Allocution, November 27: First Sunday of Advent
(Singing)
Today, November 27, begins the liturgical season that we call Advent, a word that comes from Latin and means coming. During this time we remember and relive the hope of the people of Israel who for centuries waited for the coming of the promised Messiah and which became a reality with the birth of Jesus Christ, the latter is what we celebrate at Christmas. In this time we celebrate the comings of Christ into our lives, in the Bible, the Sacraments, the people… In this time we prepare for the coming at the end of time of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will come to bless and fully fill all the good works. This first Sunday of Advent we hear in all the Catholic Churches in the world the Gospel according to Saint Matthew chapter 24 verses 37 to 44 that we can follow by reading it in the Gospel 2022 on today’s date.
(Gospel)
The Lord Jesus invites us to be attentive to his comings, in which he speaks to us, the coming of Christmas, the coming of the continuous presences each day, the coming of the end of times or the coming of the end of our earthly life. And he gives us the image of the thief who steals when one is not awake. They say that the thief has 99 neurons to steal and 1 to live, and we have 99 neurons to live and one against theft. But if every day we live for the love of family, the love of spouses, the love of parents to children and of children to parents, the love of neighbors, of the sick, of those who suffer, all this is a wall against the thief and liar of the devil who wants to steal our Faith, Hope and Charity. If we are always doing good, Jesus Christ can come now when husbands love each other more, wives cook with love, husbands show their affection by scrubbing and helping wives, parents are teaching their children, children are listening to their parents. , the old people are being treated with affection… Jesus Christ can come when we are singing in church, Jesus Christ can come when we are doing good. It’s bad that it comes when we are stealing, cursing, hitting, damaging, destroying.
There is a personal coming at the moment of our death, there is a universal coming, that of the end of time. Nothing material will remain, nothing material we can take with us; What will remain is love and it is what is valuable to God and the devil thief will not be able to steal our love if we are always loving and growing in love whose fullness will be in the house of love which is the House of Heaven. It helps us a lot to read the Gospel 2022 and from the 1st. January the Gospel 2023, so if the Lord comes he will find us listening to his Word at home and in the temple.
Come, Lord Jesus, this Advent; come Lord Jesus, this Christmas; come, Lord Jesus, at the end of my life; Come Lord, Jesus, at the end of time to bless all good works and bring them to completion in your House of Heaven… Amen.
(Singing)
The Pope spoke to us last Wednesday:
“What is spiritual consolation? It is an experience of inner joy that allows us to see the presence of God in all things. This reinforces Faith and hope and also the ability to do good. The person who experiences consolation does not give up in the face of difficulties because he experiences a peace stronger than the trial. It is, therefore, a great gift for spiritual life and for life as a whole. Consolation has to do, above all, with hope: it looks to the future, it sets out, it allows itself to take initiatives until then always postponed or not even imagined, such as baptism for Edith Stein. But let us be careful, we have to distinguish well the consolation that is from God from false consolations. In the spiritual life something similar happens to what happens in human productions, there are the originals and there are the imitations. If authentic consolation is like a drop on a sponge, it is soft and intimate, its imitations are louder and more striking, they are pure enthusiasm, they are a will-o’-the-wisp, without consistency, they lead to turning in on oneself and not taking care of others. False consolation, in the end, leaves us empty, far from the center of our existence. This is why, when we feel happy, at peace, we are capable of doing anything. But do not confuse that peace with a passing enthusiasm because enthusiasm is there today, then it falls and is no longer there.”
(Singing)
What a rag puppet says:
If for a moment God forgot that I am a rag puppet and gave me a piece of life, possibly I would not say everything I think, but I would think everything I say. I would value things, not for what they are worth, but for what they mean; I would sleep little and dream more. I understand that for every minute we close our eyes we lose 60 seconds of light. He would walk when others stop, wake up when others sleep, listen while others talk and how he would enjoy all the beautiful things in life. If God gave me a piece of life, I would dress simply, I would lie face down in the sun, exposing not only my body but my soul.
My God, if I had a heart I would write my hate on the ice and wait for the sun to come up. I would water the roses with my tears to feel the pain of their thorns and the incarnate kiss of their petals. My God, if I had a piece of life, I wouldn’t let a single day go by without telling those around me ‘I love you’. I would convince every woman and every man to live in love with natural, faithful and fruitful love. It would prove to men how wrong they are to think that they stop falling in love when they grow old, without knowing that they grow old when they stop falling in love. I would give a child wings, but I would let him learn to fly alone. To the old people, to my old people, I would teach them that death does not come with old age but with oblivion. I have learned so many things from you men. I have learned that everyone wants to live on the top of the mountain without knowing that true happiness is in the way of climbing the slope, I have learned that when a newborn squeezes his father’s finger with his little fist for the first time, he trapped forever. I have learned that a man only has the right to look at another man up and down when he has to help him up. There are so many things that I have been able to learn from you, but in the end they will not be of much use because when they put me inside this suitcase, unfortunately, I will be dying.
We are not puppets so none of this is denied to us.
Lord, Jesus, when it arrives it will not be a puppet kept in the suitcase… Amen. This story is attributed to Gabriel García Márquez in a way adapted by us.
Martin Luther King tells us:
“If you cannot be a pine tree on a hill, be a grass, but be the best little grass on the bank of the stream. If you can’t be a tree be a bush, if you can’t be a highway be a path, if you can’t be the Sun be a star. Always be the best of what you are, try to discover the project you are called to carry out and dedicate yourself with passion to fulfilling it in life.
Lord, Jesus, when you arrive, let it be what you want… Amen.
(Singing)
Saint Macarius tells us:
Woe to the road on which no one travels and on which no human voice is heard because it becomes a refuge for animals! Woe to the soul through which the Lord does not pass nor drive away from it with his voice the spiritual beasts of evil! Woe to the house in which its owner does not live! Woe to the land deprived of the farmer who cultivates it! Woe to the ship deprived of a pilot because engulfed by the waves and storms of the sea it ends up shipwrecked! Woe to the soul that does not carry within itself the true pilot, Christ, because placed in a merciless sea of darkness, tossed by the waves of its passions and enveloped by evil spirits like a winter storm, it will end in shipwreck! Woe to the soul deprived of the diligent cultivation of Christ who is the one who produces the good fruits of the spirit because, finding itself abandoned, full of thorns and thistles, instead of producing fruits, it ends up at the stake! Woe to the soul in which Christ, its Lord, does not dwell, because when it is abandoned and filled with the stench of its passions, it becomes the host of all vices!
In the same way that the farmer when he prepares to cultivate the land needs the appropriate instruments and clothing, so also Christ, the Celestial king and true farmer, when he came to humanity desolated by sin, having clothed himself in a human body and wearing as instrument the cross cultivated the abandoned soul, uprooted from it the thorns and thistles of the evil spirits, removed the tares of sin and threw all the bad grass into the fire and having thus worked tirelessly with the wood of the cross, planted in it the most beautiful garden of the spirit, a garden that produces for God its Lord a most sweet and most gratifying fruit. Lord Jesus cultivate me before you arrive.
(Singing)
(Our Father Prayer)
We pray to the Virgin of the Miraculous Medal today on her feast day:
God save you, woman and mother of mercy, life, hope, our strength. Hear us lady, mother, sister, our friend, walk with us and in the midst of our effort show us Jesus blessed fruit of your Faith and committed love. Fight with us, Holy Mother of God, to make the promises of Jesus Christ possible today as a fruit of grace and our work… Amen.
And the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit descend upon you, upon your families and remain forever… Amen.
(Singing)