OMELIE / Omelie EN

02 dic 2018

02/12/2018 – 1st Sunday in Advent – Year C 

02/12/2018 – 1^st Sunday in Advent – Year C 

Reading 1, JER 33,14-16   Psalm 24    Reading 2, 1 THE 3,12 - 4,2   Gospel LK 21,25-28. 34-36

Let us begin the liturgical year by taking the advice to look at the future. All the Readings and the Psalm encourage us to do so. The prophet Jeremiah warns us not to forget God’s promises: these are due to be fulfilled. They spread joy and hope because they are “promising good things”! They are fulfilled by bringing among us a “shoot of justice”! God knows that in the world selfishness reigns, which makes men, even those who are in charge, unjust, looking for money and popularity, ready to take care of their interests without taking any notice of the poor’s and oppressed’s sufferings. The one who is to come will transform the world, He will start by making justice triumph, so much so to give peace to everybody. We are waiting for Him, and while we wait we start rejoicing, because His time will be a time for serenity.

Waiting... A time for waiting: this is the very first behavior to cultivate at the beginning of the new year. We know who Jeremiah is talking about. He has already come, He has already made His justice come true, entering the men’s hearts and transforming them. He has truly changed the world that has welcomed Him. But His work of transformation is not finished yet, because men coming into the world have still need of Him, and many other peoples are still without the announce of His coming! Every generation is waiting for justice, every age is always awaiting the one that we too call “Lord, our justice”! In the text from the Gospel Jesus describes to His disciples the constant situation of the world. The forces of nature and all the creatures, even if they are great and mysterious, in their limited state, as sign of precariousness, and with their inability to satisfy the deep needs of the heart, make the fear and anxiety of the peoples grow. In our time too, in fact, we can see how many men are not capable to face changes in the world and the following uncertainty, or sickness with its sufferings, and they get to the point they wish they were dead, if not even to the point to bring death onto themselves, pushed by the fear of the future! We live in a world that does not have and does not give what the man needs: what can Jesus’s disciples possibly do? They will be careful, they will not let themselves to be influenced by those goods that delude for just a moment, dragging into the vain and cheating satisfactions coming from alcohol, drug, sex, luxury, fashion, fun and pleasure. The disciples will be careful and wakeful and because of this they will cultivate prayer, to be ready to live with serenity the changes and to welcome the end of what seems to offer security. They are not waiting for things or events, but only for the Son of men, because He is the one giving life and He will be the one to judge, and therefore He will weight everything and everybody based on His teaching. They are joyfully waiting for Him, because they know they are loved by Him, He who has promised them a place!

Saint Paul too, writing to the Thessalonians, recommends to try to please God by living according to the teachings they received. The main teaching is the one about love, the love that makes men similar to God. “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all”! The love needs to be oriented first of all towards the community itself, in order for it to shine for unity and communion. The Church does not have only the task to love the others, those who need food or clothes, but, first of all, it needs to try to be alive as a community itself, living in itself charity, feeding on God’s Word in order to be a safe spiritual building, sturdily built: then its love for others as well, for the strangers, will be effective, true, selfless and will pass on God the Father’s love itself, who wants to give to men the Son Jesus, the savior!

Let us begin and spend the Advent with the awareness which the God’s Word advise us of. We will try to exercise ourselves to be detached from everything, but above all to firmly unite ourselves to our Lord Jesus Christ! We are awaiting Him, but even more He is awaiting us, and He comes to meet us on the way of humility and poverty!