by Fr. Tommy Lane
Oh, that you would
rend the heavens and come down,
with the mountains quaking before
you (Isa 64:1)
is a plea to God in the prayer of the first reading. It is a prayer that many feel like saying now because of the times in which we live with wars and other troubling issues. The entire first reading today is a prayer to God, a prayer in desperation because of the time in which it was composed several centuries before Jesus. We could also pray it now almost two and half millennia later:
Oh, that you would
rend the heavens and come down,
with the mountains quaking before
you (Isa 64:1).
The prayer envisages a veil or cloth between us and God and asks God to tear open that veil or cloth and come down to fix our problems. It acknowledges that the only solution to the ills of the time is God. We could say the same now. In one way or another, we have been throwing out God because it is no longer PC to have or display faith and that eventually leads to problems. So the prayer of the first reading is also a prayer for our time. Discarding God can only lead to problems.
Advent is acknowledging that we need God in order to fix the mess of the world, that we cannot have a happy world without God. The prayer in the first reading concludes positively, admitting that God is our Father, and we are clay in his hands like clay in the hands of a potter. Just as a potter can work on clay and shape it into the type of pot he wants, God can work on us and fix things. It is up to us to allow God in to work on us and fix us.
God the potter allows us to also be potters to shape the future of society and the world. If we throw out God because we think it is no longer PC to have or display faith, the consequences will not be good. The future is in our hands. We get to shape it. What will it look like? The answer was given to us a long time ago by Joseph Ratzinger. In 1969, not long after beginning as Professor in the University of Regensburg, Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, gave a series of radio addresses concerning the future of the faith. What he said was prophetic in a way that was unseen at the time but is being understood ever more in this time. In his address at Christmas 1969, he said:
From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge—a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so will she lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, she will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, she will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. (Faith and the Future p116)
And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end . . . the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power . . . but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death. (Faith and the Future p118)
But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret. (Faith and the Future 118)
We can see that society and the world is throwing out God and we can see the words of Joseph Ratzinger more than fifty years ago being fulfilled with amazing accuracy. If we throw out God because we think it is no longer PC to have or display faith, the consequences will not be good. But Joseph Ratzinger saw great hope for the future of the Church in such a godless society:
If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret. (Faith and the Future 118)
In other words, when society has discarded God, it will have Advent longing for God because it will realize it is not happy and will need God for its happiness and discover a little flock that is happy, the little flock of practicing believers. That brings us back again to our first reading, a prayer to God in desperation because of the time in which it was composed two and a half millennia ago. Discarding God led to problems. The prayer in the first reading acknowledges that the only answer to the ills of the time is God. We could say the same now. The prayer of the first reading is also a prayer for our time.
Advent is acknowledging that we know we need God in order to fix the mess of the world. God is our Father, and we are clay in his hands like clay in the hands of a potter.
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2023
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for the First Sunday of Advent Year B
Getting in line to see Jesus 2020
Be watchful! Be alert! Turn to Jesus 2008
Advent: waiting in patient hope for God
Related: Advent: preparing our hearts for the the Second Coming of Jesus
stories about Advent