Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons: 30 November 2025

Image: B. Pierpont

First Sunday of Advent

I believe that the following words from our second reading from the letter to the Romans at Mass today, gives us the clarity of vision we need to begin a good Advent: '…the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness [and] put on the armour of light".(Rm 13: 12) .

In a world where we face many problems due to environmental and climate change, where such gross inequality between rich and poor is all too glaringly evident, and where the rights of human beings and living creatures are frequently abused by the powerful, our own small contribution to the imbalance can pass us by, ignored perhaps! Yet this Advent the opening salvo of the Word of God this Sunday halts us in our paces, and faces us with the responsibilities we have as members of Christ body, to right, even in small ways, those wrongs we all have inflicted on each other,and on the creatures and life of our earth!.

This Advent we are bidden to return to the meanings of this season, particularly that of expectation, where we as children following the light of Christ, must counter at every turn the forces that darken joy, cover up sin, or hide the love of Christ from others.

This is why the gospel today underscores the words we hear in Romans, for we are to be pro-active, throwing off those works of darkness and carrying into the situations of our lives the bright undying light of Jesus.

Shortly before he travelled to Turkey to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Pope Leo XIV warned us of resurgence of old heresies disguised in new ways, particularly Arianism. This isn't some academic debate between theologians, but a real issue, which I am sure all of us have met at some point, for we have all heard others tell us that they respect Jesus as a great teacher, but not as anything else certainly not as divine. The Pope said: "There is also another challenge, which we might call a "new Arianism," present in today's culture and sometimes even among believers. This occurs when Jesus is admired on a merely human level, perhaps even with religious respect, yet not truly regarded as the living and true God among us".

For us who follow Jesus the Christ, the reality is different. For us he is not only true God and true human being, he is the promised Saviour, the Messiah who came amongst us in human history, but now risen glory calls us to live in new ways. So we are bidden to follow Christ by what we do and say and to proclaim him as our good Lord and Saviour before others.

At the heart of this Advent then is a call by Jesus to rediscover him in our lives, not only to yearn for his coming at the end of all days, but to daily expect him. In fact to openly welcome him into our daily life. If anything todays Gospel from Matthew underscores the necessity of following Christ in all manner of things. Jesus does not frighten us with a date for the end of our world, nor threaten us with a particular apocalyptic scenario, instead by giving us different examples in today's gospel, he underlines how we are to be expectant people, alert to his presence, living each day to the full, as children of the light. 'Therefore, stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come'. (Mt 24:12)

Lectio

Hark what a sound, and too divine for hearing
by Frederick William Henry Myers (1843-1901)

Hark what a sound, and too divine for hearing,

Stirs on the earth, and trembles in the air!

Is it the thunder of the Lord's appearing?

Is it the music of his people's prayer?

Surely he cometh, and a thousand voices

Shout to the saints, and to the deaf are dumb;

Surely he cometh, and the earth rejoices,

Glad in his coming who hath sworn: I come!

That hath he done, and shall we not adore him?

This shall he do, and can we still despair?

Come let us quickly fling ourselves before him,

Cast at his feet the burden of our care.

Through life and death, through sorrow and through sinning,

He shall suffice me, for he hath sufficed;

Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning,

Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ

Advent Poem
by Thomas Merton

Charm with your stainlessness these winter nights,

Skies, and be perfect! Fly, vivider in the fiery dark, you quiet meteors,

And disappear.

You moon, be slow to go down,

This is your full!

The four white roads make off in silence

Towards the four parts of the starry universe.

Time falls like manna at the corners of the wintry earth.

We have become more humble than the rocks,

More wakeful than the patient hills.

Charm with your stainlessness these nights in Advent,

holy spheres,

While minds, as meek as beasts,

Stay close at home in the sweet hay;

And intellects are quieter than the flocks that feed by starlight.

Oh pour your darkness and your brightness over all our

solemn valleys,

You skies: and travel like the gentle Virgin,

Toward the planets' stately setting,

Oh white full moon as quiet as Bethlehem!

Preparing for Christmas

There are a number of good Advent customs which help us prepare ourselves, niot only for Christmas and the Nativity Feasts, but to help us reflect a little more seriously on that second and final coming of Jesus. Not out of fear, but with expectation and a hidden joy. Rediscovering the traditional customs for this holy season of Advent helps us counter the more insidious version of this time which is all too prevalent in the commercial sector.

In our homes the Advent Wreath of greenery with those four candles for each Sunday are a useful focus for prayer and might provide a special moment for the family to come together.

But there is also a lovely custom of setting out the crib piece by piece, telling the story so to speak by preparing it each week with the addition of different figures and animals, leaving the Christ child until Christmas eve. This too adds to the atmosphere of recollection and reflection. Why not try it?