The door bell in the parish house in Elgin had quite a delicate gong, hardly audible in my flat when the radio or music was playing. A couple of times I didn’t manage to meet people who had made an appointment with me; it happened for one silly reason: I couldn’t hear the doorbell. Personally I hate failing people I promised to meet – for me it’s a sign of disrespect and disregard. I had to learn the lesson. Every time I expected someone who had announced his or her visit I turned down or even turned off the radio or music and tuned my ear to hearing the door bell. Of course it was pretty inconvenient as I like listening to the radio or music while working. But since then I haven’t missed any appointment in my place just because of the unheard door bell.<\/p>\n
Today is the beginning of Advent. This name is borrowed from the Latin word adventus<\/em>, which means coming<\/em>, and is associated with the return of Christ at the end of time. From the very beginning of Christianity believers expected a triumphal comeback of the Lord. Some Christians were neglecting their everyday duties expecting the instant return of Christ; they had to be admonished and reprimanded by the apostles. Two thousand years and many generations later we seemingly abandoned this idea and reduced Advent to pre-Christmas overspend shopping.<\/p>\n Yet Jesus\u2019 return in glory is as fundamental for our faith as the crucifixion and the resurrection. Eucharistic prayer III starts with a phrase just after the consecration: \u2018Therefore, O Lord, as we celebrate the memorial of the saving Passion of your Son, his wondrous Resurrection and Ascension into heaven, and as we look forward to his second coming…\u2019<\/em> (EP3). From now on till 17 December the liturgy and biblical readings will concentrate on Jesus\u2019 return urging us to be ready whenever it happens.<\/p>\n The parable in today\u2019s gospel speaks about servants left by their master. They are not abandoned: the master will come back. His return has been announced and is certain, although the time of it remains unknown. I think this passage of the gospel contains two phrases essential for our understanding of Advent. Here they are: \u2018be on your guard\u2019<\/em> and \u2018stay awake\u2019<\/em>. Apparently military personnel and insomniacs now can stop listening to this sermon.<\/p>\n Obviously both phrases concern our spirituality. \u2018Staying awake\u2019<\/em> means a particular effort of keeping my conscience sensitive, able to recognize the voice of the Lord. \u2018Being on guard\u2019<\/em> means keeping me free from any evil.<\/p>\n Both attitudes are mutually connected and dependent. When I do something hardly acceptable I need to justify myself, i.e, I steal cheap equipment from my workplace because I\u2019m not well paid; or I download music, films or computer software from the Internet because it\u2019s too expensive to buy it. I gradually move from minor to gross dishonesty. Many years ago when I worked with teenage criminals I discovered to my great astonishment that they did not feel any guilt although they were murderers, rapist and thieves.<\/p>\n Advent is a good time to reverse such processes in our hearts; a perfect time to re-establish fundamental values as essential ones for our lives; a perfect time to regain the spiritual readiness, when the bell at the door of our hearts announces the return of the Lord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The door bell in the parish house in Elgin had quite a delicate gong, hardly audible in my flat when the radio or music was playing. A couple of times I didn’t manage to meet people who had made an appointment with me; it happened for one silly reason: I couldn’t hear the doorbell. Personally I hate failing people I promised to meet – for me it’s a sign of disrespect and disregard. I had to learn the lesson. Every time I expected someone who had announced his or her visit I turned down or even turned off the radio or music and tuned my ear to hearing the door bell. Of course it was pretty inconvenient as I like listening to the radio or music while working. But since then I haven’t missed any appointment in my place just because of the unheard door bell. Today is the beginning of Advent. This name is borrowed from the Latin word adventus, which means coming, and is associated with the return of Christ at the end of time. From the very beginning of Christianity believers expected a triumphal comeback of the Lord. Some Christians were neglecting their everyday duties expecting the instant return of Christ; they had to be admonished and reprimanded by the apostles. Two thousand years and many generations later we seemingly abandoned this idea and reduced Advent to pre-Christmas overspend shopping. Yet Jesus\u2019 return in glory is as fundamental for our faith as the crucifixion and the resurrection. Eucharistic prayer III starts with a phrase just after the consecration: \u2018Therefore, O Lord, as we celebrate the memorial of the saving Passion of your Son, his wondrous Resurrection and Ascension into heaven, and as we look forward to his second coming…\u2019 (EP3). From now on till 17 December the liturgy and biblical readings will concentrate on Jesus\u2019 return urging us to be ready whenever it happens. The parable in today\u2019s gospel speaks about servants left by their master. They are not abandoned: the master will come back. His return has been announced and is certain, although the time of it remains unknown. I think this passage of the gospel contains two phrases essential for our understanding of Advent. Here they are: \u2018be on your guard\u2019 and \u2018stay awake\u2019. Apparently military personnel and insomniacs now can stop listening to this sermon. Obviously both phrases concern our spirituality. \u2018Staying awake\u2019 means a particular effort of keeping my conscience sensitive, able to recognize the voice of the Lord. \u2018Being on guard\u2019 means keeping me free from any evil. Both attitudes are mutually connected and dependent. When I do something hardly acceptable I need to justify myself, i.e, I steal cheap equipment from my workplace because I\u2019m not well paid; or I download music, films or computer software from the Internet because it\u2019s too expensive to buy it. I gradually move from minor to gross dishonesty. Many years ago when I worked with teenage criminals I discovered to my great astonishment that they did not feel any guilt although they were murderers, rapist and thieves. Advent is a good time to reverse such processes in our hearts; a perfect time to re-establish fundamental values as essential ones for our lives; a perfect time to regain the spiritual readiness, when the bell at the door of our hearts announces the return of the Lord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-b"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}