Advent Message from Father Joseph Ahilan Pastor of St James Parish
We have four seasons in nature. According to the season, we adapt ourselves to face them well. Here in the Church, we too have seasons which are called liturgical seasons, helping us focus ourselves to be well prepared to celebrate the liturgy meaningfully and fruitfully. We begin the new liturgical year with the season of Advent. On this day the church invites us to be ready and prepared to receive the Lord. Advent means waiting. We wait eagerly for someone we love, we care for and we are ready to invest our time in Him. In the liturgical calendar, the season of Advent means a joyful waiting, a waiting for Jesus, prayerfully with affection and love. There is the eagerness within us to receive him and we look forward to this great event when God becomes man. However, it is a special kind of waiting for a God who has come already, who comes regularly into our life and who will come again at the end of time. We know that Jesus came into the world already two thousand years ago and we remember this event with devotion. We know that he will come again at the end of time as a judge and unite the whole universe to himself. He comes daily in the sacraments and in the Eucharist in a very special way as our food and drink to strengthen us and fill us with His grace. We also prepare ourselves to celebrate the feast of Jesus Christ born among us as a human person in a stable in Bethlehem to be one with us and remind ourselves of the great work of salvation begun for us.
The frightening consequences of Mary’s “Yes”: Mary’s choice was not an easy one. As a teenage girl, betrothed but not yet married to Joseph, she was being asked to become pregnant by a Heavenly Source. Betrothal was regarded as a full
commitment to one’s future spouse, and for such a girl to lose her virginity was tantamount to adultery, a sin punishable by death.
Life messages:
Dear Parents, students and friends, during this season of Advent we prepare ourselves to receive the God. The whole purpose of the celebration is to remind us of what this birth is ultimately about. It is not a question of looking back but one of looking forward. It is a question of being ready and prepared and at the same time live in hope to receive the Lord. In fact, this coming is not just at the moment of Final Judgment. We must note that the Final Judgment is not so much a day when all will be gathered together but rather it is that moment when each one of us is called to come face to face with God.
We need to say a courageous and generous “Yes” to God as Mary did. True obedience comes from a free choice made in the light of what is true and good. It often requires a great deal of courage, because it can involve going against the tide of social expectations. True obedience also aims at putting oneself at the service of something/someone that is greater than oneself by accepting what God clearly wants us to do, or what He wants to do through us. Jesus’ own moment of greatness, like his Mother’s, came when He said “Yes,” to his Father in Gethsemane, and Jesus’ own obedience is our model. Will we surrender to God and allow God to do what, from our human point of view, seems impossible? Will we surrender our agenda, our will and our kingdom to God and allow God’s agenda, will and Kingdom to become a reality for us and through us? It is by saying, with Jesus and Mary, a wholehearted and totally unconditional “Yes,” to God that Jesus will be re-born in each of us – or maybe even born in us for the first time. By our saying “yes,” Jesus may well be born or reborn in others too.
Amen.
Father Joseph Ahilan, CRSP
