Meditation of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa: The First Sunday of Advent
Below you can find the Meditation of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, for the First Sunday of Advent, Sunday 3 December 2023.
Mc 13,33-37
We begin the Advent journey with a Gospel passage from Mark (13:33-37), which highlights the concept of a home.
To speak of watchfulness, in fact, Jesus tells a short parable in which we see a man go off on a journey and leave his house in the hands of his servants, entrusting each with a different task.
To the doorkeeper of the house, he entrusts the command to be vigilant, because, sooner or later, the master will return home, and he will want to find his servants awake to welcome him.
So the first thing this Gospel passage highlights is this: the Lord Jesus is like someone who has left home and wants to return, he is on his way back to his home. But what is this home, where is it?
It may be helpful for us to begin the journey of Advent by remembering that God's home is us: all of Mankind, the Church, each one of us.
We are his house because Jesus came to dwell among us. The journey of following him can be summarized as a journey of becoming more and more a dwelling place for the Lord, to become his house.
Therefore, Jesus entrusts each person with his home, which is humanity, and asks us to take care of it: This is our task as we await his return.
Watching, then, does not so much mean waiting passively: We have seen this concept repeatedly in the parables heard in the last few Sundays.
Waiting means tending to life, with passion, and love. As one does for one's home.
So Advent begins with an invitation to be watchful, which, in the 5 verses of today's short Gospel passage returns no less than 4 times, and which, in the original language, is expressed with two different verbs.
The first way to describe the attitude of watchfulness, emphasizes the nuance of being awake, without sleep, that is, of not living asleep…
This Meditation was already published on the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Please click here to read the full text.