First Advent- B

FIRST ADVENT IN YEAR B 

Good morning everyone, I am happy to welcome you all for today's Holy Mass. 

Once while a priest was preaching his powerful First Advent homily, he noticed that a man was sound asleep, the louder the he preached, the sounder the man slept. And at one point, the priest stopped preaching and looked at his wife and said, "would you please wake him up". The wife said, "Father, wake him up yourself, you put him to sleep". 

Today's gospel invites us to 'Keep awake' because the Lord Christ is coming in an unexpected hour. We have to keep awake to welcome Him. 

Once while man was sleeping, he had a terrible, terrible dream in which he was being chased by a lion and as he was running, there came running in front of him, a tiger and then he realized that he was being surrounded by so many ferocious animals. So, what should he do to escape from those ferocious animals? All he should do is just wake up from his sleep.  

Yes, waking up means getting ready. We are called to wake up to welcome the Lord our God who is coming in an unexpected time. 

There is a revealing story of a monk who lived in a desert. He was so tormented by temptations that he could not bear them any longer. So, he decided to abandon his ascetic and monk life and go somewhere else. Then, as he was putting on his sandals to get out from there, he saw another monk was also putting on his sandals. " Who are you?" He asked the stranger. "I am yourself" was the reply. "I am going to go with you wherever you go. Then the self said, "Just learn to deal with yourself". Therefore, keep awake and you will find Christ in everything. 

 Christ who is always with us is coming back in an unexpected time. So, we have to keep awake.   

Christ the Lord is coming and on the day, the faithful and unfaithful; good and bad; righteous and sinners will see Him face to face. Yes, everyone will see Him on the last day. As He promised, He would come again in an unexpected time and until then we should continue to practice our faith. 

Once during a battle between Christians and Muslims, a Christian soldier was giving water to a wounded Muslim soldiers as they lay suffering without water under the hot sun. And he was brought before the king and accused of being a traitor. The king heard the charges and looked at the soldier for an explanation. Then the soldier looked at the king and said, "When I was walking through the battle fields, I saw no Muslim and no Christian, only the face of Christ in every suffering person". The king then calmly said, " Continue what you are doing".  

Dear friends, the Lord is coming. He is coming in an unexpected time. Let us continue to do our good works among the people. The season of Advent invites us to keep awake and welcome the Lord who is going to come in an unexpected time. So let us keep awake by putting our faith into practice. 

Let us always remember, "If we want to shine like the Son of man, First we should burn like the Sun". Amen