Thoughts from the Second Floor Front

I Sunday of Advent

December 1, 2024

       In his prophetic word today Jeremiah asserts his belief in the coming of the Messiah: “In those days, in that time...” God will intervene on behalf of his people and provide for them security and peace. What about in these days and in this time? Does God still provide for His people? If one were inclined more towards cynicism than spirituality one could make an argument that we have been left quite alone. In a world marked by threatening instability and uncertainty we, as Disciples of the Lord Christ, are still called to live in a manner that consistently demonstrates that we believe God does indeed intervene on our behalf. 

       This sacred season of Advent calls on us to be able to recognize the presence of the Lord as He manifests Himself to us here, in this present moment as well as when He will return. For many reasons, Advent requires a certain spiritual discipline which is a challenge to live in a prolonged sense of expectation. For one thing, in our contemporary culture, we do not wait well. When is the last time you waited in line at a bank, at a gas station or a supermarket? There is a sense of instantaneity in our contemporary world which rails against patiently waiting. The immediacy in which things are accomplished, while startling, has become a given. Take for example research that students must perform in their school work. Gone are the days of card catalogs and walking up and down the dusty bookshelves looking for a particular text in order just to to begin to see if it would be helpful in your writing. Then after finding the book and reading it for thirty minutes you realize that this will not help at all. Now this is accomplished on handheld devices in a matter of seconds. There is an efficiency about this that is appealing but there is something that has been removed from the learning process because of it. 

       Advent is about expectations; about things to come and things to come about. Although not as much as Lent is, Advent is a penitential season. In Advent we have the great figure of John the Baptist calling the people of God then and now to be transformed. This transformation takes place at a profoundly spiritual level and because it is a spiritual transformation the change extends its influence to other aspects of our lives: emotional, physical, intellectual and psychological. The transformation is to be so complete as to not simply make us better people but we are to become perfected. God wants nothing less. This is the call from the Gospel. Put away those aspects of your life that are held in darkness and allow the light of Christ to shine on them.

       Living in an Advent manner requires us to be counter-cultural. By that I do not mean to be, like the flower children or the hippies of the 1960’s, dropping out of society; notice how influential that movement has been. To embrace the gospel means to allow the Grace available to us to provide what C.S. Lewis called a “good infection.” Allow Christ to become a small part of you and eventually you will see that His goal is for you to be like Himself. That we are all to be other Christs. This does not mean that we lose our own identity; Grace does not destroy nature Grace perfects it. The unity that we are to have with Jesus does not undo us but it re-does us and makes us that new person He wants us to be. Throughout this Advent experience keep your eyes open for His presence. Once you have received the “good infection” you can share it and be a source of that goodness for others by the ordinary way you respond to His Grace. 

Faithfully, 

Msgr. Diamond