Advent Reflection, First Sunday, 2016

When you write a column for the Cathedral bulletin, it has to be submitted in advance for printing purposes. The good thing about posting that same column to a blog is the post is almost instantaneous. This gives you an opportunity to make any last minute changes to the post. After my adventures of yesterday, I have decided to amend my reflection for the first week of Advent before posting it to my blog.

Yesterday, I was with a group of Cathedral parishioners on a pilgrimage to Grand Coteau. After the early morning clouds burned off, the day ended up being a beautiful day of sunshine and cool air. Upon our arrival at Grand Coteau, we were able to see where St. John Berchmans appeared to a dying Mary Wilson. Mary was miraculously cured of her disease and this became the miracle used for the canonization of John Berchmans. Msgr. LaCaze celebrated the Mass for us at the Shrine.  We felt both the reverence of the shrine and the joy that comes from being with each other. All those on the pilgrimage agreed this would be a wonderful event to recall when the Heart of St. John Berchmans was at the Cathedral. (Click on Picture to right for more information)

We say and hear that Advent is a time of preparation. We are to focus on both the coming birth of Christ and his second coming. Grand sounding words but do we take them seriously?  Looking back on our pilgrimage, I will admit to a little pride in my calmness and clarity during an off-road adventure our bus took.  Visiting the shrine and the off-road adventure on the return trip caused me to wonder if I do take my Advent preparation seriously enough. Was I ready to be gathered at God's right hand as we hear in the Collect (Opening prayer of the Mass)?

The Collect from the first Sunday of Advent also tells us “to run forth to meet your Christ”.  We need to be running to the Lord. God is here just waiting for us to acknowledge his love for us. Once we wake up to God's love for us then we should have a deep desire for it. That desire will cause us to figuratively run to the Lord.

How do we figuratively “run forth” to our God? This is done by returning God's love and is shown by the righteous deeds we do for others. We give others the honor due as one created by God. We treat them with the respect that is deserved as sons and daughters of God's love. Our goal then should be to live each day of our life in such a way that if we knew today was to be our last day on this earth, we would not want to change anything about our day.  If we are truly running forth to the meet our Christ then we are running to the heavenly Kingdom.

Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God,
the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ
with righteous deeds at his coming,
so that, gathered at his right hand,
they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom.