First of Advent Year A
December 2007
The theme today is 'be watchful'.
God our Father, reveals himself to us through Jesus Christ in the Bible but also in our everyday lives. But I must be watchful to recognise these relelations, other wise they just pass me by unrecognised.
One day I arrived to say mass at an old age home.
I had forgotten to notify them but they fixed me up as best they could. I found myself at a table in a large dining cum TV room. A group of patients with their visitors were watching the TV at one end and chatting away. At my end other patients who were suffering from dementia wandered about in seemingly perpetual motion or sat at adjacent tables leafing aimlessly through tabloids and muttering to themselves. At the same time staff and patients, visitors and utility people were busily scurrying back and forth about thier various business.
We were a very small group sitting around our alter table and felling very exposed and out of place. The thoughts uppermost in my mind were 'why am I bothering to do this?' and 'what in the name of God am I doing here?'.
And then from nowhere the answer came to me; I am doing again (I am r-presenting) at this time and in thsi place, what Jesus of Nazereth did on the cross on Calvery two thousand years ago. Now, as on Calvery, for the vast majority of those present, it is just a spectacle, an oddity, a topic of conversation, something completly incomprehensible. Yet it was this self-sacrifice on the cross which took away the sin of the world, which brought us slvaltion and which won for us resurrection from death and eternal life.
I realised, in a new way, that the Mass has this absolute and eternal value irrespective of where, how, or with what degree of understanding those present may participate or not participate.
Nobody present had a clue about waht was really happening on Calvery. Nevertheless it was the ultimate battle between God and Evil, with God submitting to Evil's ultimate weapon, death, and defeating it by rising triumphant from death into Eternal life. This great battle and victory is what is re-presented and remembered every time we celebrate Mass.
So be watchful; especially during this time of Advent. Be aware of the universe of the spirit which is all about you and constantly trying to attract your attention.