“You Must Be
Prepared, for at An Hour You Do Not Expect,
the Son of Man Will Come” (Mt 24:37-44)
the Son of Man Will Come” (Mt 24:37-44)
Dear Sisters
and Brothers in Christ,
The Gospel Reading
of this First Sunday of Advent, Year A, is taken from the Gospel according to
Saint Matthew, Chapter 24, verses from 37 to 44. In Chapter 24, Christ was teaching people on
the second coming of the Savior of the world, often referred to by Christ as
the Son of Man when speaking of Himself.
In His talk,
Christ said that there would be signs happening ahead of His coming. The signs would be violent and scary. Those signs would not be intended by God,
however, to frighten people, much less to cause them any harm. Those signs, in fact, would serve as warning
siren to waken people up from excessive worries about worldly needs and fears
of danger and suffering in life.
The events
which may come in our times in the forms of natural disasters as earthquake,
volcano eruption, tsunami, and the like, and manmade calamities such as air and
water pollution, corruption, moral values keep going down, bloody armed
conflicts, are in reality alarm signs necessary for us Christians to come back
to our senses and get ready for the coming of Christ our Lord as He promised
that He would surely come the second time to judge the living and the dead.
The First
Reading taken from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, Chapter 2, verses from 1 to
5, tells us about what we can expect to happen at the Second Coming of
Christ. Christ will put an end to all
forms of evil. No more division and
hatred and war among peoples and countries.
Christ, the Prince of Peace will establish ever-lasting friendly
relationship between former enemies.
More
importantly, Saint Paul, in His Letter to the Romans, Chapter 13, verses from
11 to 14, serving as the Second Reading,
assures us that Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, by His Blood
and Resurrection, will bring back sinners to God the Father after helping them
to repent of their evil ways of life and renew and strengthen their sense of
honesty, goodness, compassion and loving care, no more slavery to orgies,
drunkenness, promiscuity, lust, rivalry, and jealousy, so as to be worthy of
their human dignity, bearing in each and one of them the beautiful, innocent
and holy image of God the Creator and heavenly Father.
Peace in the
world, understanding, respect, love and care in social relationships between
people as individuals and communities, a clean and healthy environment, a
sustainable economic development, a complete and definite disarmament, and the
worship of the one true God of the whole human family, are these blessings not burning
desires and nicest dreams of humanity, you and I included?
These dreams
will come true only with the Second Coming of Christ, our Lord and Savior. For this reason, we Christians should not be
afraid of the events happening ahead of His Coming. We would rather be as happy as children who
leap for joy welcoming mother coming home from work bringing cookies, candies
and toys.
The
celebration of the four Advent Sundays are clearly intended to keep us awake,
both physically and spiritually, every time and everywhere, ahead of the second
Coming of Christ.
Fr. Francis Nguyen, O.P.
