Sunday, Dec. 1, is the First Sunday of Advent. Mass readings: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:4-5, 8-9, 10, 14; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36.

This Sunday’s Gospel is taken from the Mount Olivet discourse. The historical context in which the Lord was speaking was not the end of the world, but the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem. For those ancient Jews, however, it was the end of the world as they knew it. The destruction of ancient Jerusalem is also symbolic of the end of the world. The world will end for us either by our own death or by the Second Coming. 

Either way, the message is the same: Be ready! 

The Gospel opens with a description of tribulations that are to come and two different reactions to such calamity. Of one group it is said: “People will die of fright.” Of another group it is said: “your redemption is at hand.” Which group we will be in: fear or faith? 

For us to celebrate on that day when the Lord shall come, there are prerequisites that must be met. There are warnings and a directive. 

The Lord instructs us on how to be ready:

• The Lord warns of the problem of “carousing.” The Greek word literally refers to the giddiness and headache and weariness caused by drinking wine to excess. But here we can understand it as a general excessiveness beyond alcohol to include things like too much internet, too many things to do or too much stuff. 
•  The Lord warns of the “anxieties” of daily life, too. The human person, when overwhelmed with excess, becomes incapable of distinguishing the urgent from the important, the merely pleasurable from the productive. We are often distracted by a thousand contrary drives and concerns.
• The Lord also warns of drowsiness. When laden with excess, divided by contrary demands, and maybe medicating the stress with insobriety or other vices, our hearts become tired and burdened, no longer inflamed and animated with love. 

So the Lord gives this directive: 

“Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”

He prescribes the remedy of prayerful vigilance. 

To be vigilantly prayerful is to be in living, conscious contact with God. It is to have our hearts and minds focused on the one thing necessary. Once we have set our sights on God through vigilant prayer, everything else becomes ordered: Jesus is the center of our life.