{"id":962,"date":"2019-11-28T08:42:10","date_gmt":"2019-11-28T08:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=962"},"modified":"2019-11-28T08:42:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-28T08:42:10","slug":"1-december-2019-a-first-sunday-of-advent-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=962","title":{"rendered":"1 December 2019 (A) First Sunday of Advent (A)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>A. <em>The bible<\/em><em> as Guide in Life and Liturgy (Sunday Readings)<\/em><\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>B. Reflection\n&amp; Dialogue: <\/em><\/strong><em>Advent Joy, Advent Vision<strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;<em>The Bible as Guide in Life and Liturgy (Sunday Readings)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>First Reading <\/em>(Isaiah 2:1-4). <em>The Lord gathers all nations together into\nthe eternal peace of God\u2019s kingdom. <\/em>This prophetic gem is found also in the\nbook of the prophet Micah 4:1-4. The relationship between the two texts has\nreceived no satisfactory explanation: whether one is dependent on the other, or\nwhether both depend on an independent prophecy. The passage in Isaiah is\nintroduced as part of a collection of prophecies concerning Judah and Jerusalem.\nThis prophecy is unique in the book of Isaiah, and indeed in the entire Old\nTestament, although there are Psalms of the kingship of the Lord of a\nuniversalistic nature. War was a fact of everyday life in Israel\u2019s history, and the nations are\nrepresented as hostile to Israel.\nThis vision goes beyond any of Isaiah\u2019s prophecies. It is a vision of a future\nof undefined date. It was usual in the Middle East\nto represent the dwelling-place of chief gods as on high mountains. In this\ntradition, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem,\ndwelling-place of the Lord on earth, is represented poetically as in the future\nbeing higher than any of these. At best, in the Old Testament the nations are\nrepresented as bringing gifts to Jerusalem,\nas tokens of Jewish superiority. Here they are seen as coming to learn the\nrevealed will of God, his teaching on how to govern one\u2019s life. The divine\nteaching (the Law) and the revealed will of God through oracles, are\nrepresented as going out from Jerusalem\/Zion. The prophetic vision, and the\ndivine will, are represented as having the desired effect among the nations of\nthe world who change the instruments of war (swords, spears) into instruments\nof peaceful ways (ploughshares, sickles), with no more training for war. This\nis the vision of the light of God that Israel,\nJudah and Jerusalem,\nare called to walk in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The vision has had significant\neffect, both religiously and politically. Jesus has willed that the good news\nspread from Jerusalem\nto the ends of the earth (see Acts 1:8). Isaiah\u2019s vision of universal peace\ncontinues to inspire political leaders. From many examples we may note one: In\nthe gardens of the United Nations New York there is a bronze statue (by Egeniy\nVuchetich) with the figure of a man holding a hammer in one hand, and in the\nother a sword which he is making into a ploughshare, presented to the United\nNations in 1959 by the Soviet Union. The same vision continues to inspire all\nmodern efforts to ban the making of weapons of destruction and to seek peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Responsorial Psalm <\/em>(Psalm 121[122]). <em>I rejoiced when I heard them say: Let us go\nto God\u2019s house\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Second Reading\n<\/em>(Romans 13:11-14). <em>Our salvation is\nnear. <\/em>It is worth recalling that the opening words \u201cYou know\u201d (literally\n\u201cAnd knowing that\u201d) links this reading with Paul\u2019s exhortation immediately\npreceding on aspects of Christian life (Romans chapter 12): spiritual worship,\nhumility and charity, charity to everyone, including enemies, submission to\ncivil authority, love and law, love as the fulfilment of law. It is all very\nmuch about Christian living on this earth. In the continuation of his\nexhortation in this reading Paul speaks of \u201cthe time\u201d, put in some lectionaries\nbetween inverted commas, indicating that the word has a special meaning. The\n\u201ctime\u201d (in Greek <em>kairos<\/em>) in question\nis the eschatological era of the Last Days, introduced by Christ\u2019s death and\nresurrection and coextensive with the age of the Church on earth. Paul\nrepresents the life (of pagan society) lived and experienced by Christians\nbefore their baptism as night, and their new life as light, day. Night in pagan\nsociety represented a time for carousing. To live in the day means to shun\npractices proper to such nights, such as those listed at the end of the\nreading. In a sense Christian living is a warfare, and Paul here (as in others\nof his letters) calls on believers to arm themselves. Their armour in this\nfight will be union with Christ. In other letters he spells out the armour as\nfaith, hope and charity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Gospel<\/em> (Matthew 24:37-44). <em>Stay awake so that you may be ready.<\/em> In\nthe verse immediately preceding this passage, Jesus stated that no one, but the\nFather alone, knows the day or hour of the end. The present text is a call to\nbe prepared for the end, whenever it comes, indicating by examples from the\nBible and everyday life that it can come suddenly. Jesus illustrates this by an\nexample drawn from his own time, leading to a renewed call for watchfulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>B. Reflection &amp; Dialogue<\/em><\/strong><em>: Advent Joy,\nAdvent Vision<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For \u201cReflection and Dialogue\u201d see Martin McNamara, MSC, &nbsp;<em>Sunday\nReadings with Matthew: Interpretation and&nbsp;\nReflections <\/em>&nbsp;(Veritas, 2016).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A. The bible as Guide in Life and Liturgy (Sunday Readings) B. Reflection &amp; Dialogue: Advent Joy, Advent Vision&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;The Bible as Guide in Life and Liturgy (Sunday Readings) First &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sunday-readings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":963,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions\/963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}