First Sunday of Advent, November 29, 2020 – Isaiah 63:16B-17, 19B; 64:2-7; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:33-37

If you go on the internet and look up “liturgical cycle,” one of the first illustrations that you’ll always find is a circle with colors. Part of the circle is purple, then a little bit of it is white, then some green, then some more purple, then some more white, then some more green. It’s blocked off into what they call “liturgical seasons.” We’re in the very first one right now for this year - the season of Advent - followed by the season of Christmas, and so on. You’d get the impression, from looking at the charts, that nothing ever changes. The only thing that really changes is what scriptures were used. Right now we’re beginning “Year B.” We just finished “Year A.” Next season will start “Year C.” They’re defined by which gospel is the primary gospel used during that season. But the charts are incorrect, because we do not have an endlessly repeating cycle in the life of the Church. It’s not a cycle at all. It’s something very different.

The Jesuit theologian and anthropologist, Pierre de Chardin, referred to the way the history of God’s relationship with his people moves. He referred to it as something that is tending toward an Omega Point. When he proposed his theory, it caused a scandal in the church, and there are a few problems with the intricate details of what he presented. But, by and large, his image is very correct, very biblical, and very much a part of Catholic tradition. He proposes that very slowly and surely, human experience is moving toward the glorification of God. He called it the Omega Point, or the End Point.

Let’s take a look at a few seasons past. December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy. It happened to be a Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent, in its year. November 22, 1963, the day that JF Kennedy was assassinated. It happened to be the Friday of Christ the King weekend, the end of one liturgical year and looking forward to the next. September 11, 2001, it was in ordinary time, but it was not an ordinary day at all. It set the tone for the rest of the church’s year of prayer. It caused us to face the coming Advent with trepidation and anger. And now you hear people saying all the time, “This will be an Advent like no other. This will be a Christmas like no other,” because, for the first time in living memory, we are unable to do the things that make this secular holiday a holiday, and to do the things in church that make this season one of our most important seasons. The question is whether or not it’s true that all these days were days like no other. If you string them all together, and take out your history book and start looking back at all the terrible calamities that the world has faced, maybe everything is cyclical.

On the other hand, Elie Weisel was a prisoner in one of the concentration camps and he, thank God, survived. He talked about the strange phenomenon of Jewish faith in the death camps. He said some people, who were practicing Jews before they were dragged away, lost their faiths in the death camps. Some, who had been casual or non-observant, found their faith. The question is why? Why does one person react to horror and tragedy one way, and why does another person react another way? Every time something dreadful happens - I mentioned four dreadful things - lots of people will say, “How can a just God allow (fill in the blank) to happen?” Other people will say, “Now is the time for us to rely more heavily on God.” Some people will say, “God is punishing us for our sins.“ And some people will say, “I don’t believe in a God anymore after this has happened.” Which is the right thing?

I’m sure you’ve asked yourself that question many times in your own life. “Is it really possible for there to be a God and to still have these things happen? Maybe there is no God at all. Is God punishing us? But why? I didn’t do anything wrong. My society might be going to hell in a handbag, but I didn’t do anything wrong.” Understanding liturgical seasons - not understanding them as a circle, but as a spiral - helps us understand what’s going on.

Imagine that you have a spring coil going this way. Any place along that coil you can place a line, and so at this point, this happened. Three or four years later, this happened. A century later, this happened. But all the time things were advancing.

There is one line in the first reading that helps us understand where God is in the crises and tragedies that come along all the time. I’m going to read the line to you because it doesn’t stand out, and you would not pay much attention to it. “Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways!” 

“Would that you might meet us doing right.” The image that’s presented there is of someone who encounters us at various spots in our journey. Oh guess who I bumped into today? God. He met me. Whether I was doing right the day He met me, He’ll find us on our way. We’re all on our way. God does not control our way. God does not control the events of history, except in the most rarified sense. God encounters us on the way. It says here, “Let me walk with you. Let me help you carry that burden. Let me help you interpret the time in which you are living.” And, either we welcome him and the spiral goes on in our lives, or we don’t, and our lives become a vicious circle.