1st Week of Advent 2025 - Monday - The Centurion's Advent Faith

 “"Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.” On this first weekday of Advent we read the powerful Gospel passage of the faith of the Centurion. The Centurion, a non-Jew, like us, believed that Jesus had the power to heal.

Out of all of the Gospels, why does Mother Church present us with this Gospel in particular on the first weekday of Advent?

Advent starts with desire: the ache for God to come close, to save, to heal, to set things right. The Centurion’s simple cry—“Lord… only say the word”—is the voice of every human heart waiting for Christ. Advent begins not with the instruction to make sure we buy the right presents or decorate our homes with the right amount of tinsel, but with a plea for mercy—humble longing, confident trust, and the recognition that we cannot save ourselves.

The fact that the Centurion is a Gentile is a signal that Christ came for all nations. So, On Day 1 of Advent, the Church reminds us: The Messiah is for the whole world. This echoes Isaiah’s prophecy (1st reading today) of all nations streaming toward the mountain of the Lord.

The Centurion believes without seeing — Advent is a season of unseen hope. Jesus does not go to the house. He speaks a word. The servant is healed. Advent involves this kind of faith: a willingness to trust God before the fulfillment is visible, to believe the promises before the manger is filled, to hope for what we do not yet see.

And yet, this exchange between Jesus and the Centurion certainly foreshadows Christmas, at which we celebrate that God enters under our roof—not because we are worthy, but because He is merciful. 

Hence, the Centurion teaches us how to wait for Christ: with humility, with faith, with hope in God’s power to save, with a universal vision of a Messiah for all people, with the readiness to welcome Him under our roof

It is the whole spirituality of Advent packed into a single moment of great faith.

As the Lord enters our roof in the celebration of Mass today, in Word and Sacrament, may we learn from the humble Centurion in preparing well for Christmas for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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With humble trust in the Lord who speaks the saving word, let us present our prayers and petitions.

As we begin a new liturgical year and the season of Advent, we pray for the gifts of hope, peace, joy, and love to fill the Church, the world, and our hearts.  Let us pray to the Lord.

That Christ may guide the minds of those who govern us to promote authentic peace and justice according to God’s Holy Will. Let us pray to the Lord.

For the protection of our armed forces, police, and firemen and all those who risk their lives to preserve our security and freedom. For peace in those war-torn areas of the world and God’s protection of persecuted Christians. Let us pray to the Lord.

That, like the Centurion’s servant, those in need of healing—physical, emotional, or spiritual—may experience the saving word of Christ spoken over their lives. Let us pray to the Lord.

That as we receive the Lord in Word and Sacrament today, we may welcome Him with humble longing, confident trust, and a renewed desire to prepare well for Christmas.

For our beloved dead: That those who awaited the Lord in faith may now behold the fulfillment of every promise in the Kingdom of heaven.

God our Father, in Your mercy You sent Your Son as Savior of All nations. Hear these prayers we bring with faith, and grant us the grace to welcome Christ under our roof with humility and hope. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

1st Sunday of Advent 2025 - Preparing Well

 Happy Advent Everyone.

The most important things in life require some preparation, don’t they? When parents discover they are expecting a new child, they prepare a room for the child and a crib—clothes are purchased, a baby shower is thrown. When a couple becomes engaged for marriage, they prepare, they plan. They meet with the priest for marriage preparation, they attend a pre-cana day, the reception is planned, the wedding garments are acquired, a home is made ready. 

Similarly, when a young man realizes his call to the priesthood, his seminary formation involves nine years of theological training, experience in different ministerial settings like visiting the sick in hospitals and nursing homes, visiting the imprisoned, learning how to craft a homily, teach in the classroom, and celebrate the sacraments.

We prepare for big tests, big presentations and tasks at our jobs. We prepare emotionally to tell someone difficult news; we prepare our wills for the end of our lives. A priest friend of mine would often say, “everything prepares us for something else.” 

Often the sufferings of the past and present help to prepare us for some future task that will require mature faith and endurance. St. Paul even says that our sufferings prepare us to console others who suffer.

The two most important feasts of the Liturgical Year are so important that they both have entire seasons to prepare for them. The season of Lent prepares us for easter, and the season of Advent which begins today prepares us for Christmas.

So how does Advent prepare us for Christmas? Well, certainly by helping us focus our time. We have 4 weeks to prepare. 4 weeks to space out the physical preparations, the shopping, the planning of parties and gatherings, the decorating, the baking of Christmas cookies.

But more importantly, yes? Are the spiritual preparations. Through the Advent scriptures and liturgies and Advent symbols Mother Church helps us to prepare our minds, hearts, and souls for the celebration of the birth of the Christ-Child?

On each of the four Sundays of Advent we read from the book of the prophet Isaiah. Throughout Advent we hear Isaiah’s message for God’s people to practice justice, the need for repentance, the reality of judgment, God’s promise of salvation and proclamation of mercy; Isaiah urges God’s people during times of darkness to practice faith and hope. 

All of those lessons are important to meditate upon, but Isaiah is read during Advent particularly because the book of Isaiah contains Scripture’s clearest proclamations of the coming of the Messiah. God will intervene in history. History filled with so much strife and chaos, war and oppression, injustice and sadness. And Isaiah proclaims the promise that the Messiah will enter history to bring mankind the peace and reconciliation and salvation that our hearts long for. 

If possible, during Advent spend time each day with the Church’s scripture reading, meditating on Isaiah’s promises. If you can’t make it to mass throughout the week, the scripture readings are available on the US Bishop’s website every day. You can even sign-up to have them emailed to you every day. 

Reading through the daily scripture readings will help you to be spiritually prepared for Christmas.

Active, intentional preparation is vital, so vital, that Our Gospel contains a message about preparation from Our Lord Himself. In this passage from near the end of Matthew’s Gospel, teaching in Jerusalem during Holy Week, Jesus teaches about the consequences for not being prepared.

He says the people of Noah’s day were not preparing for what was to come, but, instead they were eating, drinking and having a good time, preoccupied with earthly matters and so were unprepared and unrepentant when the flood came. Moses and his family were spared the flood because they were listening to God, they prepared for the flood by listening to the instructions of God, building the ark, battening the hatches, preparing for this mighty act of God which would cleanse the earth of wickedness.

Similarly now during Advent, Christians need to take time to listen to God. The rest of the world is busy busy busy with all of the physical preparations for Christmas. But Christians don’t just prepare like the rest of the world, we prepare spiritually as well which will enable us to experience deeply the flood of grace at Christmas, which the world will ignore.

Here the Lord gives us a warning and our marching orders for Advent. “Stay awake” he says. Make sure you are prepared for God wanting to break-in to your lives. Make sure you are engaging in sufficient prayer, reflection on the Word of God, acts of charity and repentance of sin.

It is certainly appropriate during the season of Advent to make a good confession. For what better way to prepare our soul for the Lord coming more deeply into our lives, than by confessing and receiving absolution for those sins which weigh us down, our failures to love the Lord as we should.

“You know the time;” Paul says,  “it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.” What are the spiritual practices that will awaken you from whatever spiritual lethargy has crept into your life? What do you need to do to remain spiritually awake throughout Advent? Today is a great day to come up with a good spiritual plan for Advent: what will your Advent spiritual reading consist of, when will you make your Advent confession, what are the good works you intend to engage in (even if that just means baking a plate of cookies for the lonely widow next door). 

We will never regret the time given to the Lord to prepare spiritually for his coming, to prioritize faith during this busy season, to prepare room for him to live and dwell in you this Christmas, for the glory of God and salvation.