The need for watchfulness

Today is the third day of December and it is the First Sunday of Advent, which tells us that in three weeks, it will be Christmas once again. Advent as you probably know by now, comes from the Latin word, which means "Coming", that our Lord Jesus Christ is coming. As we Catholics have been taught, when our Lord Jesus Christ was born on Christmas Day, it also means that we must now prepare ourselves for his coming passion and death on the cross during Holy Week, because we have been taught that our Lord Jesus Christ was destined to be born in order to die for our sins.

The beauty of Christianity is that, it celebrates the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ (although the early Christians looked at Easter Sunday as a more important day to celebrate), then we go into a mournful mode during the Lenten Season, then a week after Holy Week, we celebrate the glorious Easter Sunday, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Today's Sunday gospel is the first in our new Liturgical calendar, which comes from Mark 13:33-37 and talks about the need for watchfulness.

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"33 Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. 34 It is like a man going out to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. 35 Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming-in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning- 36 May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping, and 37 what I say to you, I say to you all: Watch!"

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Once more we are taught the continuing theme in Church's Liturgy to always be watchful, as we do not know when the Master is coming back. In short, you have to make sure that when the Master returns he will not find you asleep. Unfortunately our Lord Jesus cannot even tell us when that fateful day will come. As we learned in Matt.24: 36. "But of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only." This is a cataclysmic event that only God the Father knows when it would happen.

Hence we must use Advent as a time to prepare ourselves as if we already know the time when our Lord Jesus would come. Sure, we know that Jesus was born on December 25, which has already been written in the Bible. But just like his Second Coming, we should use this time of Advent for self-preparation to show our Love for our Lord Jesus Christ by going to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and taking Holy Communion. If you didn't notice the vestments of the priests for Advent is purple, which is also the same color for penance.

Last month we were bombarded with the Parables of our Lord Jesus that he uses to teach to his disciples and as a means to warn us Christians to never take things for granted. We should all be reminded that our lives here on earth is a temporary one… hence we are also called "Pilgrims" as our main objective is to move from our earthly life into a life of eternity with God in Paradise. So in effect, the Liturgy of the Catholic Church is true to its mission in life; to prepare all Catholics to meet the Lord when either you die before the Second Coming of Christ or when he really returns to earth with all his heavenly glory.

Just a few weeks ago, the gospel taught us about the Parable of the Ten Foolish Virgins, five of whom prepared themselves with additional oil for their lamps, while the other five were contented with the oil burning inside their lamps. When the bridegroom arrived, their lamps were all exhausted and asked the other virgins to give them oil, but the others refused as their extra oil was just enough for their own use. This happened simply because the others took things for granted and were not really prepared to meet the bridegroom. Today's gospel ends with 'be watchful!'

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