First Sunday of Advent
November 28, 2021
Winter Landscape, Luigi Kasimir
We are so surrounded by the tacky, trashy schmaltz of commercial Christmas that the hidden life of Advent, found in the ancient practices of contemplation and repentance, may seem unreal.
It’s been said before, and must be said again. That hidden season is reality — and all else is show and evasion. There is no Christmas joy without the inner preparation of Advent. This season is so profoundly beautiful that only God himself could have conceived it. A farmer prepares his field for growth. The earth of our souls must be turned over. The seeds of spiritual life need our attention. We can reject the pseudo-season for the real by self-examination and repentance. The Lord will give his goodness: and our earth shall yield her fruit.
Don’t let the events of the world distract you. Abstain from the daily news; the circus of deception and distraction is not going anywhere. The biggest problems we face are within us. We sometimes lie to ourselves as much as the powerful magicians and scam artists working for their worldwide, luciferian government lie to us.
Here let us admire the goodness of our God, who, remembering that man hid himself after his sin, because he was naked, vouchsafes himself to become man’s clothing, and cover with the robe of his Divinity the misery of human nature. Let us, therefore, be on the watch for the day and the hour when he will come to us, and take precautions against the drowsiness which comes of custom and self-indulgence. The light will soon appear; may its first rays be witness of our innocence, or at least of our repentance. If our Savior is coming to put over our sins a covering which is to hide them forever, the least that we, on our part, can do is to retain no further affection for those sins, else it will be said of us that we refused our salvation.
— Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, First Sunday in Advent
From a sermon for the First Sunday of Advent by Bishop Ehrler in 1891:
I. The care of our soul is the most necessary duty of our life.
1.All other cares are but transient, superficial, trivial; the care of our souls involves our deepest and holiest interests, the decision of our lot for all eternity. Before many years, this body of ours, the object of so much solicitude, which we feed and clothe so carefully, will return to dust. The goods and joys of life are as glittering dust, which will be swept away by the storm preceding the General Judgment, and which is of no value in the eyes of God and his Saints. The friends and relatives whose well-being is very near our heart, are little more than transient acquaintances whom we meet and part from at a wayside inn, bidding them farewell after a short greeting. “I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” (Eccles. i: 14.) Our souls will not die nor decay. Their eternal happiness or misery depends on the care or carelessness we manifest in their regard. Is there then a greater necessity than to care for our immortal soul?
2. This affair cannot be neglected without incurring the greatest damage. Many evils may attend the neglect or careless conduct of our earthly affairs, but temporal calamities are rarely irremediable or utterly barren of good. There is scarcely any earthly calamity which can not either be repaired or soon forgotten. You may win back lost possessions, or gain still larger ones. Other and better friends may take the place of those whose loss you mourn; and the most delicate health may be restored. All temporal things may be given back to man, or he can console himself for their loss with the hope of higher possessions in the future. But if, through indifference, your soul is once lost, all is lost–And Lost Forever! Nothing can compensate you for this loss or misery. Not a single moment of the time wasted in any other occupation than in the care of our souls, will be given back to us a second time. He who has not saved his soul for everlasting life in the short span allotted to him, is cast out into exterior darkness. He is a branch cut off from the vine to be thrust into the fire. Like the foolish virgins, he stands without a nuptial chamber whose door shall never open to him. As in the case of the unprofitable servant, the talent buried by him, is delivered into the hand of another. Is there any other care on which such momentous interests depend?
3. This care admits of no delay and of no substitute. Time flies with lightning speed, and we should not waste a single hour of it. That which is put off, is already lost. What is neglected today, cannot be recovered tomorrow. There is no tomorrow, or the next day; there is only today and now. Neither can you employ a substitute in this matter. I, myself–you, yourselves–must care for the immortal soul God has given each one of us. Though you possessed along retinue of servants, though you claimed command over thousands, not one or all of that great army of subordinates could relieve you of this important duty. No friend, on earth or in heaven, can take your place in this momentous concern.
