First Sunday of Advent

Today's Readings

This year, with unseasonably mild temperatures, many households took advantage of the warm weather to decorate their porches and yards with Christmas lights in the first week after Halloween. For the past several years local radio stations have begin 24 hour Christmas music beginning on All Saints Day. The Rockefeller Christmas tree has been firmly planted in its base and the Christmas Market at Bryant Park is in full swing. Many schools and parishes are planning and conducting Christmas Craft Fairs, Concerts and Pageants. Christmas has fully engulfed us in a New York second and I love the frenetic energy. Still, in parallel motion we reflect on the more somber aspects of Advent vigilance which comes to us through the Scriptures and particularly through the ancient and beautiful hymns of this season of watching and waiting. The First Sunday of Advent beckons us to “walk in the light of the Lord”, “go up to the House of the Lord”, “wake from sleep”, “throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light”, “the coming of the Son of Man...stay awake”. These imperatives of preparation include the coming of the Savior, imminent judgment, climbing upwards to the house of the Lord where He will judge between the nations. All these sentiments are once again calling the church to readiness so as not to be taken off guard as was the case of Noah. We are reminded of the historical details of the Nativity, the coming of the Savior in our hearts each year and the Second Coming of Christ. Thus, as we look forward to unwrapping our precious presepio pieces, we are called to prepare spiritually. In grammar school in the 1960’s we were taught during Advent to add hay to the crib of the Baby Jesus with a prayer for each stalk. I still recount that sentiment when I gaze upon a Christmas Nativity scene, but I know that I must also fortify my heart with spiritual exercises of piety, devotion and charity. The hymns of Advent evoke the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment. Such hymns as: Creator Alme Siderum - (Te deprecámur últimæ Magnum diéi Júdicem) - We beseech you, Great Judge of the Last Day; Wachet Auf - Wake Awake for Night is Flying, Midnight’s solemn hour is tolling, His chariot wheels are nearer rolling; The King Shall Come “Not, as of old, a little Child, to suffer and to die, But crowned with glory like the sun, that lights the morning sky. Rejoice the Lord is King Rejoice in glorious hope! Our Lord the judge shall come; Rorate Caeli - (Roráte caéli désuper, et núbes plúant jústum. Ne irascáris Dómine, ne ultra memíneris iniquitátis) Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down the Just One. Be not angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity; O Come Emmanuel - O Antiphons from the Christmas Novena beginning on December 17 - where expectancy is brought to crescendo with a new scriptural title and petition each day leading to Christmas.

Savor the festivity of Christmas anticipation, but also spare a moment to surround your heart with the soaring cadences of Advent diligence.

Brother Joshua DiMauro, O.S.F.
Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn
Assistant Principal, St. Anthony's High School