1st Sunday of Advent, Year C | Nov 28, 2021
Editor’s Note: Each week, we open the archives to share a previously unpublished homily from Fr. Brian for the upcoming Sunday. Whether you are preparing to preach or preparing your heart for Mass, we hope this offers a fresh perspective on the readings. – Jessica
Liturgical Context: [Advent 1C] Related Homilies: [2015] • [2018] Scripture: [Link to USCCB Readings]
Additional homilies from this day in the liturgical season: 1st Sunday of Advent – 2015, 2018, 2024
As many of you know, I have always been a fierce defender of the Advent Season.
I don’t play Christmas music until December 24.
I insist that the Advent wreath hold primary place in the main lobby of the school.
I don’t decorate my own room until I return from Christmas break and then I leave it up until the Presentation of the Lord in early February.
And when questioned about my strange Advent tendencies, I’ve always given the same answer.
Because I am convinced we need Advent.
We need that time to confront the world as it is before basking in the glow of the infant child who contains the promise of what can be.
But this year, I have to admit, for the 1st time. I kinda want to skip Advent.
Because you know, I don’t think I need any more reminders about the world as it is.
The images in the Gospel.
Yeah, I get it.
Storms that break around us. Waves that crash. Seas that roar.
People dying from fear.
Being overwhelmed by daily anxieties.
Check. Check and Check.
An ongoing pandemic. The threat of a new variant. Political violence and polarization. Economic inflation and persistent poverty. Racial disparities and nativist rhetoric.
Expectations at work. Juggling all my personal and professional responsibilities. People in crisis. Never enough time. Energy. Never enough of me. Losses piling up.
And here I am, one singular person standing before it all. And I’ve never felt more inadequate.
As if my life has been spent simply making these elaborate sand castles on the beach that keep getting swept away.
So you know, why can’t I drown out the roaring by turning on Feliz Navidad?
Why can’t I dispel the darkness with a bunch of Christmas lights?
Why can’t I hide my fear and grief and anxiety behind garland and tinsel and bows?
Why can’t I, for once, just bypass Advent and move straight to Christmas?
But then I latched onto the one line from the 2nd reading.
May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we have for you, so as to strengthen your hearts.
And I was reminded of why, this year more than ever, I need Advent.
For the truth is that Christmas is part of God’s ongoing love letter to the world.
God’s decision to walk among us so that love could be incarnated.
So that we could feel the warmth of a hug. So that our tear could be gently brushed off our cheek. So that a hand could grip our own and hold on with the strength we no longer possess.
And now this love has now been entrusted to us.
To continue the work of preparing the world for the moment in which the love letter will be completed. When the world will see and hear and feel God’s love in all its glory at the end of time.
But until then, we have work to do.
Countless moments in which we can choose to be love. When we can choose to be Christ.
Particularly in this Advent time, when to choose love is not easy.
When there are no angels from on high. No guiding star. No proclamations of good tidings to be heard.
Where the darkness and the storms, the fear and the anxieties take their toll.
And yet, we can love anyway. We must love anyway.
And so let us do so.
Let us love.
When we avoid the snarky retort and take the phone call we don’t have time for. When we open our bedroom door to our younger sibling or agree to run the errand for our spouse.
When we forgo purchasing another item and share our abundance with another in need.
When we speak up for the one who has no voice. When we sit beside the one who sits alone. When we hold onto the one who feels unmoored.
When we accept the apology. When we say yes, even when terrified. When we look into the face of another and delight in what we find there.
And in so doing, we shall be preparing a true home for the one who is love that shall once again be born among us.
May God be Praised.
Video recordings of the Sunday evening Mass, where Fr. Brian regularly preaches, are available on Facebook at Delaware Koinonia. The archive of all of Fr. Brian’s homilies can be found here: Salesian Sermons
IMAGE ATTRIBUTION: Anonymous. Our Lady of the Unexpected Joy, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56057 [retrieved January 1, 2025]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Our_Lady_the_Unexpected_Joy.jpeg.
Leaven in the World 
Leave a comment