3rd DECEMBER First Sunday of Advent. Watching .

3rd DECEMBER
First Sunday of Advent
Mark 13:33-37

"Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Watch therefore--for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning-- lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Watch."

Advent is a time to watch, to get ready for Our Lord's coming. But there are many ways to wait, many ways to 'expect'. Can you imagine Mary caressing her belly wondering, as mums do, what her Baby would be like - His voice, His eyes, His smile, or imagining the Baby's babbling and laughter? But she had to wait until she could hear the Baby's voice, until she could kiss His skin, until that Baby could grab her finger. That was the first Advent.

A priest explained how his grandmother, in her old age, used to tell him again and again 'the story of the war.' When, during WWII, her husband went to the front, she remained at home, watching. Every day she read the newspapers to check the names of the 'fallen' and shed tears of joy every time she couldn't find her husband's name. Day after day, for two years, she read and reread her husband's short letters and checked the post and the newspaper every morning. When the end of the war was announced, her longing for her husband's return intensified. Soldiers started returning to the village, one by one - confirming that her husband was alive and on his way home. She just knew he would come back soon. Every morning she cleaned the house, prepared the meal (for two), dressed, made herself up and peered hundreds of times through the windows into the street. And so it was until that day when she finally caught sight of her handsome husband walking towards her in his uniform, waving his hat with a big smile. The priest explained how his grandmother never got beyond that point in the story. On reaching it she invariably would break down in tears.

There are many ways of watching and expecting Our Lord's arrival.

Mary, Mother of God, teach me to watch, to expect, to get ready for the coming of your Baby, my God and Lord.
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Commentary of the day :

Saint Gregory of Nyssa (c.335-395), monk and Bishop
Sermons on the Song of Songs, no.11, 1

"Watch! for you do not know when the lord of the house is coming"

This is one of the Lord's great precepts: that his disciples should shake off everything earthly as though it were dust… so as to let themselves be carried heavenward in one great impetus. He exhorts us to overcome sleep, to seek what is above (Col 3:1), to keep our spirits constantly on the alert and cast from our eyes seductive sleepiness. I'm talking about that torpor and lethargy that lead people into error and fabricate the images of dreams: honor, wealth, power, grandeur, pleasure, success, profit or prestige…

So as to forget such dreams, our Lord asks us to rise above this heavy sleep: don't let us allow reality to vanish in a frantic pursuit of nothingness. He asks us to keep watch: "Gird your loins and light your lamps" (Lk 12:35).The light that dazzles our eyes casts out sleep, the belt that clasps our waist keeps our body alert. It expresses a striving that does not tolerate any torpor.

How clear the meaning of this image is! To gird ones loins with temperance is to live in the light of a pure conscience. The lighted lamp of sincerity lightens one's face, makes the truth break forth, keeps the soul awake, makes it impermeable to falsity and foreign to the futility of our feeble dreams. Let us live according to Christ's demands and we will share the life of angels. For he unites us to them in this precept: "Be like servants who await their master's return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks" (Lk 12:36). They are the ones who are seated by the gates of heaven with watchful eye so that the King of glory (Ps 23[24]:7) may pass through on his return from the wedding.

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