew what it is to live cleanly, uprightly, doing nothing whatever of which one need be ashamed. His former state he knew to be slavery, and his latter state true freedom.

If only, one often thinks, the young people in our society could hear this message! How much distress and confusion, how much loneliness and despair could they be saved! When we consider the emptiness of our hedonistic culture: the prevalence of pornography, the rate of abortion and suicide, and the pressure for legalised euthanasia; when we consider so many lives blighted by alcohol or drugs; when we think of the neglect or abuse of children: we seem to be peering indeed into deep darkness.

Opposed to that St. Paul holds out to us the light of Christ. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ he says. What does this mean to those who have already been baptised? It’s a call we need to hear, ever and again, to make Jesus the central dominating reality in our life. It’s a call to encounter him directly, daily, even constantly, in prayer, and holy reading. It’s a call to make use of the sacrament of penance. And above all it’s a call to participate in the Holy Eucharist.

It may be that some people, for whatever reason, but through sheer loyal obedience to the discipline of the Church, find themselves unable to receive holy Communion. Nevertheless, they come to Mass, in order to participate in the holy Sacrifice. Surely, through their spiritual communion, the Lord will not refuse them all the fruits of the sacramental communion they long for.

Many of these fruits are listed by St. Thomas Aquinas in his prayer of thanksgiving after communion. They fit well with today’s second reading. May this communion be for me, Thomas prays, an armour of faith, and shield of good will. May it be the emptying out of my vices; the destruction of my concupiscence and lust; the increase in me of patience, charity, humility and all the virtues; a defence against all the attacks of the enemy; the quieting of my passions; may it be my firm cleaving to God, and the consummation of my end.

And as Pope Benedict loves to insist, Mass and communion of themselves point us forwards, towards Christ who is both present and to come. Come then, Lord Jesus, we pray: come quickly. Come to me; come to all whom I love and pray for; come to the lost people of our society; come and save us.

Fr Benedict OSB