Weekly HOMILY for December 2, 2007: The Warnings of Advent

1st Sunday of Advent, Cycle A
Our Lady of Grace
December 2, 2007

The Warnings of Advent
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

Focus: Advent Has Two Warnings to Offer Us
Function: If We Heed Advents Warnings We Can Experience a Fuller Coming of the Lord Jesus into Our Lives
Form: The Lesson


Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Most of us have heard of the Russian novelist and historian Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn was very critical of the Communist system of government, and because of that, he was very much disliked by the Russian authorities. He also expressed some critical insights about the West, including the United States.

This past week, I came across an article by Solzhenitsyn entitled Warning. It was originally a lecture that he had given at Harvard University and his insights are very pertinent on this First Sunday of Advent.


Solzhenitsyn’s Warning

Solzhenitsyn says that since the time of the Enlightenment, we’re talking about the year 1750 or so, there has been an unfortunate shift of thinking in the Western world.

The shift has been away from a God-centered universe and toward a human-centered vision of things. Little by little, humanism has led us to see ourselves as completely independent, even independent from God.

Such a mindset holds that nothing is to interfere with our freedom.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn says that when American Democracy was established, our understanding of human freedom and human rights was that they were granted on the grounds that we also had responsibilities, especially to God.

Solzhenitsyn says that unfortunately this assumption has eroded in the Western world. Now, we accept no limitations on our freedom. None!

There is no longer any linking of freedom or rights to responsibility to God and the community. The result is that we human beings have become our own moral authority, with no objective basis of morality beyond ourselves.

Solzhenitsyn goes on to say that the spiritual life was indeed trampled by Communism in the East. And to that he adds, it is now being trampled by materialism and commercialism in the West.

Solzhenitsyn so correctly says that the very fact that our physical body dies is an indication that living only for material things or for the body is cannot the real purpose of life.

The real purpose of your life and mine is moral or spiritual growth, growth in our relationship with God.


Advent’s Warning

Solzhenitsyn’s article – Warning – is very appropriate for us today.

The Advent Season begins with Jesus’ warning in today’s Gospel. He calls us to be alert and ready for the coming of the Lord.

Jesus warns us to be God-centered in a way that is very similar to Solzhenitsyn’s warning. The question is: what might we do to heed Jesus’ warning?

What directions might we take? I see two actions in today’s readings.


Heeding the Warning

First, we need to check just what our focus is on the material and on the body. In the GOSPEL, Jesus talks about people who are “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage right up to the day of the flood.”

Obviously, there is nothing wrong with any of these activities in themselves. Scripture scholars tell us that Jesus is more concerned about those who are totally absorbed in the material world, in the here-and-now, as if there were nothing beyond this moment, this “stuff.”

In the SECOND READING, ST. PAUL tells us to avoid promiscuity and lust and to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” In our society today, there seems to be an excessive emphasis on the body and an absence of limits on our freedom with regard to sexual activity.

In response to all of this promiscuity, we need to heed Jesus’ and St. Paul’s words today to cultivate the inner, spiritual life. A life grounded on the Word of God and the Eucharist and on personal prayer will keep in check the exaggerated emphasis on the material and on the body.

And second, we also need to check the tendency to violence and lack of respect for others. In the first reading, Isaiah associates God’s presence with an experience of utter peace.

ISAIAH foresees a time when “Swords will be turned into ploughs and spears into rakes.” At first thought, we may not think that we engage in violent or even disrespectful behavior.

But we have to get in touch with the violence of road rage or supermarket rage or four- letter words or put downs of one another. We need to see others as persons and not as things that may or may not satisfy us.

We need to understand and empathize, instead of being judgmental and demeaning. This will check the tendency to violence and lack of respect toward others in our society.


Conclusion

So, we have some very clear warnings on this First Sunday of Advent.

(1) Check the focus on the material and the body and cultivate an inner, spiritual life.

(2) Check the tendency to violent and disrespectful words and actions and work at understanding and empathy.

If we heed these Advent warnings, we will be ready for the Lord to come more fully to us even right now.