First Sunday of Advent

From our Heart to Heart publication.  We are happy to share with you reflections for each Sunday of Advent and for Christmas 2022. We are grateful to Sr. Chabanel Mathison, a Roman Union Ursuline of the USA Central Province, for inviting us into prayer and reflection for the 1st Sunday of Advent.

 A blessed Advent season to each of you!

1ˢᵗ Reading: Isaiah 2:1-5 

2ⁿᵈ Reading: Romans 13:11-14

Gospel: Matthew 24:37-44

“It is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.”  (Romans 13:11)

Some people spring right out of bed every morning just glad to be alive, grateful for another day of chances and choices. Others of us pull the covers over our heads and hope that we’ve  just imagined it’s time to get up. Just another hour, another ten minutes, we plead with the clock. But time is an unforgiving monitor, and finally we are obliged to put on our slippers and get on with another day.

Paul says in the second reading for this first Sunday of Advent liturgy that we all know when it’s time to wake up. Advent is a powerful wake-up call. But many of us still like to pretend that it’s really not as late as all that. Maybe there’s a loophole as yet unexplored, a second opinion we might consult. We want to keep our eyes closed to the many fresh choices that are being offered to us with this season of Advent and a whole new liturgical year. It seems like just yesterday that we were celebrating the fire of the Spirit at Pentecost, and next the Church  opens the door to Advent and beckons us inside to a whole world of spiritual opportunity. Maybe it isn’t time yet for us to see if we can make a difference for just that one person who needs our help in some way. We’ve noticed her and her struggle for quite some time, and there is something we could do to help, but we just need a little more time before we get involved. Perhaps we could wait another month before we respond to the invitation we feel inside us to set aside a little quiet time in our day to listen for the voice of the Spirit in our lives. It can’t be time yet for us to reconcile and forgive that issue with a co-worker. Can’t we just sleep on a little longer and pretend it’s still night?

The start of a new Church year invites us to begin at the beginning and walk into the light with fresh hearts. The signature prophet for the season is Isaiah. In today’s first reading he offers a remarkable vision of a united world, anxious for instruction in the ways of justice and peace. Can we see that world from where we’re sitting? Are we ready to wake up and help make it happen, one small choice at a time?

Chabanel Mathison, OSU

St. Louis, MO