REFLECTIONS TODAY

Today, we are ushered into the season of Advent. “Advent” means “coming,” and this season reminds us of the “already” and the “not yet.” Jesus has “already” come in his incarnation, and with the second Sunday, we recall the events of Jesus’ historical coming among us. But on this first Sunday, we take a final look at the “not yet” which will happen at the Parousia. We have to remember always that Christ is the Omega Point (the point of arrival) of all reality. 

Jesus will come again to gather everything under his dominion and present it to the heavenly Father. While waiting for that blessed time, we have to keep awake and attend to our duties as responsible servants of the Lord waiting for his return. Times will continue to be trying, but we are strengthened by our blessed hope and our conviction that the Messiah has come and will come again in glory. 

Eschatology points to end-time realities, when the old world or order will pass away. Eschatology in the Bible is painted with “signs of the end”: wars, tribulations, persecutions, and cataclysm in the cosmos. They are symbols and are not to be taken literally; they mean the “disappearance” of the old order. But this is not disappearance to nothingness; rather, the old gives way to the new. And the coming of the new—as we observe in nature—is shown in the “budding” of the fig tree, which presages flowering and harvest. And so the eschatological discourses of Jesus end with a note of promise, of hope, of newness. 

At Jesus’ first coming, the angels sang of “joy to the world.” This joy, Pope Francis reminds us, fills the hearts and lives of people today when they encounter Jesus (Evangelii Gaudium, 1). This joy will be complete when Christ comes again in glory. At that time, “[God] will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, [for] the old order has passed away” (Rv 21:4).

First Reading • Is 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7 
You, Lord, are our father, our redeemer you are named forever. Why do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage. Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you, while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for, such as they had not heard of from of old. No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for him. Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways! Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful; all of us have become like unclean men, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind. There is none who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to cling to you; for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered us up to our guilt. Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.

Responsorial Psalm • Ps 80 
“Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.”

Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2023,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.