Scripture Reflections for the First Sunday of Advent

“The worship of God is the only true ground for peace”

“Happiness consists in nothing other than right praise. Worship of the true God. When we give glory to God in the highest we rightly order all of our other desires.”

“What is the mark of sin? That we don't see our connectiveness and therefore that we live in violence”

“By fostering this spirit of nonviolence, studying and practicing nonviolence in all its facets, we keep our flame lit, and remain vigilant against the darkness”

“What does it mean to “stay awake,” alert and ready for the coming of God's kingdom? The families I work with have taught me that it means maintaining faith that God's work continues in our lives, even if it is not immediately apparent, and even despite the bleakest circumstances.”

“Sloth makes us depressed at the prospect of living out the moral imperatives of our Christian life. It sours our delight in what God is preparing for us and in what he is preparing us for. If not confronted it can turn ultimately to hatred of God’s goodness and make us reject the very thing we should most embrace.”

“We are invited to see the birth of Christ as a ‘coming of the Son of Man’ — Incarnation as ‘advent’, so to speak — which is fine; but it is a coming like the flood in the days of Noah...coming like a thief breaking in during the night, when the owner of the house was asleep.”

“We do not know when the Son of Man will come. As Christians we do know we at least should not, must not, and cannot remain oblivious to the call to be Advent people.”

“we begin to prepare for our celebration of the Incarnation—of God wanting so much for the world to go on and to be born anew that God came Himself as a baby. We begin today to prepare for Christmas…and another year in the life of the Church and our little corner of the world.”

“The nature of Christian love is gift, not the gift of what I have, but of who I am. But I cannot give what I do not have, if I do not fully possess myself, if I cannot control my desires, then I cannot have the self-possession to truly give myself to someone.”

“The Advent call of Isaiah is that the Lord will gather all nations to himself and not some nations. Let us prepare our hearts to meet the Lord by loving one another.”

“We too must be on that road that leads out of darkness and into the light. It is time for us to awake from sleep and leave behind the works of darkness that reinforce an old world grown tired and weary in its sin, and enter instead a new world founded on a new law of the Holy Spirit”

“But whereas Lent is a season of penance and charity and sacrifice, I see Advent not only as a time to get ready for the coming of Christ, but also a season of revealing. Revealing who we are. Revealing the person we have become over the course of the year. For better or for worse.”

“God calls us to give up the individualistic ego that demands “me first and I am right.””

“every day brings new opportunities to train ourselves in virtue so that we hate what we once desired and love what God loves; to love what he teaches us and desires of us”

“Scripture is the story of God’s dealings with us, his rebellious people; and if there are differences in Scripture, they are differences of our reaction to God, our growing understanding of Him at different times of our history, not differences in God Himself”

“We do need to think of others during this holiday season, that is important, but we need to think of Jesus and our relationship with him even more. Everything else in our life flows from our relationship with the Lord.”

“It is his unconditional love for each one of us that gives us the confidence to make every day of our lives a day to turn away from sin and back to the Lord, to allow the Holy Spirit to liberate us from that deadly indifference to God’s will for us”

“It is not he who is far from us, but we who are absent from him. We are absent not in terms of distance but by desire. We are not anchored to where we are, in Christ, by our desire. We have allowed our desire to carry us elsewhere, to estrange us from our own heart.”

“Put into practice the gifts of the Holy Spirit that God gifts to us so that when it comes to Christmas morning you can enjoy and have what was indeed worth striving for the entire time: love, peace and harmony among a group, among a community of persons.”

“Concentrate, everybody, during this Advent giving God highest praise, making Mount Zion the true pole of your life and you'll find peace breaking out more and more within you”

“So when should we prepare, everybody, for the coming of Jesus? Now. Now. When should we get our spiritual houses in order? Now. When should we do the searching moral inventory? Now. When should we knock down mountains that are higher than the Lord's mountain? Now. See, that's Advent”

“Advents can be scary things. How come? For something breaks in to end, upset and rearrange the current state of affairs.”