20171203 LIVING FULLY IN THE PRESENT FOR THE FUTURE BY REMEMBERING THE
PAST
03 DECEMBER, 2017, Sunday, 1st Week of Advent
Readings
at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Violet.
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First reading
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Isaiah 63:16-17,64:1,3-8 ©
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You, Lord, yourself are our Father,
‘Our Redeemer’ is your ancient name.
Why, Lord, leave us to stray from your ways
and harden our hearts against fearing you?
Return, for the sake of your servants,
the tribes of your inheritance.
Oh, that you would tear the heavens open and come down!
– at your Presence the mountains would melt.
No ear has heard,
no eye has seen
any god but you act like this
for those who trust him.
You guide those who act with integrity
and keep your ways in mind.
You were angry when we were sinners;
we had long been rebels against you.
We were all like men unclean,
all that integrity of ours like filthy clothing.
We have all withered like leaves
and our sins blew us away like the wind.
No one invoked your name
or roused himself to catch hold of you.
For you hid your face from us
and gave us up to the power of our sins.
And yet, Lord, you are our Father;
we the clay, you the potter,
we are all the work of your hand.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 79(80):2-3,15-16,18-19 ©
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Lord of hosts, bring us back; let your face
shine on us and we shall be saved.
O shepherd of Israel, hear us,
shine forth from your cherubim throne.
O Lord, rouse up your might,
O Lord, come to our help.
Lord of hosts, bring us back; let your face
shine on us and we shall be saved.
God of hosts, turn again, we implore,
look down from heaven and see.
Visit this vine and protect it,
the vine your right hand has planted.
Lord of hosts, bring us back; let your face
shine on us and we shall be saved.
May your hand be on the man you have chosen,
the man you have given your strength.
And we shall never forsake you again;
give us life that we may call upon your name.
Lord of hosts, bring us back; let your face
shine on us and we shall be saved.
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Second reading
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1 Corinthians 1:3-9 ©
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May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ send you grace and
peace.
I never stop
thanking God for all the graces you have received through Jesus Christ. I thank
him that you have been enriched in so many ways, especially in your teachers
and preachers; the witness to Christ has indeed been strong among you so that
you will not be without any of the gifts of the Spirit while you are waiting
for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed; and he will keep you steady and
without blame until the last day, the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, because God
by calling you has joined you to his Son, Jesus Christ; and God is faithful.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Ps84:8
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Let us see, O Lord, your mercy
and give us your saving help.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Mark 13:33-37 ©
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Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Be on your guard, stay awake,
because you never know when the time will come. It is like a man travelling
abroad: he has gone from home, and left his servants in charge, each with his
own task; and he has told the doorkeeper to stay awake. So stay awake, because
you do not know when the master of the house is coming, evening, midnight,
cockcrow, dawn; if he comes unexpectedly, he must not find you asleep. And what
I say to you I say to all: Stay awake!’
LIVING FULLY IN THE PRESENT FOR THE FUTURE BY REMEMBERING THE
PAST
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ Isa 63:16-17,64:1,3-8; 1 Cor 1:3-9; Mk 13:33-37
]
What is
life? What are we living for? These are fundamental questions that we need to ask before
we can truly live. Otherwise, our life will lack purpose. Without
purpose, there is no orientation, direction and motivation. If people
live an aimless and meaningless life, it is because they do not have a purpose
that could drive them to give themselves completely. Because there is no
higher purpose in life, many are just living for themselves, for passing
pleasures, for achievements to fulfill their ego, for a love that cannot
last. At the end of the day, the conclusion is that life is a vanity.
Indeed, the
tragedy is that the world lives only for today. They have no thought
of tomorrow because this is the greatest deception of the Evil One to make us
believe that there is no tomorrow. There is only today. When we
die, it will be the end of everything. So there is no future for ourselves.
Forget about sacrifices and using your time to serve people. Just take
care of yourself and your needs. You have only one life to live. So
live fully by enjoying life.
St Paul reminds
us that, “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of
all men most to be pitied.” (1 Cor 15:19)
Christian life is our hope in the glorious future. As St Paul said, we
are “waiting for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.” St John says, “we
know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he
is.” (1 Jn 3:2) The season of Advent precisely celebrates the hope
of the Second Coming of Christ. Our fullness of life is in Christ when He
comes again on the last day.
For that
reason, we need to stay awake. This is what the Lord is urging us in the
gospel. “Be on your guard, stay awake, because you never know when the time
will come.” The Lord will come again any time when we least expect.
His coming is not known through calculation but preparation. No one knows
when He would be coming again. We only know that He is coming.
How do we
prepare for His coming? We do not prepare for His coming by indulging in vain
speculation on the coming of Christ. All such talks are a waste of time
because we do not know the date of His return. On the other hand, we must
not postpone life till the next world. Some of us have a negative outlook
on this world. They are forever in the valley of tears and in exile from
their homeland. Their life consists of suffering, pain and
sacrifices. They are just waiting to be delivered from this world.
Whilst these might be true, it might lead to a joyless life. How could a
Christian live without joy in this life? Jesus promised us that He comes
to give us a joy that the world cannot give. (cf Jn 16:20)
St Paul urges us to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
(Phil 4:4)
So the best
way to prepare for His Second Coming is to live the life of Christ here and
now. This is our foretaste of the life that is to come. To stay
awake means to live. Those who live in sin are sleeping in their ignorance and
wasting their life away. They are blind to what being truly alive means,
other than keeping themselves physically alive. To live fully means that we
must be responsible for the life that the Lord has given to us. We must
live it well and expend it in laboring for the Lord. This is what the
gospel said, “It is like a man travelling abroad: he has gone from home, and
left his servants in charge, each with his own task; and he has told the
doorkeeper to stay awake.” We are given responsibilities in life
according to our charisms, vocation and state of life. To be awake is to
live in the light and in truth.
Secondly, to
stay awake means to live fully by using our gifts for service and love. St Paul reminds us
not to forget that we “have been enriched in so many ways, especially in your
teachers and preachers” and we are not “without any of the gifts of the
Spirit.” All gifts must be used not for ourselves but for the greater
good of the community. Only by using our gifts for service and love, can
we make a difference in the lives of others. Knowing that we have given
hope and life to someone gives us a joy that cannot be compared to the worldly
joys of success and pleasure.
Thirdly, to
be awake means to be a witness of Christ coming into our lives. This means
witnessing how He comes to our lives as we witness to Him in our daily
life. St Paul affirmed the Christian community that their “witness to
Christ has indeed been strong.” Indeed, to be awake means that we are a
Christ to anyone and everyone at any time. We can be a witness to Christ
only when we allow Christ to live in us. Hence, when Christ is in us,
then Christ has already come into our lives. Whenever we reach out to
others, Christ comes into our lives through the poor. Indeed, Christ
comes to us every day in our daily encounters with people and with
creation. If only we open our eyes and love them. Hence, Jesus
said, “So stay awake, because you do not know when the master of the house is
coming, evening, midnight, cockcrow, dawn; if he comes unexpectedly, he must
not find you asleep.” When we love, He comes at every hour and not just
at the end of time.
To live or to
die is not the question that Christians should be asking. St Paul said, “None
of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to
the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or
whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived
again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” (Rom 14:7-9)
Life is not between physical life and biological death. Life is a
question of how well we live in Christ. If we live the life of Christ
now, we are alive whilst still on this earth and fully alive when we complete
our life on this earth. This explains why St Paul could not choose
between staying on this earth or being with Christ. (cf Phil 2:20-26)
So St Paul choose to stay in this world for our sake only, so that he could
continue to give us hope and lead us to Christ. In the same way, if we
live, it must be for the same reason, that we might give life to others.
We do not live for ourselves but for others. This is the real purpose and
meaning of life. Living for God so that we can live fully for others in
Christ.
So how can we
live fully in the present? We can do this by remembering our past. There are many things
and lessons in life we can learn from our past. First and
foremost, we must learn from our teachers, as St Paul said, “you have
been enriched in so many ways, especially in your teachers and
preachers.” We are called to be grateful to those who have sacrificed
their lives, time and energy for our salvation and our formation. Just as
we have received from them, so we must now in turn form and teach others.
The best gift we can give to our teachers and preachers is to honor them by
doing what they had done for us
Secondly, we
must learn from our sins and the sins of others. This is what the
prophet Isaiah is saying. When we reflect on our woes and problems in
life, it is because we have caused ourselves to suffer by our sins. Sin
blinds us to the deeper meaning of life. Because of sin, we end up living
on the sensual level, which reduces us to an animal, not a human being who has
a spirit and a soul. When we sin, the Lord abandons us to our
sins. “For you hid your face from us and gave us up to the power of our
sins.” The punishment for sin is to commit more sins, till sins have
power over us, and we lose our freedom to do what is truly good and
life-giving.
On this First
Sunday of Advent, the Church is appealing us to see the destiny ahead of us and
not to be short-sighted by simply living for this world and for
ourselves. So let us come back to God by seeking repentance. God is our Father and
He will bring us back to Him. He wants us to start our life anew
again as we begin the new liturgical calendar. “Lord, you are our Father;
we the clay, you the potter, we are all the work of your hand.”
He will
intervene in our lives again if we ask Him for that grace. Indeed, He will pour
down rain once again and open the heavens for us. “Oh, that you would
tear the heavens open and come down – at your Presence the mountains would
melt. No ear has heard, no eye has seen any god but you act like this for those
who trust him. You guide those who act with integrity and keep your ways in
mind.” St Paul assures us that God is faithful. “He will keep you
steady and without blame until the last day, the day of our Lord Jesus Christ,
because God by calling you has joined you to his Son, Jesus Christ; and God is
faithful.” May this prayer be ours today. “May God our Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ send you grace and peace.”
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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