We have come to the end of Liturgical Year C, and with the First Sunday of Advent, we begin a new Liturgical Year. So! Happy New (Liturgical) Year!
Luke’s Gospel for Year C took us on the journey of Jesus toward his destiny in Jerusalem. “Now as the time drew near for Jesus to be taken up into heaven, he resolutely took the road for Jerusalem and sent messengers ahead of him.” The gospel passages from Luke 9:51 to 19:27 are all situated within this journey toward Jerusalem.
How fitting it was to accompany Jesus on that journey during this 2025 Holy Year, when, as Pilgrims of Hope, many have made their own journey around the Tokyo churches, and some have gone on a pilgrimage to Rome or Lourdes. Whether we travel near or far, we are all “messengers sent ahead of Jesus” to proclaim his presence among us by our way of speaking and living.
In this new Liturgical Year, Year A, the Gospel of Matthew will take us through Jesus’ life from his birth to his death and resurrection. During this Advent season, we will hear bible passages that prepare us for the coming of Christ.
During Advent, we look forward to the coming of Christ at Christmas, just as we look forward to other events like birthdays, graduation, or a ski holiday. And we do many things to prepare for Christmas, like writing Christmas cards, buying gifts, decorating a tree, and maybe setting out a manger scene. These things preoccupy us during December, so we might lose sight of what we should really be preparing for.
Advent reminds us of two things: a past gift and a future promise.
The past gift was the great gift of God coming to live among us because he wanted to be here with us. On Christmas night, we will recall what happened over two thousand years ago. But we need not go back two thousand years to find Jesus. Advent prepares us to be more aware that Jesus is already with us here and now.
Our Advent liturgy reminds us also of a future promise. We look forward to Christmas not only as a memory of a wonderful event in the past. Christmas also promises us an even more glorious future coming of Jesus, not only at the end of the world, whenever that will be, but at the future climax of each person’s life, which we prepare for in our present daily life. Thus, the past and the future put the spotlight on the present—so that, as St Paul says, we may “give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of the dark … and live decently as people do in the daytime.”
St Paul urges us to behave now in a way pleasing to God, giving birth to Jesus in ourselves and in our society, letting him use our talents, our heads and our hands to make the world a better place for all—by turning our “swords into plows,” taking the wealth used to produce weapons of mass destruction and using it instead to foster basic needs of food for all, clean air and clean water, so that—as the prophet Isaiah says—“nation will not lift sword against nation and there will be no more training for war.” We are not truly followers of Jesus if we do not have compassion for real people in their real situations and do not do what we can to help them when they are hungry, thirsty, sick, strangers, or outcasts.
This is how we can “stay awake” so as always to be ready to welcome the Son of Man when he comes quite unexpectedly—not only at the end of our individual life—but here and now in the various challenges of everyday life.
So, once again: Happy Liturgical New Year!