Sunday Homily

Sunday
Homily



Candle Icon of Jesus Candle

"Brothers and Sisters in Christ"
(00-FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT)

December 3, 2000

Readinds: Jeremiah 33:12-16; 1Thess. 3:12-4:2

Gospel: Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

A philosophy professor at the university was trying to explain to the class what a course in logic could do for a person's thinking. "Suppose," he said, "that two people came out of a chimney. One is clean and one is dirty. Which one takes a bath? asked the professor. "The dirty one, naturally," answered a student. Am I correct?" "Wrong. Absolutely wrong," said the professor. "Logic teaches us that if two workers go into a chimney, how could one come out clean and another one dirty?"

Such is the logic of people's thinking when they hear Jesus speak about the signs that will initiate his Second Coming at the end of the world. "There will be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars, the roaring of the seas and the waves," says Jesus, and people immediately will draw the conclusion that the end of the world is near. In other words, the gospel message is not about the end of the world but about the Second Coming of Jesus and being ready and prepared to receive him when he comes again. Our example of chimney is not about the people who came out of the chimney but about chimney itself. So the logic of Jesus' teaching is not to scare us about the end of the world but to prepare us to his Second Coming so that he will find us in a perfect relationship with him.

This beautiful season of Advent that we begin today is a constant reminder of "the unknown time-limit" our lives have on earth and the necessity of being prepared to leave this world in a moment's notice. God has given us much time since last Christmas and Advent is that time again to take a good look at our lives and examine how well we have used this time to please God. This beautiful season of Advent gives us the constant assurance that the future is in God's hands, that time belongs only to God, that he future can only be lived by living the present in obedience to God's will. This beautiful season of Advent is a season of opportunities to make changes in our lives, to give a new direction in our search for new ways of loving God and our neighbor as Jesus has taught us.

My friends, we cannot keep time standstill because only God is in control of time. And so time passes on and so is the Christmas season. If it makes no difference in our lives by making us better followers of Jesus, then Christmas will be like any other holiday - nothing in our lives will have changed. The whole Christmas season then will only be another illogical event that went by as fast as it came. Amen





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