FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT

First Sunday of advent-C 

Good morning/evening everyone, I am so happy to welcome you all for today’s Holy Mass. 

Once as a man was checking his cellphone and minding his own business, his wife came behind him and hit him with a frying pan. He was so shocked and asked her why. She said, ‘I found this piece of paper in your pocket and it is written Janes and who is Janes?’ The husband laughed and laughed and said, “Oh, that is a name of a horse I was betting on”. The wife apologized and went away. And within two days, again she hit him with a bigger frying pan, and he asked why. She said, “That horse who were betting on, called you this morning”. 

Friends in Christ Jesus, as we begin the new season of Advent, we are presented with the second coming of Christ our Lord.  the bible says that there is a season for everything. What is here today, will be gone tomorrow. God has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, He has put a sense of past and future into everyone’s mind and yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 

Christ Jesus who left behind His apostles, disciples and followers to continue to His great mission of preaching and healing, is coming back to glorify them and give them life. 

Even before His coming, there will be great cosmic changes. There will be sings in the Sun, the moon and the stars”. Yes, the Sun and the moon will be darkened. The stars will lose their power. The book of Genesis says that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and those first created things will begin to change. They will shape into new eternal form to welcome the Lord our God who asks us to be awake and alert. Our very essence of human will begin to change. We will become new persons. That day, we will know that that the sun light or the moon light are like mere shadow in the light of Christ. He is coming to bring new light and new light to all who believed and followed Him. 

The gospel today asks us not to be worried about our daily things forgetting the coming of Christ our Lord. Today there are so many people worried about worldly and material things. A child who is going to school is a very difficult and hard thing and complains going to school, will also complain to go to work saying, “this job is killing me, and I can’t wait for Friday and that same person once get married would say, “I am not a marriage material and this marriage is so hard to live and once they bring children into the world, would say, “I cannot raise children in this world and then grandchildren are not good and on and on. Then as you go and visit them in the nursing home, all they will say, “I want to go home, and this is not my place”. And thus, life will end in complaining. They are so worried about every day thing and forget the real meaning of life, happiness, joy and encountering Christ our Lord every day. 

There is a beautiful story about a man who was sleeping, had a horrible, horrible nightmare in which he was being chased by a lion. As he was running away from the lion, there comes in front of him a tiger and then he realized that he was being surrounded by so many ferocious animals, what should he do to escape? It’s so easy, since he is sleeping and dreaming, all he has to do is just, get up.  

Friends in Christ, you have to get up from your sleep and say “No” today from so many things that are hindering you from going to Christ and loving Him. As we know that Christ is the only way to the Father, we will be given enough strength to face all our challenges, to face all our difficulties and to face all our pain and suffering knowing that Christ is coming to give us life, life that will never end. So let us keep away and renew ourselves in Christ every day. Amen.