With Thanksgiving barely in our rearview mirror, we have begun the barrage of Christmas cheer. One of the time honored Christmas movies is Christmas Carol. Ebenesor Scrooge visited by the ghost of Christmas past, present and future. The past shows him the good he had and what lead him to where he is now, present show the joy and family that he said no to and the future is his end and consequences of his actions.
Advent is 4 weeks of us being visited not by 3 different entities, but by the One Christ who shines the different times.
We take it for granted, we take it as a given that Christ came to save us. It’s a far off memory at best and a fairtale at worse. Christmas is a given, but Advent is a time where we are meant to be put in that time of expectation, to try and put ourselves in a time and a state before Jesus. We were not saved. Dorthy day said I’m glad Jesus was born in a nasty stable because it shows that he can and will be born in my nasty heart. The memory of God’s love and innocence at Christ, is meant to be a basis for thinking about myself and my heart now, before accepting Jesus. We are not saved until Jesus. Advent is to put us back, what once was a hope for us is now a desire, and as their hope was realize so can ours. This desire is founded on the redemption accomplished.
Sin: a moral act that is at the heart of a broken relationship. The great sin of our time is the loss of the sense of sin. If we deny sin, we deny our freedom to perform fully human actions. We live that all things are relative and right if you just do them.
The Church can do nothing without Jesus but Jesus will do nothing without Jesus.
The readings this Sunday put the future before us, its forboding for Christians. Jesus offers us a beware, if we do not properly prepare, if we make the wrong decisions, Jesus says there will be bad consequences. Jesus came once to a few, now many are called to accept and acknowledge, in the end, all will be judged. We were born for one thing: to live forever. While We are meant to remain hopeful, there is a dangerous downside: there may be another place. We should at least stop and ponder, what could send us there. Life, there are different degrees of life: God gave birth to Jesus so too to us.
In Confession, this is where Jesus is born a new in our hearts. This Thursday we have Keep the Light on, all parishes will be hearing confessions from 5pm to 7pm. The book about the Fountain of youth