Meditation of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa: 1st Sunday of Advent, C

This Meditation is shared from the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

Below you can find the Meditation of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, for the 1st Sunday of Advent, C, Sunday 1 December 2024.

Lk 21:25-28, 34-36

The time before the return of the Lord is described as a time of great upheaval: The evangelist Luke describes them to us in today's passage (Lk 21:25-28, 34-36) as natural phenomena affecting the moon, the sun, the stars and the sea (Lk 21:25), to say that even the most stable things will be shaken and upset.

There are times in life when even the foundations of existence lose their ability to offer certainty, and the reference points that seemed absolutely certain are lost. The most natural reaction in the face of these upheavals is fear: “distress among nations”, it says in v. 25, while Luke speaks a little later of a big fear “People will faint from fear” - Lk 21:26).

In short, the Gospel says that fear paralyzes, that fear kills. It does not say that people will perish because of these heavenly upheavals, but because of the fear that these upheavals will cause. The feeling of fear blocks life, does not allow one to look beyond and see what can arise even in the various vicissitudes of life.

But there is also the possibility of dealing with these upheavals in a different way.

One gateway through which we can enter in this other way is the image of the cloud: today’s Bible passage says that the Son of Man will come at the same time as these upheavals, and on a cloud (“They will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” - Luke 21:27).

The cloud is a biblical symbol that appears again and again. It points to everything that does not belong to earth, but to heaven and therefore to God’s world. Even the long journey of liberation of biblical Israel in the desert was accompanied and guided precisely by a cloud that became light at night and never failed along the way (Exodus 13:21-22). The presence of the cloud therefore indicates that God accompanies man’s journey. And that the Lord will return on a cloud, just as a cloud accompanies the journey of life every day.

So, the point is to recognize that in the days of our lives there is a cloud on which the Lord comes, and he comes even when these days become dark and stormy.

But who can see, who can recognize the coming Lord?…

This Meditation was originally published on the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Please click here to read the full text.