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Un-Quiet Word for Today
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You Lord are our Father.
Our Redeemer you are named forever
Why do you let us wander, O lord from your ways
And harden our hearts so that we fear you not.
Return for the sake of your servants.
O Lord you are our Father.
We are the clay and you are the potter;
We are all the work of your hands.'Wait on others' as you await the Lord's return.
Between 1980-1986, my home country Uganda was engulfed in a bitter civil war. We had just survived the brutal dictator Idi Amin Dada, the country for years was in pieces, military coup after military coup, people living in camps, hundreds and hundreds disappeared or killed. There was a major rebel group called the National Resistance Army that launched a major offensive against the government. The country got split into two. My young brother and I went to a boarding School and we were suddenly split from our home and parents for months and months. We were on the rebel side and had heard of stories that the rebels always recruited child soldiers and we were scared to join the war as child fighters. There was an agreement that was reached after a long time between the rebels and the government, that people return to their families. We were put onto Red Cross trucks and ferried across the war lines to back home.
I can never forget my brother and me walking back home and the image of our Father at a distance. He was pacing back and forth (my mother told us he did this for many days). When he saw us, he was overjoyed and we were glad to tell him the story of our ordeal.
Advent is a season of ‘waiting’ for the coming among us of a God who is a ‘father’, a father who cares for us, who is overjoyed with us. A father who protects and guides us. The people of the first reading appeal to God as this Father who they ask to return to their midst. The people have not been faithful. Everything around them has been destroyed. Their only hope is to ask and plead with God to not forget them.
The last lines of the reading are powerful: “yet O Lord you are our Father, we are the clay and you are the potter, we are all the work of your hands”. What might it have meant to be a potter in the ancient world? A world that lacked the technological advance like today. What qualities made one a good potter? The ancient world potter had to wait and wait until a pot was done right. He had to be present, he had to ‘watch’. He had to be constantly vigilant. He had to have the patience to start all over again, the readiness to catch a fault and correct it again and again. This is the God who awaits us, this is the God who will return. The God who will be born among us.
When will the Lord return?
Is there a time or a place? Can we mark this on our calendars? This was the question of the communities in which both the second and Gospel readings were written. The first Christians thought that Jesus would come a second time. But they waited and waited and there seemed to be no answer. Then because of the delay, a lot of them got frustrated and were beginning to give up on the faith, others were just living idle lives. What then are we to do with ‘our present time’?
The answer is an 'active waiting' or watchfulness. Use the present time to continue doing the work of Jesus Christ. Continue to live as he did, to act as he did. When the Lord returns, have a story to tell, a good story of a life of good works and good deeds. The challenge is to ‘wait on others’ as we await the Lord’s return.
In our present world it is easy to get lost in my own world, my own personal busyness, a world of only individual and self-concern, self-attention, self-need or self-actualization. We must on the contrary be found, living a life for more than self.
So, ask yourself, if the Lord returned, what would you share about your life? How would your conversation with ‘your Father’ be? What good deeds will you tell and show?
Watch!
Fr. Anthony
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readings of the mass
SELECT HERE for the Audio recording of the Readings of Sunday, November 29th, 2020, The First Sunday of Advent.
SELECT HERE for the Readings of Sunday, November 29th, 2020, The First Sunday of Advent.
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advent season
Advent begins Sunday, November 29th. LEARN MORE about this Liturgical season of the Church. -
video series viewing
Bishop Robert Barron illuminates a handful of saints, artists, and scholars who not only shaped the life of the Church, but changed the course of civilization.
Watch this video series, "Catholicism: The Pivotal Players", on the Sundays during the Advent Season: 3:30 to 4:30PM in the Parish Hall.
Nov. 29th, Dec. 6th, 13th, 20th -
feast day of Saint Andrew, the apostle
Saint Andrew, also known as Andrew the Apostle, was a Christian Apostle and the older brother to Saint Peter.
Monday, November 30th is his feast day.
LEARN MORE about Saint Andrew and his feast day.
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Mass: November 29th, 2020, first sunday of advent
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