“A few months ago I had the opportunity to go back to Western Kansas to my hometown and be a part of a funeral for a friend, doing the Homily and helping with the Mass and the burial and it’s always interesting to hear stories of people, a lot of times funny stories that happened in their life. This particular story is about Mitch who when he was 9 years old he was out in the heat of summer playing with a friend. They were out playing baseball or doing something, whatever 9 year olds do and they decided they were pretty thirsty because it was a hot afternoon, so they decided to go into Mitch’s house and find something to drink. Now Mitch’s parents were gone at the time, so the house was empty. It was just Mitch and his friend, so they proceeded to go to the refrigerator, grab a beverage and they both grabbed a can and sat on the porch and began to drink to cool their thirst. A few moments later, mom and dad came around the corner and pulled into the driveway and the master was home and the master noticed that Mitch and his friend were drinking a beverage, but it was actually Budweiser. So, for a 9 year old that’s a bit of a problem. The master of the house was not real happy, but fortunately for Mitch he spent many years before his death as a law enforcement officer, so I think things worked out ok. Today’s Gospel from Mark is another one of those reminders to be watchful. We’ve had even throughout the past several weeks we heard the story of the bridegroom and the ten virgins being ready. We hear that and that’s the theme especially during Advent. It’s a time where we want to prepare and the Church gives us a beautiful example, we prepare for the coming of the Christ child, the Word Incarnate and we prepare for Christ’s second coming. It’s a time of year that it gets very busy, very hectic. Putting up Christmas lights or getting the house ready, putting up the Christmas tree, decorations inside the house. We’re preparing meals and are getting ready for meals for family and friends, doing Christmas shopping and getting all the presents and it’s just a crazy month or better of hustle and bustle, but Advent is a time that we are to prepare ourselves, so how are we doing that? We do well with getting ready for family and friends and I’m not saying that’s not important because it is, but do we forget about what Advent is truly about? We are at the first Sunday of Advent. It’s now an opportunity for us to really prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ. There’s a lot of noise in our world and I’m not just talking about audio noise. All the things going on really create noise and that noise takes our focus off of Christ. C.S. Lewis wrote a book called ‘Screwtape Letters’. Screwtape was the devil in the book and Screwtape said, ‘Noise is the band of Hell.’ and if you think about that Satan loves the noise and the business in our lives because then it takes the focus off of Christ. We have an opportunity now through Advent to get that focus, but not only get it through Advent we want to continue that focus throughout the year. This is the start of the new liturgical year for the Church. It’s a new years of sorts for the Church, our new year. It’s a great opportunity to get focused and spend time with Christ and by doing that we encounter Christ. That’s part of what we want to do is have that encounter with Christ. We sometimes go with God in prayer and we ask for things and make our list and check it off and go ‘okay, Lord I’m done, thank you.’ but how much time do we spend really listening in Prayer? We have a beautiful new adoration chapel now. What a great opportunity it is to just sit in silence and reflect and listen.
There’s a great book out, it came out a couple years ago by Robert Cardinal Sarah, and it’s called ‘The Power of Silence’. There are just short little pieces in this book that have great information. There’s great substance to this book and I encourage anybody to pick it up and read that book. Spending time in silence in prayer is powerful and sometimes for many it’s a little bit uncomfortable. Even during the Mass there are times during the Mass when we should experience silence. That’s part of the Mass, part of the Liturgy, a time to sit and reflect on things and so we look at that as a great opportunity to experience that silence and just become at peace. One of the other things that we experience when we come to Mass is the Eucharist. It is the source and summit of our Catholic faith. We receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ and when we do come to Mass it is each time an Advent of sorts because we prepare ourselves to receive Jesus in the Eucharist and how important that is that we prepare ourselves to receive, so two things as far as a challenge goes as we ramp up now for Advent on this first Sunday and one is, how are we going to prepare ourselves, open our hearts and allow Christ to come into our lives and draw closer to Him? And secondly, as we come forward tonight to receive Christ in the Eucharist we also want to do that with an open heart and open mind and realize the gift that we are given with the Eucharist.”