Advent and the Call to Spiritual Conversion
Summary of Headings
The Purpose of Advent
Seems very odd that we would celebrate the beginning of the liturgical year. The liturgical new year as it were. By talking about the end of the world. As mentioned. Last week we had the end of the world. But it made sense because it was the last Sunday. Of the liturgical year. And so it looks like we say that it follows the path. And so it looks like we say that it follows the path. Of the history of the world. So it makes sense that we talk about the end of the world. At the end of the liturgical year. But we start with the end of the world. In the liturgical year as well. And the reason for that is because. We are in advent. The whole purpose of our existence. Is to prepare for the coming of Christ. And not just when we talk about the end times. And the second coming. But in general. Our whole purpose of existence. Is for the purpose of bringing Christ into this world. To welcome him in. We need to make sure. That we understand what that means. In a word. It means conversion. Now when we talk about conversion. We always talk about it as a single event in our lives. Someone who converted to the faith. Someone who was not Catholic for the longest time. And then they make this great step. Of turning around. And coming to the church. And entering into the church. That is considered their conversion. For some people. It is somebody who has drifted away from the way of grace. And has come back. And found themselves. That is a conversion. So we talk about it in these kind of. Flash in the pan. Once and standing once only. Types of events. It is not that. A conversion is an act of turning. Is an act of becoming something else. Turning to become something else. Turning into something else. That is what the purpose of a conversion is. That is the purpose of Advent. To help us to convert. Our lives each and every day. Must be one of active conversion. Who we are today. Should not be who we are tomorrow. Even if the distinction should be minute. Or maybe only minute. The difference must be there. We cannot be the same day to day. Because this is the death of a life. What is the difference. According to philosophers of old. What is proof of life. What is the proof of the existence of life. It is movement. It is growth. As long as we are moving. As long as we are growing. We can be considered to be alive. Look at a tree. How it grows. Or an animal. Even ourselves. That is why I keep adding weight. To make sure everybody knows I am alive. But growth is necessary for us. To actually prove. That we exist. Not that we need that proof. We have that proof all around us. But more appropriately I would say. Than that last statement. Is that. To live. We must grow. The moment we stop trying to grow. And to convert into something else. We are dying. Physically we only have so much growth. Physically we are always moving towards death. We are always moving towards death. That is the whole purpose of our life. But. In our spiritual life. There is no limitation. There is no end. There is no stop. The only time that we can say. That we will stop growing spiritually. Is the moment that we die. But we will continue to be augmented. Or decreased. Depending on if we are in heaven or hell. But we will continue to be augmented. Growth is necessary for life. Change is necessary for life. Perfection is necessary to live. Our spiritual life. Must continue to grow. One of the deadliest weapons. That the devil likes to employ. Against the faithful. Is complacency. It is one of the most deadly diseases. That we can catch. And it is very easy to catch. And it is very easy to catch. And it is very easy to catch. And it is very easy to catch. Complacency just means. That we are okay with the status quo. We are simply fine. Being where we are. We don't create any waves. We don't cause any problems. We don't try to make any. Difficulties for ourselves or for others. We go along to get along. And get along to go along. This is death itself. This is death itself. This is stagnation. One thing that is necessary. One thing that is necessary. For baptism. Is that the water must run. Down the person's. If not forehead. At least their body. The water must come into contact with them. And it must run. Why is that? Because of the life that it is giving. The water of baptism gives the life of grace. And so to give that example of life. It is the water supposed to run. You can go all around Florida. And find swamps. And you can see what happens. When the water is not flowing. When it is not moving and living water. It is stagnation. That is where death and disease can grow. But that is not where life can grow. Life depends upon us. Actually doing something. With our lives. Actually moving. And trying to improve it. Trying to perfect it. That is why we live. That is who we are supposed to be. We are supposed to be. Living temples of God. We are not a place just to shut. God away. From everybody else. We are supposed to be the ones who bring him into the world. But in order for that to happen. We have to welcome him more deeply. Into our own souls. We have to give him full possession. Because he is the tree of life. He is the only source of life. Our spiritual life is him. And no other. We tend to think of it as our own. Somehow growing our own soul. But no. It is surrendering our soul to him. He is the one who grows. He is the one who improves. He is the one who perfects. Because he is God. He is life itself. And we cannot grow even a little bit more. As our Lord pointed out. Without God. Directly commanding it. How do we start this growth? How do we change? Especially if we have caught the disease of complacency. How do we become. What we are supposed to be. How do we become possessed by Christ? The first step is. Like Saint Paul says. Knowing is the hour to rise from sleep. Now is the hour to rise from sleep. Now is the hour to rise from sleep. Now is the hour to rise from sleep. I am sure we all know what it is like. To try to hit the snooze button. To just get five more minutes. But we don't have that spiritually speaking. Now is the time to wake up. Now is the time to wake up. Spiritually. Now is the time to shake off the stupor of sleep. Of complacency. Now is the time to actually step up. And take full responsibility of our spiritual lives. We have no excuses. We have no excuses. The world needs it. The world needs it. We need it. Yes it may be difficult. Yes it may be painful. Yes we may have to confront things we don't want to. We may have to surrender our lives. But we have to. Because Christ is come. Because Christ is come. That is what Advent means. Adventus. He is come. He is come to the world. The Church uses Advent as a way to stir up our anticipation and our longing for Christ. The Liturgy in Advent is very unique. Very beautiful. In which it constantly changes from Sunday to Sunday. In which it increases in its urgency and desire for the coming of Christ. And it pushes us harder to try to prepare ourselves for his coming. Now we know that the Lord We can talk about his coming as if it were the end of the world. We can talk about his coming as if it were the historic moment of Christmas and his birth. We can talk about his coming also, and more importantly, in our day -to -day spiritual lives. He has come. He is here. So therefore, we must get ready. Advent is not a time of penance the same way Lent is. It is a time, not of purification, but of preparation. We all know, or we should know, what it's like to host the holidays in our homes. We have lots of guests coming, so we spend a week cleaning, even though we should have been cleaning the whole time. The house should have been clean all the time. And yet, right before the holidays, we bustle to make sure everything is perfect, as perfect as possible. And that's perfectly right and just. As it should be. But now we have Christ coming. The King of Kings himself. We must bustle with even more fervor to cleanse every part of our lives for his coming. One part of that is penance. And this is why the first person that the church brings before our eyes is that of St. John the Baptist. Advent is very much about St. John the Baptist because he gives us the example of the coming of Christ. He gives us the example of what kind of detachment of spirit we must have to be able to serve God, to be able to prepare for the coming of Christ more completely. That is what we are supposed to do. And they give us the perfect example of the one wandering in the desert, living on locusts and honey, living a very difficult life, but always in preparation for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So surely we can do something. Something small. Some small penance for these four weeks to prepare ourselves for his coming. Surely. Let's at least think about it. Let's at least think about what it is we can give to our Lord Jesus Christ to prepare ourselves. What we can give up. What we can sacrifice. What is one thing, at least, that we can get rid of during this time to help us learn detachment so that the coming of Christ is, shall we say, more fruitful because there is more room for him in our soul. The second person that the church puts before us is the silent presence, our lady. She is always there. But she is not the one the church mentions in the Gospels. But she is the most present in Advent. Why is that? Because she is the door by which Christ enters the world. So Advent is her season. Even before Christ. Christ is visible for everybody to see. She is the one carrying him around. She is the one presenting him to the world before they can even see him. She is the one who brings him forth. And something very much that we must learn to do ourselves. Carry him forth into the world. The same way she did. She is brought before our eyes also because we must learn one other aspect. Not just the penance of St. John the Baptist, but the contemplation of our lady. She pondered these things within her heart. One of the things that is commonly said about her in the Gospels. Her Magnificat, the magnificent song of her humility, is an extraordinary thing that we should study and contemplate and emulate. Her example of preparing herself for the coming of Christ. She wasn't chosen just at random. She had lived her entire life to give herself to God. And when she received the grace of the Incarnation, she lived a life preparing herself for the coming of her Son and to bring God himself into this world. We must learn to do the same. One of the aspects of contemplation is the same detachment that St. John the Baptist represents. But not from external things, but from internal things. All the worries, concerns, preoccupations, fears, pain, difficulties, all the distractions that we have in our minds. That is what Our Lady is supposed to demonstrate to us how we are supposed to cure ourselves of those things to make room for God. While our mind is so busy and buzzing with all of these things, there is no room for Him. While we are attached to our pleasures and our conveniences, there is no room for Him. room for him. We have to get to the point where we are willing to give up our lives themselves for God. How can we do that if we can't give up our cell phones for God? That's just one example, not pushing any particular penances. But how is it we are supposed to give up our lives for God, which is the whole goal, whether it's through martyrdom or whether it's just serving him in every thought, word, and deed completely and totally with all of our heart and will. However it is we are supposed to serve God, it is supposed to be complete. Every single action should be his, not ours. Every single thought should be inspired by him and directed toward him. Every word should come from him and guide ourselves and others to him. If we cannot do that, then we still have to go through Advent and preparation, and we still have to go through conversion. We have so many things yet to do in our lives to prepare for the coming of Christ. Let's not waste another minute on anything else. Let us convert. Let us prepare ourselves for his coming. Let us turn to him. Empty ourselves of all the things that hold us together. Let him fill us as completely as possible. And then tomorrow do the same, but even more and even better. And the next day, even more and even better. One beautiful thing about the liturgy in Advent is the anticipation grows each day. The desire for Christ grows each day as it should in our spiritual lives. It gives us a good indicator of how we are supposed to live our spiritual lives each and every day. Constantly growing in our desire to love God. Constantly growing in our desire to give ourselves to God. And constantly growing in the gift of ourselves to him. That is what we must contain and what we must utilize each and every day. But for that to happen, the first step is to wake up, to get out of our spiritual bed, shake the complacency off, stop trying to be friends with everybody and everything like the world, stop trying to get along, to go along to get along or vice versa. Stop trying so hard to make it easier on ourselves. But rather to accept whatever it is God asks of us to find him and to serve him more completely each and every day so that he can live in us and we can bring him to the world. And through that, we may be able to live eternally in his love. In his kingdom and heaven. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Summary
The homily begins with an exploration of Advent as a time for spiritual preparation and conversion. It emphasizes the importance of welcoming Christ into our lives, not just at the end times but every day. A key theme is the danger of spiritual complacency, which the homily describes as a deadly disease that prevents growth. It stresses the need for constant spiritual movement and transformation to truly live a life in Christ. The homily concludes by urging listeners to prepare for Christ's coming by following the examples of St. John the Baptist and Our Lady. It calls for detachment from worldly distractions and a deepening of our spiritual lives during Advent.