Looking Back and Ahead at Advent (

 

Talking about a pagan god is an unusual way to start a homily on the first Sunday of Advent, but at least his statue is in the Vatican Museum.

Janus was the Roman god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings.

He was obviously a busy guy. It’s no wonder that he’s usually shown having two faces, each looking in a different direction. Not right and left, but forwards and backwards.

As I thought about Advent this year, it struck me that looking in only one direction is not the way to prepare for Christmas. If we’re serious about this season, it must be much more than one of those billboards announcing how many shopping days left until Christmas.

Advent may have four weeks. But really it is beyond time. It is equally about what is, what has been, and what will be.

Moreover, it is just as connected to Easter as it is to Christmas.

I’ll get back to that, but let me point out something from this morning’s Gospel: if Advent is just a beautiful liturgical season preparing us for the joys of Christmas, why are we listening to Jesus tell his disciples about the end of the world?

Unless you’re a diehard pessimist, this Gospel doesn't help us get into the Christmas spirit.

But don’t worry: the next Advent Sundays offer us the more familiar prophecies and words of comfort. On this first Sunday, though, the Church is asking us to begin the journey in a circle, not a straight line.

Let me remind you of what I said at the blessing of the Easter candle just over seven months ago:

“Christ yesterday and today; the beginning and the end; the Alpha and the Omega; All time belongs to him and all the ages. To him be glory and power through every age and for ever.”

Do those words no longer echo? Has time narrowed to a four-week preparation for the Birth of Christ?

No, dear friends, Advent is not a straight line. It’s a circle. 

To quote a wonderfully wise Irish priest, Oliver Treanor,* the circle “draws to its inner self all mankind, all history, the very cosmos itself.”

Try doing that with a straight line!

“Because of  this,” Father Treanor says, “Advent is not only the celebration of God’s coming to us, but also of our coming to him.”

Our Gospel this Sunday does not talk about celebrating, but it has much to teach us about Advent. Even as Jesus looks to the end of time, he looks to the present moment and warns us to live good lives right now so we can greet his coming without shame or fear.

St. Paul does much the same in our second reading by encouraging us to live lives pleasing to God, as we’ve been taught.

The Church is wise to give us these readings, because they remind us that Advent, second only to Lent, is a penitential season.

Father Treanor again uses the circle to make this point: Advent “is a time to mend the broken circles of our lives by returning, as a circle does, to our point of origin.”

And what is that “point of origin” but our oneness with God, made possible not only in the stable but on the cross and at the Resurrection?

There’s no surer way to mend the circle than going to Confession.

When it comes to Confession, I am a bit like a man who loves sushi and can’t figure out why everyone doesn’t. I love the sacrament of penance—I truly welcome going to confession, even though I wish I felt the need a little less often.

And I love hearing confessions. But I am hearing fewer and fewer, and don’t know why. Maybe people working from home have less opportunity to sin, but with the kids making noise during Zoom calls I would have thought it would be the other way around.

It don't think it's fear of the pandemic. We wear masks in the confessionals, and installed new higher-volume exhaust fans.

Maybe we’re all just tired.

Several parishioners have suggested that it might help if we tried making it easier for you to get to confession. So, during Advent one or both priests will head to the confessional directly after the 11 am Mass and see what happens.

Let’s think of that busy god Janus as we begin our Advent preparation: looking back not only at our sins but at the saving death and Resurrection of Christ, and looking forward not only to Christmas Day but to the Last Day when God fulfills all his promises.

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* Father Treanor's book is titled Seven Bells to Bethlehem, and it is an inspiring study of the marvelous O Antiphons from the Liturgy of the Hours, also used as the Gospel acclamation at weekday Masses leading up to Christmas. It is one of the finest liturgical/theological/devotional books I have ever owned, and copies are now available on Amazon. Highly recommended!