First Sunday of Advent 

  Year A 

Isaiah 2: 1-5 

Psalm 122 (121): 1-2, 4-9

Romans 13:11-14

Matthew 24:37-44

On this First Sunday of Advent, we enter into a new liturgical year. Today begins our four weeks’ journey to Bethlehem. “Wake up from your sleep! The night is far gone! The day is near!”, proclaims Saint Paul, in the Second Reading. All through the Advent we will be reminded how much this season is a time to wake up and get ready for the light that beckons from the horizon.

Every year Christians are invited to a double pilgrimage: the first one is towards Christ, towards his birth, towards Bethlehem, and the second one is with Christ, towards Jerusalem, towards the paschal mystery (See Lk 9:51). The first pilgrimage is for the mystery of the Incarnation, and the second is for the mystery of the Resurrection. “Incarnation”, God-become-man, and “Resurrection”, Jesus risen from the dead, are the two pillars on which our faith is built(1)

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In the First Reading of today, the prophet Isaiah speaks of the pilgrimage that all the nations of the world have to undertake towards the God of Jerusalem. Like the huge crowds that converged on the sanctuaries of the Fertile Crescent for the festivals of their deities, Isaiah sees the whole of humanity as a people on pilgrimage - “All the nations shall stream to Jerusalem. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord… that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths…’ Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!” (Isa 2:2,3,5). This Reading from Isaiah seems to have been chosen to serve as a springboard to launch us into the Advent season to lead us into the mystery of our redemption.

And lo, the skies are torn apart. God enters the fray. A time of eager expectation begins for humanity, a time of waiting for the Saviour to be born. Today we take the first step towards the crib. We must enter into Advent a little bit as if we were in ancient times with their prophets, priests and kings, all scanning the horizon for the Messiah. None of them saw the Saviour because they were Old Testament people. All of them finally slept in death, but with their unflinching hope kept alive in their hearts:“They all saw me, even Abraham saw me!”, says Jesus, “Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad” (See John 8: 56; 12: 41).

The pilgrimage that we embark upon today will end solemnly on the night of the Paschal Vigil when we will have acknowledged that indeed “God so loved the world that He sent His only Son into the world, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). And the priest, representing the people, will light the candle from new fire and say,“May the light of Christ, rising in glory, dispel the darkness of our minds”. He will then cut a cross in the wax, and trace the Greek characters Alpha and Omega and in between them the numerals of the current year and say, “Christ, yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, all time belongs to him, and all ages, to him be glory and power through every age forever.”

And we will sing the Exultet. We will sing that in the rising of Jesus the Red Sea has been split anew and that the Jordan has stopped flowing once again. Through him shines the light that cracks through the enigma of sin and death that crush us under their weight. In him is the healing from our sicknesses. Through him has been manifested the power of God’s love. Amen

(Homilies for Year A, Tiburtius Fernandez, (c) St. Paul's Publications, Bandra, Mumbai, India, 2022 pp. 15-19)