First Sunday of Advent
St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
Jer 33:14-16; 1 Thess 3:12-4:2; Lk 21:25-28, 34-36
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
29 Nov 2009
Christmas decorations have been on display in some shops across Hyde Park for weeks, but the Church season of Advent only starts today.
Is this an example of the Christians being behind the times or another example of moderation and balance, enough but not too much?
Organizations driven by profit are regularly tempted to excess, although good Christmas sales are important for the economy's health. Are we threatened by too much commercial pressure before Christmas? No-one seems to be suggesting we have an excessive level of commitment to our religious preparation for this feast.
When reminded, Christians know that Advent is the season of preparation for Christmas, the most popular religious and holiday season of the year. But after that, we have a variety of approaches.
Nearly two thirds of Australians are Christians and one third of the remainder follow the other great faiths. One in five does not identify with any religious group. This diversity is reflected in the Christmas festivities, but just about everyone unites to ignore the spiritual tasks of the Advent season. As Catholics, only a quarter of the population, we need not follow the majority in every way, but follow our own traditions in preparing for Christmas.
We prepare individually and as a community for this great celebration of the fact that God is with us. We light today the first candle of the Advent wreath.
Then after Mass today we shall be invited to process to the square in front of the Cathedral to bless the crib there, which represents the story of Christmas. During daylight hours we always find someone in front of this display and thousands of leaflets about our Christmas services of worship are taken by the passers-by as is intended. It is beautiful and effective Catholic witness.
Immediately after this I will then open the display of Christmas art in the Cathedral crypt by the grades five and six students from our Catholic schools around Sydney. You will be heartened by the faith expressed in these paintings and by their artistic quality.
Christianity is not an intellectual list of "does" and "don'ts", but a call to faith, hope and love which requires our heart and imagination to be fired and therefore involved. As well as the spoken and written word, we need other means of communication to remind us of the beauty and importance of Christ's coming. The crib, the carols and the paintings of our young artists answer this need.
We admit that gardens need to be weeded, that plants need to be cut back, that no one wants to become like a garden run to seed. But our daily life sweeps us along, so that we are too busy or distracted to pause.
Let me digress a little. When people are seriously unwell, most find it difficult to pray or reflect religiously, but when the sick are recuperating, we have a different situation. In the enforced inactivity and silence God often speaks personally through others or through events.
That is what we are anticipating at Advent: preparing religiously to celebrate that God has spoken to us, come among us and lived with us. We need to pause and listen. Is Christ an increasing or decreasing centre of reference for our daily living? Are we praying regularly? How often do we confess our sins sacramentally?
Christians don't espouse a vague religiosity, an undemanding reverence for the universe. The feast of Christmas celebrates the fact that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the same God of Moses and Elijah sent his son among us as a little child 2000 years ago. This is not a fairy tale, not a myth, but a truth claim.
Young people are looking for heroes and causes; they love to be told of the struggles and triumphs of the past. Most are open to tradition, accepting it instinctively when it is well presented. And our tradition from Abraham, Moses and the prophets to Jesus is a fabulous yarn even before we come to the Christian heroes and heroines of the 2000 years of Christian history. We should play these cards, tap into these universal human needs.
Much of the commercial advertising for Christmas distracts us away from Mary and the Christ child, as even Father Christmas is a fairy-tale successor to an ancient bishop. But gift-giving is deeply Christian, especially when the less fortunate are included and most of the popular carols have a good message. Indeed in our giving of gifts we should definitively make a significant offering for the battlers.
Not many attempt to fast through the series of Christmas breakups and parties, but nothing is preventing us as serious believers from meditating regularly on the mystery of the one true God coming down to our level as his Son took on human nature.
We should not allow the Advent season to rush past us as we bustle around with Christmas visits, Christmas parties and preparing for Christmas dinner. Extra prayer, confessing our sins in the sacrament of reconciliation extra generosity to the battlers, visits to the sick and the lonely constitute the Catholic preparation for Christmas.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
