AWAKE OUT OF SLEEP

A REFLECTION FOR ADVENT SUNDAY

Today is the liturgical New Year’s Day.  It is our annual jolt of reality, our alarm clock if you like, that is meant to wake us out of complacency and sinful lifestyles.  It is a time for renewing our resolutions to become better people, to resume the hard work needed to climb our path to salvation. 

Read the Epistle today, St. Paul summarizes it perfectly.  Remember, he’s writing to the Romans, the Christians of Rome who were in the very beginnings of their faith.  St. Paul is exhorting them to cease their pagan ways and become true Christians, ready to live and die for love of the Lord who saved their lost souls.  We need no reminders how the Christians of Rome ended up—persecuted by one emperor after another, fed to the lions in the Colosseum, crucified along the highways, burnt alive on their crosses to act as “street lamps” for the pagan rulers.  What are our struggles compared to theirs?

Today, our own alarm clock has disturbed our slumbering.  We have a choice, as we do every morning when we’re woken up to go to work.  We can either hit the snooze button and go back to sleep; or we can get out of bed, make the coffee, and begin our daily duties. On this Advent Sunday, our choices are similar.  Sure, we can ignore St. Paul’s reminder to “awake out of sleep,” turning a blind eye to the call for action—but if we do, the consequences will be worse than missing the bus, or getting fired.  Really, our only sane choice is to do our Christian duty and “cast off the works of darkness.. and put on the armour of light.”  We can resolve that from now forward, our lives will be according to the will and precepts of God, avoiding sin, occasions of sin, fighting the inevitable temptations, and persevering in the perfection of every virtue.  

As always, it’s our own free will that will determine our choice.  But know this, God most certainly is allowing us sufficient grace to succeed if we make the right choice.  And if we don’t, we’re on our own!  And always will be, forever.

Every Advent we get another chance to make and then persevere in the right decision.  We never know if this will be our last, so it’s not a good idea to put it off till next year!  For every person who lives a long and fruitful life, we hear of children and young people who are taken from this life by terrible diseases and accidents.  Please pray especially today for Emilee Giamanco, who is ten, and has been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer.  She has been given three to six months. 

On a happier note, say a prayer of thanksgiving for Mr. Eugene Berry, Sr. who celebrated his 100^th birthday last week.  Mr. Berry is a parishioner of Our Lady of the Rosary in Monroe, Connecticut where I used to work.  I first met him when I visited his son, Fr. Eugene Berry, at their home back in 1979.  Mr. Berry served his country during World War II as a member of the United States Army as a Chaplain's Assistant and in the Medical Services unit in the United States and in Europe.  He later worked as a volunteer firefighter in the Mount Vernon Fire Department.  Please pray for his continued good health.