1st Sunday of Advent--Be Prepared!

The more I experience our Catholic faith, the more apparent that there is a Deep Wisdom to our world, to our universe, to us.

God is alive!
God is alive in such a way that God brings such meaning to this world.

The Good News is that God desires that we share fully in this deep wisdom.  God wants us to be Truly Alive

Joy is the sign that we have touched upon this wisdom:  we as persons and we as a community.
Joy is the visible sign of our aliveness, of wisdom.

The Son of God became human, to bring us this Good news and to bring us this Deep Wisdom, so that we will choose to embrace life in the full!

Life in the full is about love for others and letting ourselves be loved.
It is about giving of ourselves for the good of others, as God did, as Christ did.

Think about it, this is God’s very nature, Jesus is the visible sign of this.  
God so loved the world, he gave the beloved Son
The Son of God gave of himself and became human…   
God lets us love God.

We are getting ready to celebrate God embracing life in the full, Christmas.
When Jesus became fully Human!  

The Son of God did not just appear to be human, or just have a human shell.   The Son of God fully embraced humanity, so that we could fully embrace the Divine.

How many of us here are ready to go run a marathon right now?  Be honest?  No, we would have to train.  For some of us, we would have to start out with merely getting around the block without going into cardiac arrest.

We need to prepare & train.

This applies to our spiritual life.  It applies to embracing the Deep Wisdom the God gives to us.  It is the same for being open to the fullness of Life.

This is what our scripture today wants us to do; be prepared!

We need to train, and Jesus is that Trainer.  
He will push us to strengthen our hearts, minds and souls, so that we can accept more of this spiritual wisdom.
Jesus in our lives get us spiritually in shape so that we can be alive;
he asks us to forgive, to be merciful, to be silent and listen, to be generous; he asks us to love.

And the more we practice these on a regular basis, the more we are prepared.

And when prepared, we will get it!  That Deep Wisdom will become evident.

Here the Gospel tells us that this Wisdom will come and grab us, and we will gain a deeper understanding about life, ourselves and others.  
We will understand and grasp what it truly means to be alive in moments when we least expect it.  

It will happen in line at a coffee shop, at our computers, driving around town, at school.

We will grasp that freedom, the power that comes with forgiveness, with mercy, with compassion, with humility, with love.

We will grasp the freedom of God when we let go trying to be God.

I remember once a person who came to me upset, angry.  An older parent who was praying for adult children who no longer went to church.  This parent was praying to God to make the children change.  It was not happening.  So the parent was angry at God, disappointed in God, because God did not seem to answer prayers.
I asked what if instead you stopped telling God what to do and stopped trying to control your children, and simply asked God to change you; to maybe inspire your children; or to accept your children and what you cannot control.

It sunk in.  Tears.  There was no reason to be angry, to live in anger.
That was a moment of salvation, a moment of wisdom.

Too many of us are filled with anger, disappointment, fear, dissatisfaction.
Too many of us are not allowing ourselves to experience JOY!
We are too caught up in ourselves, in our immediate desires, in our own egos.
We are too caught up in our fears; fearful we aren’t good enough, fearful that we won’t succeed.  Fearful that we will fail.  So we make bad choices that hurt uu & hurt others.

Our unhappiness, I am willing to bet, is 90%+ the result of our own outlook on life.  Because we are not acting wisely.

Advent is our special time to become prepared for the Birth of God as human, God embracing and making this life Good.

It is a grace filled time for us to reflect on our lives, and invite Christ into those parts that are not full of life.

Embrace your training.


And as the bread and wine are transformed into True Life, so will God do the same for us.  So that we can be Alive, truly Alive.

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