Homily for the First Sunday of Advent, Nov. 30, 2025. Gospel of St. Matthew 24:37-44. Theme: Christ Comes to Us in History, Mystery & Majesty!
Well, here we are at Advent once again, with our traditional Wreath calling us to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ. We Catholics have been observing this time of preparation for Christmas since at least the 5th century. Its name comes from the Latin Adventus (which means “arrival” or “coming”), a word that was originally used in ancient Rome to describe the arrival of the emperor. We simply co-opted it to describe the coming of Christ, the King of Kings.
During this season, the Church asks us to expand our minds and go beyond seeing Advent as just a countdown to Christmas. We are asked to widen our perspective to include the three traditional comings or advents of Jesus. The first was when he was born in Bethlehem. The second is how he mystically comes to us today by grace through faith. And the third turns our attention to when the Lord returns to us in glory. We call these three advents the coming of Jesus to us in history, in mystery and in majesty. We can also simply call them Advent-Past, Advent-Present and Advent-to-Come. And an echo of them found their way into the plot of one of our most beloved holiday tales, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.
I’m sure that many of you will recall that this story takes place on a bleak and cold Christmas eve in mid-19th century London. A greedy old miser named Ebinezar Scrooge, who has a ba-humbug heart of stone, is awakened throughout the night by three mysterious spirits: the Ghost of Christmas-Past, the Ghost of Christmas-Present and the Ghost of Christmas-to-Come (do you see the three perspectives there?) Through his dramatic encounter with them he is converted and totally transformed into a generous Christian man overflowing with Christmas joy! These three ghostly manifestations of the triple-meaning of Advent can teach us to embrace the season more fully by remembering what Jesus did for us in the past, by embracing what he wants to do for us in the here-and-now of the present, and by living in such a way as to be prepared for his coming in the future. So let’s take a quick look at each of them.
Advent-Past focuses, of course, on the Nativity story. And it’s so very easy for us to get caught up in it and to stay there in Bethlehem, what with its stable and manger, with its angels and shepherds, with its mystical magi and their precious gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. But Jesus doesn’t want us to spend our time just remembering what He once did for us, as marvelous as it was. While celebrating Christmas to keep the Nativity story alive in our memory, Jesus wants us to move on from Bethlehem. He wants us to realize that just as his first coming made a difference in the world back then and ever since, so his present coming to us in the here-and-now can make a real difference in our lives today and moving forward.
Jesus wants us to truly embrace and live in Advent-Present where he comes to us in many ways, three of which stand out among the others because he himself told us that they are where we would find him. He comes to us in the real presence of the Eucharist which we take into our hands. He comes to us in the Word of God by which he speaks to us through the Gospels. And he comes to us in the disguise of the Needy Poor with whom he closely identified himself. In these three ways we will find the one and same Jesus coming to us today, right now, just as surely as he once came to Joseph and Mary. In these three ways we can adore him like the shepherds of Bethlehem and we can seek him out and pay him homage like the magi who traveled from afar.
And lastly, we have Advent-to-Come. Now this was the most dramatic and effective part of Dickens' story. You’ll recall that the Ghost of Christmas-to-Come led Ebinezar Scrooge to the site of his future grave and made him really ponder it. This was a very sobering experience for him in which all of the lame excuses he had for not embracing the joy of Christmas and for not having compassion on the suffering of the poor faded away! This reminds us that the purpose of Advent-to-Come is to help us live Advent-present most fully and to the best of our ability. It does this by having us face the fact that our time on planet Earth is limited and will indeed come to an end, either because we will pass from this world or because Christ will come again in glory as he said in today's Gospel. In other words, no matter how we look at it, Advent-to-Come is a serious wake-up call that should make us get our act together!
But you know, when all is said and done, if we stop to think about it we will see that Advent-Present is really the only aspect of Advent that is truly ours to live because Advent-Past is history and Advent-Future is yet to come. With this in mind, if we spend our Advent-Present well, welcoming Jesus as he comes to us in the Eucharist, listening to Jesus as he speaks to us in the Gospels, and reaching out to comfort Jesus as he suffers in the needy poor, then we will be best prepared to receive the ultimate gift of Christmas that he offers us. It’s the very same gift that was offered to Ebinezar Scrooge at the end of the Dickens novel: the gift of a new outlook on life that can make everything seem new again and fill us with abundant spiritual joy.
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