SPEAKER_00: My dear friends, what a grace it is to begin Advent here in Rome, the heart of the church, and to begin it in this holy place, San Andrea de la Frate.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you know that this is my favorite chapel here in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: When I was living here, I would escape over and do a holy hour or come to the noon mass here at this miraculous metal chapel where our lady touched the life of St.
SPEAKER_00: Alphonsus Razibone and brought in from unbelief into this radiant faith.
SPEAKER_00: To pray here at the beginning of our pilgrimage, as uh many of the pilgrims start to trickle in before the the official start of our pilgrimage, we pray that we may be brought from unbelief to a radiant faith.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Lord pursues us, he interrupts us, he meets us in unexpected places and open our hearts just as he did to Ratzebone.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly the grace of Advent and what it wants to give us to be interrupted, to be awakened, to be found by God again.
SPEAKER_00: Now, most of us pray thee our Father every single day, and yet we glide past the frighteningly beautiful words, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
SPEAKER_00: We say them easily, but living them is another thing entirely.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we're honest, most of us are busy building kingdoms of our own, our careers, our finances, our plans for our children, our legacy, even things we can control.
SPEAKER_00: And even when we pray that God's will be done, deep down secretly, we hope that God's will conveniently matches what our will is.
SPEAKER_00: Then on Sunday, after our Father the priest says something remarkable on our behalf, he says, We wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Joyful hope for the end of the world, joyful hope, really, for the day Christ returns to judge the living and the dead.
SPEAKER_00: If we really believe then, then our hearts would beat differently.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is most of us avoid thinking about judgment at all.
SPEAKER_00: We hope the second coming happens after we're comfortably dead and buried.
SPEAKER_00: Today, you, as we know, we begin a new liturgical year, a new spiritual cycle, a new invitation.
SPEAKER_00: We start again, and the church gives us a vision not of dread, but of destiny, not of fear, but of fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: From today's first reading of Isaiah, Isaiah gives us this picture, this mountain of the Lord, a world without violence, nation streaming towards God, a city where love is total and joy is unending, where swords are beaten into plowshares and peace finally reigns.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah here is describing the kingdom we were made for, the home our hearts never stop longing for.
SPEAKER_00: And here we are, beginning a pilgrimage in the city of the apostles, where so many saints lived and died with the same exact longing burning inside their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Yet you and I hesitate from time to time.
SPEAKER_00: We cling on to what we know, we hold on to what we can control, we fear letting God's kingdom invade our little kingdoms.
SPEAKER_00: And then comes today's gospel, Jesus telling us to stay awake.
SPEAKER_00: Because the kingdom is not a distant dream, it is breaking in the now.
SPEAKER_00: To stay awake means to live in a state of readiness, not fear, but readiness, to live in such a way that if Christ came today, we would run to him with joy.
SPEAKER_00: So the question for us today is how do we prepare?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul tells us clearly in the second reading, he get he says, cast off the works of darkness, not tomorrow, not once things calm down, right now.
SPEAKER_00: Cast off those sins that numb us.
SPEAKER_00: Cast off the resentments that poison us.
SPEAKER_00: Set aside those distractions that drain us and give us mind rot, brain rot.
SPEAKER_00: Cast off the excuses that keep us from prayer, from confession, from conversion.
unknown: St.
SPEAKER_00: Paul tells us put on the Lord Jesus Christ, not as a decoration.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we put a chain with a beautiful crucifix around our necks, but to put it on as armor, not as an idea, but as an identity.
SPEAKER_00: This is who I am in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Christian morality is not simply about following the rules, although rules are important.
SPEAKER_00: It is about becoming a new creation, someone who can love the way God loves.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're here in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: Not for a tour, not for photographs.
SPEAKER_00: We're here to let Christ clothe us again in his grace.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to tell you a little bit about this chapel that we're standing in.
SPEAKER_00: In 1842, in this very place, Mary appeared to a 27-year-old atheist whose heart was walled off by pride and unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: She appeared without words, only in her presence, and that presence shattered his darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because Mary always prepares the way for her son.
SPEAKER_00: She helps us cast off the works of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: She teaches us how to stay awake.
SPEAKER_00: She forms us in readiness, and she makes us pilgrims of hope.
SPEAKER_00: So here at the beginning of this trip, I want to invite you, those of us who have arrived a little early, to this chapel to get to know it, to see it, and to meditate as we begin Advent.
SPEAKER_00: Let Mary interrupt the way that she interrupts Razibone.
SPEAKER_00: Let her put your let her pull you deeper into the mystery of her son.
SPEAKER_00: Let her teach you how to wait, not passively, but actively, joyfully, courageously.
SPEAKER_00: But we must confront the danger Isaiah and Paul warned about.
SPEAKER_00: We are creatures of habit.
SPEAKER_00: We like what we know.
SPEAKER_00: We know what we like, and we often pretend our sins aren't really sins.
SPEAKER_00: That's not that bad.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not that bad of a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't murdered anyone.
SPEAKER_00: We hide them under respectable language.
SPEAKER_00: We tell ourselves we deal with them later.
SPEAKER_00: We tell ourselves God doesn't mind.
SPEAKER_00: But he does mind.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he loves us.
SPEAKER_00: Sin disfigures the image of God in us.
SPEAKER_00: And Advent is that season where God begins repairing that image.
SPEAKER_00: That is why a good confession before Christmas is not optional, it's essential.
SPEAKER_00: So here it is.
SPEAKER_00: Prepare your hearts for the gaze of God, the loving, healing, searchable gaze of Christ who comes to save you.
SPEAKER_00: Let him reorder your desires.
SPEAKER_00: Let him heal old wounds.
SPEAKER_00: Let him shatter the smallness of your expectations.
SPEAKER_00: Let him awaken a hope that is worthy of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So, my friends, let us be seekers of the fullness of God's kingdom, seekers of a new beginning, seekers of who have heard Isaiah's voice, Paul's warning, and then Jesus' command to stay awake.
SPEAKER_00: This advent begin the right way.
SPEAKER_00: Let ye let Mary lead you to her son.
SPEAKER_00: Let this week in Rome open our hearts to a deeper conversion.
SPEAKER_00: Let every basilica, every beautiful church, every concert, every beautiful sight that you will see, every saint that you encounter, every mass that you will be joining in awaken in you this longing for a deeper relationship with Christ who loves you.
SPEAKER_00: And when we return home, may we be a people who can say with conviction, Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord, because that house is my destiny.
SPEAKER_00: That kingdom is our home, and that God, the one who will come, the one who is coming, the one who comes today, is our joy, our peace, and our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.