1 – FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT – CYCLE C – 2021 

Ø  With the time of Advent, we begin a new liturgical year, a new liturgical cycle.

Ø  During the time of Advent, we prepare ourselves to welcome, give thanks and celebrate the coming among us of the Son of God, to be one of us

Ø  During this new liturgical year we will use the Gospel of Luke. The church in her liturgical reformation, after the Council Vatican II, offered to us the opportunity to read the 3 synoptic gospels in three years. The purpose is to help us to know Christ better through the eyes of those evangelists who had known the first witnesses or someone who had known them.   

Ø  The Jesus Luke describes is full of proximity, mercy, accepting everyone with great freedom.  He is the Good Shepherd who rejoices to find the lost coins, who goes out  to  meet his prodigal son that returns home… 

Ø  It has been said that Luke besides bien a physician was a painter. We do not know if this is true but he painted with his words. 

Ø  Luke with few strokes offers us a wonderful picture of Mary, as a woman of an incomparable beauty, who  being a teenager knew how to say yes to God.  

Ø  Let us see what the liturgy offers in this first Sunday of Advent.  

FIRST READING  – Jer 33:14-16

·         This reading from the prophet Jeremiah has a tone of fulfillment and hope.  

·         In those days, what days? The people of Israel and the Church have always understood “those days” as the end of time of history. 

·         God will fulfill his promises of joy to the houses of Israel and Judah, to the Church.  

·         And God will make a germinate a germ in the midst of his people.

·         This germ in Jesus who came as King of the truth, who has done justice to the sin of mankind in his own body.  

·          In this way he has saved us. The reading ends saying that this germ will be called "The Lord-is-our-righteousness"

·         Jesus elsewhere in this Gospel of Luke will tell us to "go and do the same."

·         Yes, let us go and do the same as our pastor has done, let us do justice in and with our lives.  

RESPONSORIAL PSALM – Ps 25

R. To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.
Your ways, O LORD, make known to me;
   teach me your paths,
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
   for you are God my savior,
   and for you I wait all the day. 
R. To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.
Good and upright is the LORD;
   thus he shows sinners the way.
He guides the humble to justice,
   and teaches the humble his way. 
R. To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.
All the paths of the LORD are kindness and constancy
   toward those who keep his covenant and his decrees.
The friendship of the LORD is with those who fear him,
   and his covenant, for their instruction. 
R. To you, O Lord, I lift my soul. 

v Lord show us the way

v We want to walk in your path, Lord.

v  Now that we are preparing for the Synod: “For a Synodal Church: communion, participation and mission" we say from the bottom of our hearts "discover us Lord your ways”.

SECOND READING – 1 Thes 3:12-4,2

      The apostle asks that the Lord give us such a love for God and for our brothers and sisters   

      That it strengths our heart,

      make us irreproachable on the day of the Lord's coming 

      And then Paul invites us to lead a holy life, following the indications that he himself gave to his community of Thessalonica. 

      This invitation is also addressed to us.  Let us see how we can live, more and more every day, according to those who believe and hope. It is not about doing things; it is about loving and thus being more free in ourselves every day and letting others be free.

GOSPEL -  Lk 2:25-28.34-36

§  Luke says that Jesus told his people of his second coming, that is, the end of history.  

§  This text has an apocalyptic style and therefore uses natural phenomena to explain something much deeper, which is the encounter of the human being with his Creator. Like those servants who had to give an account of what their master gave them before leaving; when the master asks them to explain how they have used the talents they had received,  they start worrying.   Giving accounts always puts us in tension even if we have not done anything wrong. 

§  The strong natural phenomena such as hurricanes, volcanoes, thunder, and lightning always appear in the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments to describe the coming of God (Exodus, the death of Jesus on the cross…).

§  In this gospel we encounter again the mysterious character of Daniel's book the "Son of Man.” He is always a figure of authority; he is someone with power and strength.

§  The evangelist says, transmitting to us what Jesus said, that when we see these events, we should raise our heads because our salvation has arrived. What events? 

o   Everything that is described as signs in the stars, in the sky, on earth can be everything that happens to us, not only of natural phenomena, but  wars and struggles between us humans. Not only wars between nations but also  between the members of the same family and in our hearts.

§  We are invited to be awake, that is, to be alert and do not let sin seduce us and destroy us.

§  To be awake to wait for him as the bride of the Song of Songs awaits the groom who comes illuminating the darkness, that is, giving joy and a fullness that we cannot even imagine.

§  Let us repeat what the first communities, full of enthusiasm and love, said Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!

	CLARETIAN CORNER

 

 

 

To Anthony Mary Claret, Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba

Your Most Illustrious Excellency,

María Antonia París, María Josefa Caixal, María Rosa Gual y María Encarnación Gual from the convent of the School Sisters of the Company of Mary, located in the City of Tarragona, to Your Most Illustrious Excellency, with due respect, we make present: that after having spent some of them several years of novitiate in that Monastery from which they come, admitted to religious profession as some of their companions did, they preferred to move to this Great Antilles as most in need of the spiritual help of religious education, taking part, in their own way, in the Holy Mission that brought Y.M.I.E.. to these shores with your companions.

Communicated the thought and consulted with its worthy and zealous spiritual directors the wise and virtuous Rv. José Caixal, Canon,  and the Reverend Father Master Tomás Gatell of the Order of Preachers; after  mature examination and repeated tests, they believed that our desire was nothing, but a special vocation of the Lord to which we should correspond on our part: Y.M.I.E.  was consulted, and your opinion of weight in this matter, corroborated the thought.  (the rest of   letter 2, next week) 

BIBLIOGRAPHY2

PARIS, María Antonia París. Epistolario. Presentación, introducciones a las cartas y notas por P. Juan Manuel Lozano cmf. 1993.