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GOSPEL REFLECTIONS FOR BUSY PEOPLE First Sunday of Advent November 28, 2004
Mt 24: 37-44
The Coming…and Going!
Advent is here again! It means someone is to come, “Emmanuel” means God is with us! But how can someone always with us come? How can God so present in us be with us as if coming from absence? Let us reflect at our lives as coming…and going!
I went home yesterday to our native town named Samal, to sleep overnight. No one is living in our house anymore since my mother died almost two years ago. I slept completely and rested well in the death bed of my mother, away from worries and responsibilities. But then, I suddenly woke up at about quarter to 6:00 a.m. and heard the sound of our church bells and some instrumental music on air by Msgr. Rene, the parish priest. Then, the angelus was recited at exactly 6::00 a.m. I almost stood up to prepare for mass and get dressed. Suddenly, I was confused and realized that I was away from my parish of assignment. I prayed and thanked God; my first impulse is to say mass with the new morning and with bells ringing. I have been a priest all these years, looking back from my younger days and with eyes amazed in my house of birth. At about 8:00 a.m., I went to my high school alma mater, St. Catherine of Siena Academy, to be one of the judges in mathematics song competition. How different is the school now and years gone yet a lot of similarities existed during our time. After the contest, I should go back to my parish and leave home again! With a sense of mystery, I felt myself as gone and yet so present! I come home again the same and yet different because of my many going’s away and coming’s home again! I come to know that our lives can travel far with our many goodbyes, and many hellos! Try going home and you can understand my point! A mystical experience of coming…and going!
Noah prepared himself for the journey! He invited his people to come into the ark! But they didn’t. They died and the flood carried them all away! Noah and his family did come. They lived and new life was born! They come to travel the unknown and yet the saving presence of God is with them above the “chaos” of the Great Flood. God never leaves us, and yet the “Coming” is always new because everyday consists of new situations, new challenges, new beginnings, new endings…and we have to go with God! Advent as the “Coming” of Jesus literally means our “Going” with Him! Advent for me then is like an intensified experience of coming home to know how far I have traveled and how risky I have said goodbye to a changeless world within and around me! With advent, every moment is new, a coming…and a going, ! We have to prepare the mystery of Jesus with us, as the ever “Coming and Going” God amongst us!
Come into the ark…and Go! Go with God! Bon voyage! |
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