Transcript of Abbot Clement’s Homily at the Viliya Mass on December 3, 2006

It is clear from the gospel that the Lord wants to keep before our mind and therefore also the Church in choosing this gospel, that the world will have an end. That the stars, the skies, etc., will collapse and it will be a frightening experience for many people. If I was there I= m sure I would be frightened too. But Jesus points out that this is simply the beginning of a new beginning. Namely, that he will appear in glory and gather all those who believe. So it= s a high moment, a very important moment, in God= s work of salvation to complete the work namely, to draw humanity into participating fully into his glory.

So if this is the text the church has chosen for the beginning of Advent it= s telling us that Advent is a real time of hope. It means we have the victory if we are on Jesus= side. And if we have any idea of this then we have to realize that God= s plans are pretty thorough. God didn’t ask you whether you want be born but he didn’t ask you either whether he could come and save you. So out of the sheer goodness of his heart he came to save us. And his plan is so great that it covers not only our whole life, not only the whole life of humanity, but his own plans of sharing his glory with the human race. So it= s going to be interesting to meet you in heaven. Are you going to be a 5 watt bulb or a 50 watt bulb or a 1000 watt bulb? It will be interesting. It won= t be accusatory we will rejoice that we= re all lit up.

But the problem is that we don= t know how to enter this because this is obviously been going on for 2000 years and this is God= s plan. He wants to pour out his life into us but we seem to be very slow learners. So what we really need to do is ask ourselves do we really take out time to enter Advent. To be a hope filled people realizing that God wants to pour his life out into our life now and make it blossom eventually.

So it seemed there were two mothers decided that they were going to take their children Christmas shopping. So they piled the kids in the car and off they went. After running up and down the aisles of the stores and getting what they wanted, they pack the kids in the car, put the packages in the trunk, then the mother takes off, gets on the freeway and all of a sudden there= s a scream, a whoosh of wind, and the door opened and one of the kids tumbles out. Naturally the mother= s are almost panicked. She puts on the brakes; both of the mothers run out and saw what happened. When they got there a truck driver, a big husky man, bent down and was picking up the girl says, "She doesn’t seem too bad. Let= s go to the hospital." In the mean time all the traffic stopped behind the truck. So they get to the hospital and there they are waiting in the emergency room waiting for the doctor to come out, nervous and praying, and some other people came that saw the situation. Then the doctor came out and said: "Well, the child is obviously bruised and has some abrasions because of the tumbling but actually there= s no bones broken and I think she’ll be fine."

I think that this is a sign, a very important sign for us to look at Advent. It= s a road sign to remind us that we= re on a journey of hope and we may miss the sign. For most of us we= re always so busy about many things. And we find that our rushing around never makes us stop. Just stop! For the people that were driving on the freeway the child tumbling on the road seemed to appear from nowhere. For us when we are busy about many things and the Lord manages to tumble into our life, that all of a sudden we can wake up. Our race can stop and we can pay attention to the child that= s in our way. That child is Jesus. There is no hope in this world what so ever if there= s no hope in Jesus. God has saved the world, has saved you and me in Jesus. There are tons of people busy about all kinds of things but they don= t stop to receive his tender forgiving mercy. Not only that Jesus happens to be very good at saving. That= s what he= s excellent at. And the Trinity is always working. So Jesus is working precisely to get us to be reconciled with ourselves, with our neighbor, with God and to put sin aside out of our life, and heal us. The Holy Spirit is always working to perfect us, to sanctify us, to complete the work of reconciliation. And the Father is always working to make us fruitful so that our life is not wasted on earth. So the Trinity has always been coming to us. He started with creation to draw closer to us and he continued to draw closer to mankind the Old Testament community and then he came himself. So we don= t celebrate Advent and pretend Jesus didn’t come. No, we are fully aware he came and we take out time to really stop and let the Lord in so that our hope becomes more grounded. We have the victory in Christ. But we can= t have it if we don’t open ourselves up to the action of God in our life. And there is no other hope. I mean, I don= t care if you hope in money, I didn’t see anybody yet with a U-haul behind their entourage when they= re taking them to the cemetery. There is no other hope. But that hope is not only available the Lord wants to give it to us and is giving it to us. So already we know some of the places where we can open ourselves up to this tremendous hope that= s ours every time we receive the Eucharist we receive the presence of the Lord, who is divine and therefore we have a taste and beginning of eternal life. All the sacraments do this. But especially this one. We need Jesus and each other. Jesus told us what you do to the least, you do to me. We have plenty of lives of Saints to read. Take St. Martin of Tours who cuts his cloak and gives it to a beggar and finds out that it was Jesus. So we have plenty of witnesses to this truth that we meet Jesus in each other. Then we meet Jesus in events. It= s quite clear that certain decisions in your life because they were really Christ like they put you in a whole new direction and made you grow. Those are only three places where we know we can meet the Lord.

So what does is mean for us say, A let= s do Advent better this year than last year?@ Let= s stop and really try to let the Lord= s saving power into our life. There are two things that we can do in terms of prayerful guidance. The church is very wise it always tells us that we can always do two kinds of thinking. One is to look at the past. All historians tell you if you don= t pay attention to the past you repeat it. So you better pay attention to it. But the church has been doing that for centuries. She always quotes the prophets and so on. So what you do is you go and look at the past. What has God done so far? He promised to come as we heard in the first reading. But we know he= s fulfilled it. And he’s done it freely. He didn’t ask us about it. So you can spend quite a bit of time when you come to Mass on Sunday and you look at the first reading spend some time and really see what God has done to already fulfill those things. His promises are fulfilled. Thank him, praise him, and open yourself up to him.

But there= s another kind of thinking that the church also makes us do, which is also very human and that is to set goals to think of the future. And again the church, and in today= s reading is clear, is telling us that Jesus will come in glory and when Jesus comes in glory that= s going to be the fulfillment of our goals. You and I will be in glory. Remember the bulb question. 50, 100, or 1000 watt. But the Lord gives us grace then to move in that direction to become more loving presences in the world. So when you hear the text in Advent you need to pay attention to the goals God sets for us because that= s what he is doing in your life. He= s moving you to participate more deeply into the life of Jesus so that you may also share more his glory. Again you can praise, thank, and ask him for some help.

Advent is really a season of tremendous hope. Not only that it= s a good investment, that is, God has done all these things and made these graces available to us all he asks is that we take out some time and let God act in our life. So it= s up to us to really make this Advent different and show by our life that we are a people that have solid hope. Our hope is not fictitious, it= s not based on something, somebody= s opinion. Jesus already rose from the dead. He= s already in glory. So we know that if we follow him we shall participate in that glory.