Sunday Meditation: Sacred Waiting

Last week we came to the end of times with the end of the liturgical year.  This week with the start of the new liturgical year, Advent, and we come to…um…the end of times again!  Yes, Advent always starts with the end in mind because we are waiting for Christ’s return.  And yet we are waiting for Christ’s birth!  We are waiting for Christ—sacred waiting as Bishop Barron will put it in his homily below—both to come and return.  Waiting is the nature of what we do during advent.  But ultimately we are waiting even when it is not Advent. 

Today we also start the liturgical Year A, that is, with a predominant focus on the Gospel of Matthew.  My Sunday Meditations here on this blog will still take the same form as the last two years.  I will provide my little insights at the beginning, provide an explanatory homily on the Gospel passage, followed by a pastoral homily, then a fragment from the Gospel passage for meditation, and conclude with a hymn or video which will complement the theme of the day.  Next year I will switch to focus on the first reading rather than the Gospel. 

Today we are at toward the end of Matthew’s Gospel during what is called the Eschatological Sermon, the fifth of five discourses in Matthew’s Gospel.  The Eschatological Sermon concerns the end times, which then implies the second coming of Christ.

 

Here is the Gospel passage.

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"As it was in the days of Noah,

so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

In those days before the flood,

they were eating and drinking,

marrying and giving in marriage,

up to the day that Noah entered the ark.

They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.

So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man.

Two men will be out in the field;

one will be taken, and one will be left.

Two women will be grinding at the mill;

one will be taken, and one will be left.

Therefore, stay awake!

For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.

Be sure of this: if the master of the house

had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,

he would have stayed awake

and not let his house be broken into.

So too, you also must be prepared,

for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come."

~Mt 24:37-44

 

A full explanation of Advent and the wait for the Second Coming comes from Fr. Geoffrey Plant.

 

I found the parallels with Ezekiel fascinating: the departure from the Temple to the East, judgment on the city and the Temple, the subsequent destructions of the Temple, and the promise of God’s restoration. 

Hate to wait? Well during Advent we are waiting for Christ.  Bishop Robert Barron provides the pastoral homily on the need to wait, spiritual waiting, and sacred waiting.

“The painful process of decentering the ego.”  Only Bishop Barron could come up with that in a homily.  “To wait on the Lord, so that I allow God to be the Lord of my life.”  Now there is an Advent spiritual message to remember.  A nun once told me—actually scolded me when I insisted on shaping my relationship with my family—“To let go and let God.”  I’ll never forget that, and I think that is what Bishop Barron is also counseling. 

 

Sunday Meditation: "Therefore, stay awake!  For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”

 

Let’s hear John Michael Talbot’s “Advent Suite, Part 1” for our hymn.

 

Can you believe in the miracle coming?
Can you believe it will take you away?
There will be living where once there was death
There will be new life in Jesus

 

 That song is a masterpiece!