Sunday, November 30 @ 10:00 AM
St. Augustine Cathedral

My dear sisters and brothers, we gather this morning to begin yet another year of grace. We begin the Season of Advent and prepare for the solemnities of the Birth of the Savior. As grace would have it, we celebrate it on a day ordinarily dedicated to honor one of the Apostles, Andrew, who is a towering figure for our Orthodox sisters and brothers, as well as in our own Church. I think Andrew gives us a clue as to what the Lord wants from you and me these next three weeks—and, if I may dare say, for the rest of our mortal lives.

For you recall, my friends, that Andrew was the one who introduced his older brother Peter to Jesus. He was the one who literally brought him to the Lord—that is, the one who would become the Rock of the Church—so that he might meet the Savior and Redeemer of us all. I like to think of Andrew as a living bridge, for one could ask: What would have motivated Peter to go to meet this rabbi who was quite extraordinary and a bit odd, if not the love he had for his brother? It was in that simple love that Peter found what his heart desired.

That bridge—being the bridge—is exactly the challenge of Advent. For you and I know that we celebrate these weeks, in part, to prepare for Christmas: the historic coming of the Savior into creation, the creation He Himself made, so that you and I might have eternal life in Him and have our sins forgiven. We also pray to be prepared for that hour when it comes—whenever it does come—when the Lord returns in glory, and you and I will be ready to meet Him, to be judged, and to enter into the glory that is our gift in Jesus Christ.

But as you have often heard me say, there is a third coming, and that’s Andrew’s challenge. For the third coming is not just in history and not just in the future—it is right now. Every moment of every day, you and I have an opportunity to encounter Christ. We do it in extraordinary ways when we come to celebrate the Sacraments, and here above all others, in the great mystery of receiving His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Eucharist.

Our brother Dominic is being installed as an acolyte, and he is preparing to receive a ministry that will draw him close to this mystery—not simply to be one who arranges items on an altar, but to be a bridge to the hopes and dreams, the trials and sufferings, of the people he will meet in formation, in ministry, and in service for his whole life.

He will bring them to that altar and, in his heart, become one with them, praying that they may encounter Christ in their sufferings and pains—those burdens he will meet in the rough and tumble of everyday life.

You and I are asked to do the same. We are asked to become a bridge for all our sisters and brothers who are not here—those with whom we work, our neighbors and friends, those we share our kitchen table with—who, perhaps for many reasons, have not found the Lord, have not had the opportunity to meet the Lord, or have, for whatever reason, an obstacle in their hearts that prevents them from seeing the Lord who is so close to them. He is closer to them than they are to themselves.

How will they encounter Him? Through the opportunities you and I have to love, to be kind, to forgive, to choose ways other than the world—to be vessels of all that the Lord describes in His ministry and teachings. We must be the one who causes someone else to pause and ask: Why is she forgiving when I would hold a grudge? Why is he merciful when I would do what the world tells me to do and turn my back? Why is he standing with that poor man when he is the only one standing?

To be a bridge means you and I should not be afraid to say why we do these things. We don’t do them for ourselves. We do them for Christ. In loving our neighbor, we are loving Christ. We are creating a bridge for our neighbor—and for ourselves—creating another encounter through which we can fall ever more in love with Christ.

But, my friends, if in our ordinary lives we do not ask God to take away the cataracts so that we may see Christ in the faces of our neighbors, friends, and even those we do not like… if we do not learn to see the opportunities God gives us to be His vessels, His hands, His heart, His feet in the world… if we do not remove those cataracts and learn how to be a bridge so that others may see what we see… then what will we bring to the Lord in judgment? What will we present to Him in the end?

That is what Advent is all about.

And so the words we heard in Romans from Saint Paul are the words I want to leave you with. As we pray for Dominic in a special way—for less than a year from now he will, please God, return to this cathedral to be ordained a deacon, and a year after that enter the mystery of the sacred ministerial priesthood—we pray for him, that God will continue to bless and guide him in his formation.

But we pray for each other as well, don’t we, in this Church? For we are all on our own journeys, our own pilgrimages, in the vocations God has given to you and to me.

It is time, my friends, to wake up from our spiritual sleep. The time draws near. The hour is now—not later, not tomorrow, not next week, not next year—now. It is time to ask the grace of the Holy Spirit to be like Andrew in the world.

For, if I may be so bold, no matter what gift you plan to give your wife, your husband, your mother, your father, your son, your daughter, your grandchildren, your friends, or your coworkers on Christmas Day, whatever gift you are planning to give pales in comparison to the greatest gift we can give one another: to introduce each other—again and again and again—to Jesus.