Fr. Michael O’Connor – Non-verbatim transcript highlighting the points from his video on the Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church YouTube channel

During the season of Advent, we emphasize the preparation for the coming of Christ. We are going to celebrate his birth, and we are also going to anticipate his arrival in glory.

On the first Sunday of Advent, Year C—this is the year that we will be focused on the gospel of Luke—we hear some words in it that might put people off a little bit, particularly people who may want to skip the season of Advent altogether and not really identify this time as a time of sober preparation for the coming of Christ in glory. But when we read the readings, and we stay true to the liturgical seasons, then we have to recognize that it’s not yet time to celebrate.

As Christians, it’s always time for us to be, in a sense, celebrating that middle coming of Christ. When God dwells in us and we know it and we rejoice with the fruits and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But at the same time, we deliberately take a step back and we think about things like signs and disturbances. This is a time when something big is happening. We will see Jesus coming in a cloud with power and great glory, and so that is a time of joy and incredible relief.

The Church’s teaching is not that there is going to be this gradual Christianization of the whole world and the whole world is going to turn to Christ. No, the Church’s teaching is, in fact, that the Kingdom of God is going to be a contradiction to the worldly powers in a very real way, as it always has been. When the Church gets compromised or corrupted sometimes, it may resemble, unfortunately, the worldly powers too much. But the Church will be purified by the persecution that is coming when the end is near.

Now, are we nearing that point? I don’t know. I think that we probably have some time. But again, the Bible makes it pretty clear that nobody knows the day or the hour. Christianity is probably a lot smaller than many people may think. There are a lot of cultural Christians. There are a lot of people who celebrate Christmas that aren’t necessarily anticipating joyfully the coming of Christ in power and glory.

We should try to observe Advent as a time of joyful and sober preparation for the coming of Christ in glory. It’s not about being gloomy and not celebrating a festive season. It is, however, about having a time of preparation before a time of festivity.

There will be signs and people will be dying of fright. But when these things begin to happen, it says that we should stand up straight. We should lift our heads. We should hold ourselves up as we are joyful that our redemption—our being bought out of the slavery that is sin—is at hand.

We don’t want to get drawn into a secular Christmas that skips advent altogether, we want to celebrate advent, and then we want to celebrate the birth of our Savior. We want to embrace the poverty of the crib with purified hearts that have spent four weeks properly preparing.

It’s not the Grinch that stole Christmas, it’s the Grinch that stole Advent. Advent is this time of peace. It’s a time of reflection. It’s a time of interior quiet. It’s a time to prepare our hearts and our minds and our lives and our homes for the coming of Christ in glory and the coming of the Christ child in humility. We need to be attentive not to trade this liturgical season for commercial excess. We want to celebrate the liturgical season of Advent, anticipating our Lord’s coming in glory, celebrating his humble birth, and also being aware of the fact that he comes to us in grace daily.

Let us enter into this Advent season, preparing joyfully to welcome the coming of Christ.