Fullerton T

THE THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

This Sunday is called “Gaudete” Sunday — it is the Sunday during advent in which we rejoice of course we are supposed to rejoice on every Sunday as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus in our liturgies. The rejoicing we are talking about today comes from the today’s readings, and it underlines an important point. In the Gospel, we hear John the Baptist telling different groups what to do – they must repent, and change their lives. We might think of this as a rather joyless thing – something which is hard and unrewarding. In many of our Churches this weekend we will light the pink candle and the president/presider may be wearing rose or red colored vestments. The message of this Sunday is one of repentance that is repentance in order to change our lives so we are really able to welcome Jesus and this is something richly joyful as we make our Christmas Preparations. When we are planning to welcome anyone to our homes, we set about cleaning and preparing for their visit with enthusiasm – nothing is too much trouble for someone we care for greatly. Even scrubbing the bath or polishing the furniture can be a happy and joyful thing yes you did read scrubbing the bath! The message of this Sunday is that preparing to welcome the Lord – even though it may involve hard work – is something joyful, because of our love for Him, and His love for us for great in our midst is the holy one of Israel.

A sensible way to prepare for Christ’s arrival is to learn from the example of other people who have prepared well while they awaited his arrival. There are many such examples in the Bible and John the Baptist is one of the most striking. John’s preparation for the Messiah’s arrival was characterised by his preaching. He preached a message of hope and repentance to dejected people   whose land was occupied by foreigners, who were often exploited by their religious leaders and who had become spiritually enslaved to sin. John also fasted and did penance in preparation for the coming of the long-awaited Messiah and he urged other people to do the same.

John learnt that the only way to become disentangled from sin is through repentance and conversion. Thus his preaching focused on the urgency of repentance and he reassured the people about God’s providential care and complete fidelity towards them even when, at times, they were unfaithful and sinful. They could be certain that God’s promise to send the Saviour would soon be realised. We are asked to emulate John’s example by being people who are repentant for our sins. We are invited to encourage other people to become repentant too. We cannot truly meet Christ as he comes into our lives each day unless we are without sin because it imprisons us and prevents us from recognising him. Nowadays, people have lost their sense of sin and the damage it can do to the individual and our communities.

Many people mistakenly think that sin does not exist and as we all know SIN certainly exists in our modern world. Many people presume that they can do whatever they wish and as we know all our actions have consequences. In effect, God gave us free will so that we can choose good instead of evil. In addition, the Church’s teaching guides us in our beliefs and practices so that we can prepare adequately for eternity with God.  There is so much in our lives in these days of instant communications to make us anxious worried and afraid. Anxious and worried about the present times and afraid of the future but we have to remember in him that is in God in whom we live, and move and have our being nothing is impossible. I know that there is a great spirit of rejoicing for many people for many reasons all over the place whilst there is also a spirit of fear and trepidation for many more in these uncertain times. Let us remember as we continue our daily lives not to be anxious about anything the Lord is very near to us as we journey along our pilgrim path. So then let us rejoice in the Lord, not in the world; that is, rejoice in faithfulness and not in iniquity; rejoice in the hope of eternity and not the brief flower of vanity that is part of our  daily lives. Rejoice wherever we are for the Lord is very near: do not be anxious about anything our hope and our salvation are at hand. Let us go forth in peace and joy to meet the Lord when he comes.

First Sunday of Advent Year C

Well here we are at the start of the Advent season and the new liturgical year.  In our Churches on this Sunday we   light the first candle on the Advent Wreath and put the first leaves on the Jesse Tree. Advent like Lent is a time of preparation of body mind and spirit though it is a good bit easier than the six weeks of Lent for so many reasons. The word ADVENT comes from the Latin and it means coming and that is what advent is about the coming of Jesus into the world. Yet with all the flurry and hurry of December it can be so easy for us to lose the short time that we might have during each day to pray and listen to what god is saying to each of us.

The Scriptures of Advent open this year with an appeal for justice and security. Our society longs for a better life the same way ancient Israel and Judah did. We long for safety within our borders. We long for leaders of blameless conduct. We long for these blessings to last.

During Advent we want to see the fulfilment of God’s promises. God promised peace. God promised safety. God promised good leaders.God promised food, drink, and strength. During Advent we anticipate the fulfilment of God’s main promise: salvation. We await the annual celebration of the birth of Jesus, whose name means Saviour and whose mission brought redemption. God gives us a different grace in every liturgical season and God has a grace to give you and me this Advent. If Advent is only a time of consumerism and buying gifts for people that they don’t really want or need, it is flying in the face of what Jesus is all about. There is only one gift at Christmas, that gift is Jesus. Jesus is the grace that the Father wants to give to us this Advent. Let us spend time with God to receive this grace. As we examine our consciences this Advent and see our shortcomings we are privileged to receive the mercy of God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. When Jesus was entering Jerusalem for the last time he cried because the people of Jerusalem did not recognize the time of their visitation (Luke 19:41-42). Let us not miss out on the grace God is offering us this Advent and remember when we get to our Christmas Celebrations that Jesus is the reason for the Season.

33Rd Sunday Of Ordinary Time

This Sunday we celebrate the 33^rd Sunday of the year as we head towards the end of the Churches liturgical year at the feast of Christ the King and  then we go into  the Advent and  Christmas seasons (Dare I mention CHRISTMAS?) As always at this time of year, we begin to contemplate the end of the world ‑ a theme that carries us over into next Sunday’s feast Christ the King and then  into Advent. Such a contemplation is not gloomy or morbid: throughout the ages (and especially in the early days) Christians have been utterly posi­tive about the coming end of all things, because we know what will happen  the phrase that gives this away is in the Gospel: “Then… he will send his angels to gather his chosen from the four winds.” This gathering of God’s children to­gether will be a truly wonderful event, when we will all be completely enfolded in that love of God that we hear so much about.

Jesus’ teaching today reminds us that there is nothing really permanent in all the structures of this world. Jesus cuts straight to our desire for immortality with these disquieting words “All will be thrown down.”   These are the words that echo the great prophetic tradition of the Jewish people. No doubt this raised the anxiety of the disciples who press him for answers of “when will this be?” They press him for signs of the end.

In Jesus’ day, and down throughout the ages to our own time, there are plenty of people out there who look for signs, as if knowing when the end will come will somehow change its coming. Our faith tells us there will be a time when all things will come to an end; does knowing exactly when it will happen really give us any mastery over it? I don’t think that it does.

In the larger context of Mark’s gospel, these words from Jesus come just before he enters Jerusalem to be crucified. These words about the destruction of the temple and upheavals to come are a prefiguring of his own death – the very destruction of his own body. “All will be thrown down” is a promise that all things of this world will fall apart, disintegrate and die. However  Jesus reminds us that our job in this present time isn’t to know exactly what will happen, how it will happen, or when it will happen; rather our job is to be faithful, patient and keep awake, because God is working out the plan of salvation and has not abandoned us. Everything will be all right because God is in charge. This isn’t to say things will be easy and that hardships and suffering won’t befall us because they will. It isn’t an empty optimism promising things will get better for our lives; they may or may not be better and more often they may well be worse. It is a promise that God is in charge regardless of anything that happens to us.

Christ promises us that things will be all right because God has the last word. When death on the cross appeared to be the end, it certainly was not God had the last word at an empty tomb on the third day,  the day of resurrection.

Throughout our lives, we will experience death and resurrection many times over as the neatly arranged structures of our lives are thrown down. In faith and because of faith we will not be disappointed god is with us and there will be many times in the future as there have been in the past and are in the here and now of today when we see that everything will be all right because God is in charge and God is  working out the plan of salvation for all of us and has not abandoned us. So let us trust in the Lord who made heaven and earth and remains with us in happy and sad as well as the good and the bad times .

30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

This Sunday we read in the Gospel Reading about Bartimaeus the blind man. There are so many  forms of blindness  apart from the physical blindness which is an awful thing  in itself. There is also another blindness that so many seeing people have and that spiritual  blindness . Blindness is terrifying. Darkness brings all our terrors before the minds eye. Not being able to see where we are going is the stuff of most human fears. The poverty and blindness of Bartimaeus speak to any human being of feeling  and, indeed, if there is someone to whom it does not speak, then that person probably would have no time for religion or things of the spirit as she/he would be insensitive to promptings in our imagination that lead us to faith.

We live in a world of blindness. There is the blindness of world leaders who press forward policies that are so short-term that we have whole regions that simmer with unrest such as the Middle East. We have blindness that prevents us seeing how policies create injustice and stop development. We have the blindness that sees global warming yet refuses to take action in time. In  our own  localities we have blind-spots.  blind spots about what is really of value in a society that has so much. In our own lives we can find blindness to those around us, blindness to the community, blindness to the needs of those who need us young and old. Blindness can be a great help in avoiding awkward questions of conscience. We are called to be seeing people, people who look at the world with eyes of faith and are not afraid to help others with their blindness. Seeing, however, isn’t limited to seeing the blue of the sky or the road to home. It is also a matter of seeing the truth about ourselves which we dont often want to know about.

And so in the Gospel Jesus gives Bartimaeus all that he asks for. Bartimaeus sees not only the world around him but also his Lord. And in seeing Jesus, Bartimaeus accepts the Giver with the gift of sight that is eyesight and more especially spiritual sight. As Jesus healed this blind man because he wanted so desperately to see, He will heal all of us who long to be cured of our spiritual blindness. When we ask in faith, Jesus will give us His  vision for ourselves and for our world.