First Sunday of Advent 2018

Happy New Year! The new liturgical season starts today. It began with the Gospel of the Apocalypse. Jesus speaks of the darkening of the sky and the coming of the Lord after the days of tribulation (no Rapture here). The standard interpretation of this reading is about real events to come. Others say that this scene is about the inevitable sack of Jerusalem by the Romans (the Evangelist has the luxury of hindsight here, because it would have occurred by the time the Gospel was committed to paper).  The mood is generally described as one of doom.

The usual interpretation highlights Advent as a penitential season, with doom to come, therefore the need for the Sacrament of Penance. The Lord talks about being ready to look up to great him, lest drunkenness and things of the world distract us. This season is counter-cultural to the pagan celebrations involving alcohol that take place this time of year. 

As the day grows shorter in northern climates, the gloom is very real. The new term is seasonal affective disorder (or SAD) and the usual medicine is getting drunk. Those who are in recovery are hit particularly hard because alcohol is no longer an option. This is why there are recovery events in most recovery clubs from Halloween to Christmas. 

For first time parents, upcoming doom is a good topic.  They have no idea what they are getting into. Pregnancy is simply the calm before the storm. In the modern world, unlike antiquity, we pamper our children, so the season is marked by the purgatory of children whining about what they want from Santa.

Although the scriptures are clear that Jesus was born in the spring, when the sheep are in the fields, the Church has hijacked the birth of Christ to substitute for the pagan Saturnalia. This is fine as long as it is not overdone and the need for cheer forgotten. We must not push the spiritual angle so far that we forget the very real need to curse the darkness.

The theme of the coming of the day of the Lord is emphasized both during the 33rd week for ordinary time and the first week of Advent. In the early Church, this was seen as an imminent possibility. There are Evangelical sects who believe that this is still just around the corner. Most Christians are more complacent about it, as every generation believes it is the last and it never has been. 

We know that after the solstice comes the longer days and eventual spring, with wedding season occurring between Christmas and the spring harvest of winter wheat. Darkness is followed by celebration before the environmental season of scarcity, which was the Lenten fast. The fast was necessary to make sure that all went hungry, so that the rich would not take all of the food. More on that on Ash Wednesday.

 For much of the world, food is plentiful, so the fast is no longer needed so that none starve. Indeed, the provision of food aid to nations right before the harvest actually hurts the poor because prices go down and local agriculture suffers, which may be the point of such aid.

Penitence for both seasons came later, to add a spiritual dimension to what were and are environmental events. Perhaps we should shift to more current penances, like taking the bus rather than driving. In the winter, this brings home the plight of the homeless as well. If we remember that, solidarity with the poor and support for better services to the homeless would be a step in this direction.

Penitence is essential for those who do not know suffering on a regular basis. Most people are not alcoholic, so the urging against drunkenness does not really apply to them. While many have SAD, for most it is not particularly noticeable. Modern medicine has eliminated much disease. Most people die quickly of heart attacks and most cardiac patients and many cancer patients are older, which means that most suffering occurs later in life. If the old are shunted off to nursing homes, the family no longer shares in the suffering of the seniors. Mental illness is more common, but now it is more easily treated, although the pressure we put on the young bring such suffering much earlier.

Without natural suffering, the artificial kind is prescribed so that those that penance highlights the need for God. Of course, this can be taken too far, which is why Luther rebelled against it. Unless we know why Penance is necessary, it is simply sadism or masochism for no reason. Abandoning the things of this world is harder for those who do not suffer, while the poor and sick do not require artificial penance. They need to stress the mercy of God. 

It is the rich (and most Americans are rich by planetary standards) who must seek righteousness, which is about doing justice to the poor. It is not self-righteousness, which is becoming smug because occasions of personal sin are not particularly serious for most people. Making sexual sin so stressful is an attempt to make everyone suffer. That is also a bad idea.

While war brings about serious tribulation (another reason that righteousness and peacemaking are equally important), most have not seen it directly - although the last century was particularly violent. In times of peace, war is forgotten by all but the survivors. Bringing mercy to them is also a form of righteousness, as many suffer in silence or in the streets in the cold.

Doing justice makes the seeking of penance a secondary goal. It really is the reason for the season. We will likely not see the end of the world in our lifetimes (although the rumor of war and the poor will always be with us), If we are truly just, we can hold our heads up in anticipation of the coming of the end, not the end of the world but of our own lives. 

Today's Gospel applies to all of us because we will all likely die before the return of the Lord to the world. He will, however, call on each of us and will demand an accounting, not of our sin or our penitence, but of the justice we did and did not do if we care too much of the things of this world.