Recall the last time you had company come to your home.

Maybe it was family visiting from out of town or a friend you hadn’t seen in awhile. How did you prepare for them? You likely cleaned the house, planned nice meals, and cleared your schedule to spend time with them—all the while looking forward to their arrival.

If we spend so much time preparing for the coming of friends or family—meticulously cleaning our homes, setting plans for how we can enjoy our time together, and so expectantly awaiting their arrival— how much more ought we to be watching and preparing for the coming of Christ? How do we prepare the home of our heart as we await his coming?

First Reading

Isaiah 63:16b–17, 19b; 64:2–7

Why do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?” Isaiah asks. Just as Pharaoh’s heart was softened only by a series of punishments, Israel is also undergoing punishment for her hardheartedness. “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you,” Isaiah complains, as if to call for a frightening display from the Lord.We often recoil against this idea of the hardening of hearts by God. How could a loving God purposely harden someone’s heart against himself?

Notice that though God had blessed Egypt through the presence of the people of Israel, these favors were not accepted with due thanks to the God of Israel. God could be said to harden a heart insofar as he gives graces that the heart refuses to acknowledge as having come from him. And the only gift that can penetrate a hard heart is one that is harder. Only the punishments that God gives Egypt and Israel can shatter their hard hearts. This is why Isaiah uses the term father to refer to Yahweh, for a father must occasionally discipline his children. But God is also the redeemer of his people when their term of punishment is at an end. We know that Jesus is coming in this Advent season to take upon himself the hard gift that we deserve. We want to be sure that we do not approach this season with half-heartedness or, worse, hardheartedness. We receive in the Eucharist not only God’s protection and favor, as did Israel, but God himself. If we are indifferent to this gift, or reject it, our hearts will be even more hardened than Pharaoh’s or Israel’s. So if we are to watch for Christ’s coming, we must likewise guard against hardheartedness and half-heartedness.

Second Reading

1 Corinthians 1:3–9

St. Paul tells us that he is writing to all those “called to be a holy people.” This means that this reading and letter to the Corinthians is meant for all baptized Christians, since we are all called to  be “perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

Paul tells us that grace is the cause of his gratitude and the spiritual enrichment of Christians. Grace is what makes us children of God and heirs of Heaven. Grace is a very important term with various meanings. Simply defined, grace is a participation in God’s own life. Through it, we become sharers in his nature, true children of God. This sharing of grace intimately unites us with God, making us part of his family. This is what Paul means when he says that we have fellowship with God’s Son, Jesus Christ. This fellowship is of the strongest kind: it is familial.

No wonder Paul gives thanks for the grace that we have in Christ! Once we understand that grace gives us a share in the very life of God, given at the inestimable cost of Christ’s Most Precious Blood, we realize that we have been given a gift beyond anything we could ever possibly imagine. Of all the gifts of Christmas, what can compare to this greatest of all gifts— the grace of God?

Gospel Reading

Mark 13:33–37

Jesus begins today’s Gospel  with  a  description  of  the  events that will  precede  the  destruction  of  the  Temple,  warning,  “Be on your guard.  Let no one mislead  you.”  He describes tremendous upheavals as signs of the future.  By  these  signs the disciples are to recognize that the Son of Man is near. Although the context makes it clear that Jesus is describing events that were to occur prior to the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 A.D., the Church has always seen this passage as a prophecy of the end times as well.

Today’s reading, however, highlights not what we can expect at the end of the world, but rather our incapacity to know the time of the Lord’s second coming. If we knew when he was coming, we could arrange a convenient conversion and spare ourselves the difficult task of living the Gospel in the meantime. But God teaches us that Gospel living is good in itself—not simply a means with which to buy Heaven.

Watchfulness is, in fact, precisely Gospel living. We watch for occasions of God’s grace. We watch for occasions of sin. We watch in prayer as Christ asked us to do. We watch for occasions to love Christ in the least of our brothers and sisters. We watch the Paschal Mystery unfold for us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We are a people on the watch for the return of our beloved Lord at every moment.

Far from being fatiguing, this is the cause of our constant joy. If we are on the watch, it is not in fear of his Second Coming, but because we fear missing the one we miss. “Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways” (Isaiah 64:4).

DIGGING DEEPER:
Our Last Day

The Gospel passage today focuses on watchfulness. Jesus’s exhortation to be alert includes his second coming  as well as his coming into our hearts as we celebrate Christmas, but this is not all. We are to be watchful for the end of our time here on earth as well. We, of course, do not know when this will be. Though we don’t often think of it, it is an incredibly sobering reflection. Make a commitment to be alert for the day you will meet Christ. If it were today, would you be able to stand before Christ with a pure and hopeful heart? What areas of your life would you wish you had more time to change? Start making those changes now. Use this time of Advent to be who Christ is calling you to be.

PRAYER:

RESOLUTION:

Reprinted from  Opening the Word at Formed.org .
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