A Homily for the 1st Sunday of Advent
Last year, one of you, gave me a book to read for Advent. It was a collection of homilies and letters of Fr. Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest who lived in Germany during the Second World War. The name of the book is Advent of the Heart. Like so many devout persons at the time, Fr. Delp recognized in the Nazi government the presence of evil, and he was very concerned about helping people see the presence of Christ Jesus as a contradiction to the evil of the Nazis. Fr. Delp worked with the German Resistance, helping those in danger from the Nazis, mostly Jews, to escape to safety. Most importantly he worked to help prepare people for rebuilding the Kingdom of God from the ashes of the Nazi regime.
Although he had nothing to do with the assassination attempt of Hitler, Fr. Delp was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned as a conspirator. Eventually he was convicted of treason and hung by the Nazis; his body being burned and the ashes scattered. He died a martyr’s death.
Fr. Delp had a great love for the season of Advent, and I was particularly moved by his homilies given for the Advent of 1941. I was so impressed by his reflections, that I knew that I wanted to share them with all of you, but by the time I finished reading them, Advent was over. So I had to wait for this year. Fr. Delps focus that Advent, and mine this Advent, is on the ways in which Advent “calls” us to an encounter with God.
This as been a difficult year. While some have been effected more than others, no one has been unaffected by the economic crisis. Such a crisis often begets other difficulties – perhaps medical difficulties, or substance abuse, or interpersonal conflicts. Of course even with as bad as things have been this year, it pales in comparison with the horror that Fr. Delp and his parishioners witnessed in 1941 – a world at war. Yet despite the troubles, Fr. Delp reminds us that on the First Sunday of Advent the Church gives voice to the ancient prayer heard in today’s Responsorial Psalm, “To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.”
Advent is a season for letting go of the concerns going on in our lives, and to prepare ourselves for an encounter with God. It is not a time of merely reenacting an historical waiting for Christ. It is a special time for preparing ourselves for an ever new encounter with Christ come in the Flesh.
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus invites us to turn our attention to the Last Things – namely, death, judgment, Heaven and Hell. He warns us that at end of time there will be great and terrible signs in the sun, moon, and stars. He says that the nations will be put to great confusion, and that the very heavens will be shaken. It is easy to see, living in the times that he did, why Fr. Delp focused his homily for the First Sunday of Advent on being shaken awake, and how we can encounter Christ Jesus in the shaking. As he said, “Perhaps what we modern people need most is to be genuinely shaken, so that where life is grounded, we would feel its stability; and where life is unstable and uncertain, immoral and unprincipled, we would know that, also, and endure it” (Delp, Advent of the Heart, p. 41).
Too often we put our faith in things that cannot help but give us a false sense of security. We often think that we are just so very smart, that we can control our own destiny. We plan for retirement by building up our financial portfolio. We get ourselves material things to make life easier, and to give us the “good” life. We marvel at medical science and take good health for granted. We make plans, and we really should make those plans. However, our lives can be shaken, and those plans can fall apart. I am sure that the current financial crisis has shaken quite a few retirement plans; some have not been able to retire as soon as they planned, while others who had retired have found themselves needing to go back to work to make ends meet. Maybe it was a sudden, unexpected health crisis that has shaken our plans. It can even be a good thing; my sister Ann, at age 43, and her husband who are already parents of four beautiful children, really thought that they middle-of-the-night feedings and diapers days were in the past, and they were looking forward to the activities that older children are involved in. Now they are expecting child number 5, any day now. Their plans have been shaken.
God does not shake up our lives just to cause chaos and despair. He does not want to call forth false anxiety. Rather, God shakes the earth in order to teach us to be moved in spirit. It is in shaking up our lives that we can see what things are really false securities, and what we can cling to that will endure no matter how much life gets shaken. God wants us to have a clear view of things as they really are. Only then can we come into the presence of God; or perhaps a better way to say it is we recognize the presence of God in our lives. God is the Ultimate Reality. His love is unstoppable and can never be shaken.
It is common to hear about conversions to Christ after some great crisis in a persons life. That is the “opportunity” that each crisis, each shakening, offers. Yet God is not only present to us during times of crisis. He is ever-present, and He wants us to encounter Him every moment of every day. As we start this Advent season we need to allow our hearts to be shaken – out of of complacency, out of our sinfulness, out of our sloth – so that we can be awakened to the presence of Christ Jesus in our lives, now and forever.
