BRIDGEPORT— Advent is a season that call for watching and active waiting to prepare for the gift of God in our lives, said Bishop Frank J. Caggiano during his online Mass from the Catholic Center chapel on the First Sunday of Advent.
In his homily based on the Gospel of Mark (13:33-37) “33 “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come,” the bishop reflected on the practice of spiritual waiting that opens us to God’s presence at Christmas and throughout the year.
“You and I can put that waiting to good purpose if we intentionally choose in the next four weeks to spend significant time in prayer and reflection… In formal prayer or when we’re in the car or on a walk, we can reflect on the blessing and beauty God has given us and how he is meant to be center of our lives,” he said.
Advent begins a new spiritual year by reminding us that we must wait “for the coming of Christmas with joyful praise for the in-breaching of the son of God into human history,” he said.
The spiritual work of Advent is “to become empty intentionally so our longing for God can grow deeper,” he said, adding that Church tradition teaches us to do that through prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
The bishop began his homily by commenting that his friends would be the first to say that patience is not a virtue that he has ever been able to cultivate in life.
“Waiting for something or someone is very hard for me to do,” he said, observing that drive, determination and perseverance can also be good things helping us to address challenges we can control in our lives.
However, many things in life are not under our control, and needless worry and energy is misspent when often the only thing we can do is wait, he said.
“Chief among them is blessing what God wishes to give us, and it’s always given in God’s time– not mine or yours. This is the Important spiritual stance of being a disciple—we must watch and wait upon the Lord and his great goodness.”
The bishop said that in the spiritual life there are two kinds of waiting, passive and a more active, alert kind of waiting.
“Passive waiting is a surrender to a circumstance we can’t change,” he said, observing that it can also be a “difficult waiting” such as when someone is ill or dying and you can only remain present to them during their sufferings.
However, “waiting for Advent, for the blessing of Kingdom is an active waiting,” he said, adding that we can’t sit around because Jesus has urged us through his teachings to work toward the kingdom’s fulfillment in the world.
“There is also work to be done inside in your spiritual house and mine in this act of waiting– to take stock and turn our attention and our prayer and our imaging to make sure there is a place that will welcome not simply the Christ Child but welcome the King whenever he comes.”
The waiting of Advent is not simply preparing ourselves for Christmas but also for the second coming when Jesus returns triumphantly “at a time, and place and hour of God’s, not ours.”
Reminding the faithful that Advent is a penitential season, the bishop said that prayer and fasting hold the key to preparation.
“Fasting is not simply denial of food, but it is used to re-orient all things around us to their proper place , so that our possessions don’t possess us,” he said.
Likewise prayer should interrupt our routine so that we can put God at the center of our lives.
“It’s easy for you and me to put aside our prayer for a mistaken good whatever it may be. Active waiting calls us to actively engage in a relationship with God that at times we can take for granted,” he said.
Advent is the time for “putting ourselves in the presence of the Lord and allowing him to inform, form, transform us like as piece of clay as Isiah reminds us, “ he said.
“There’s an old saying that ‘Good things are worth waiting for,’” said the bishop, noting that Advent asks us to prepare for “the best of things–the Kingdom… Let us be watching, let us be alert, let us be active and let us wait as he asks us to,” he said.
Before giving the final blessing, the bishop said that one good way to deepen our prayer and engage in active waiting as we begin Advent is to join in the weekly Rosary every Sunday at 7:30 pm. For information on the Sunday Family Rosary visit: https://formationreimagined.org/sundayfamilyrosary/
