November 30, 2025
First Sunday of Advent
Lectionary: 1
Reading
1
This is what
Isaiah, son of Amoz,
saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In days to come,
the mountain of the LORD's house
shall be established as the highest mountain
and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it;
many peoples shall come and say:
"Come, let us climb the LORD's mountain,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may instruct us in his ways,
and we may walk in his paths."
For from Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and impose terms on many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
one nation shall not raise the sword against another,
nor shall they train for war again.
O house of Jacob, come,
let us walk in the light of the Lord!
Responsorial
Psalm
Psalm 122: 1-2, 3-4, 4-5,
6-7, 8-9
R. Let us
go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
I rejoiced because they said to me,
"We will go up to the house of the LORD."
And now we have set foot
within your gates, O Jerusalem.
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Jerusalem, built as a city
with compact unity.
To it the tribes go up,
the tribes of the LORD.
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
According to the decree for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
In it are set up judgment seats,
seats for the house of David.
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
May those who love you prosper!
May peace be within your walls,
prosperity in your buildings.
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Because of my brothers and friends
I will say, "Peace be within you!"
Because of the house of the LORD, our God,
I will pray for your good.
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Reading
2
Brothers and
sisters:
You know the time;
it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.
For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed;
the night is advanced, the day is at hand.
Let us then throw off the works of darkness
and put on the armor of light;
let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day,
not in orgies and drunkenness,
not in promiscuity and lust,
not in rivalry and jealousy.
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
Show us Lord, your love;
and grant us your salvation.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said to his
disciples:
"As it was in the days of Noah,
so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
In those days before the flood,
they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,
up to the day that Noah entered the ark.
They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.
So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man.
Two men will be out in the field;
one will be taken, and one will be left.
Two women will be grinding at the mill;
one will be taken, and one will be left.
Therefore, stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.
Be sure of this: if the master of the house
had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,
he would have stayed awake
and not let his house be broken into.
So too, you also must be prepared,
for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/113025.cfm
Commentary on Isaiah
2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:37-44
A new year in the Church’s calendar begins today. Happy new
year to all!
This period is appropriately called ‘Advent’. It comes
from the Latin word adventus which simply means
‘coming’. But whose coming are we talking about? Obviously we are
beginning to prepare to remember God’s coming to be a human being among us,
with us and like us. And yet, although the Scripture for today does speak
of the coming of God, it makes no mention of the coming of Christ as Christmas.
Actually, at this time we can speak of three comings of
God. The first is when Jesus, the Son of God came to be born in the stable
at Bethlehem. But today’s Mass also speaks of the final coming of Jesus
at the end of the world. And, there is still a third kind of coming we need to
be aware of, namely, when God enters our lives every day. Every single
experience can be an opportunity to make contact with God. And we are
reminded of that ongoing contact with God especially in the celebration of the
sacraments, including the Eucharist.
Preparing for the end
Today’s Mass actually says very little about the first coming of Jesus, i.e.
his birth in Bethlehem. Rather, the Scripture readings emphasise our need
to prepare for the final coming of Jesus, whether that means the end of the
world as we know it, or the end of our own individual lives.
The First Reading invites us to go with God. It says:
Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob…
Of course, we know that for us, Jesus himself is the real
“house [or temple] of God”. And because of that, the body of the Christian
community united with Christ as its Head is also God’s Temple. And we go
to him and with him:
…that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.
He will show us the way for us to follow on our pilgrimage
through life, the way that will lead us to meet him on that last day on earth.
A final coming
The Second Reading and the Gospel emphasise that we must prepare for that final
coming of Jesus, whatever form it is going to take. The first coming of
Jesus in Bethlehem is to help us prepare for this final coming.
We really need this warning. On the one hand, we do
not like to think too much about how or when we will leave this world, but it
is a fact. It is the one future fact of our lives of which we can be
absolutely certain. There are people who are very afraid to die and who do not
even want the subject raised. Today’s Scripture wants to remind us of the
final purpose of our lives.
Many of us are like the people mentioned in today’s Gospel:
…in the days before the flood they were eating and
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark,
and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away…
These people were doing very ordinary things—exactly the
same things that we do. But they were so busy doing them that they failed
to give any thought to where their lives were ultimately leading, and what was
the goal of those lives.
They were very busy, just like us. Maybe they were very
successful, maybe they made a lot of money, maybe they made wonderful marriages
and had lots of exciting experiences. But in the end, they were not ready for
the most important appointment of their lives. The question is: How ready
am I right now?
Maybe you think: “I don’t have to worry. I had my
medical check-up the other day and the doctor said I have the heart of a
teenager.” But how many end up as statistics on the death toll of our
roads every year? For them, death is something which happens to other
people, to old and sick people.
We sometimes think that the busier we are, the
better. We even like to say, “The devil finds work for idle hands to
do.” We work for today, for tomorrow, for next month, for next year, for
our future, for our children’s future. But what about our real future—our
future with God? What preparations are we making for that future?
One taken, one left
So the Gospel today says:
Then two will be in the field; one will be taken, and one
will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and
one will be left.
This could mean that one is taken away by a natural or
personal disaster (an earthquake or a heart attack) and the other left
untouched. Or it could mean that God takes one away to himself and is
left abandoned by the other. In either event, the basic meaning is the
same. Two men and two women, on the outside apparently the same, doing
the same work. And yet there is an important difference between
them. One is prepared and one is not.
Of course, in our daily lives we have to work, cook food,
earn our living and take care of our families. But we must also prepare for the
final call. That is the most basic reality of our lives. If we forget
that, all our other success is actually failure. Let us remember the story
of Martha and Mary. Martha was so busy about good things and concerned about
taking care of others, but it was Mary who had “chosen the better part”, in
touch with the centre of meaning, the Word made flesh.
We do not know when the Lord will come:
…if the owner of the house had known in what part of the
night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let
his house be broken into.
And in many ways, it is a blessing that we do not know the
day nor the hour. On the one hand, if we did know, we could be filled
with a terrible anxiety knowing what the final blow was going to be or, on the
other hand, we would let our lives go completely to pot knowing that we could
straighten everything out at the last minute. In either case, our world
would become a terrible place in which to live. So it is a question of
being ready for any eventuality:
…for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not
expect.
How to prepare?
The obvious question to ask is, How are we to prepare? St Paul today in
the Second Reading has some advice:
Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on
the armor of light; let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and
drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and
jealousy.
There are dark areas in all of our lives—things we do,
things we say, things we think, the indulging of our lower and self-centred
appetites. There are things which we would not like other people to know about
because they are quite wrongful. They do no good to me or to others.
Instead, we need to develop our relations with God and with
our brothers and sisters based on a caring and unconditional love for
all. We need to learn how to find God, to find Jesus in every person, in
every experience. We need to respect every person as the image of
God. We are to love our neighbours as ourselves, to love everyone just as
Jesus loves us.
If in our words and actions, our daily lives are full of the
spirit of Jesus, then we have prepared. We do not need to be anxious
about the future or what will happen to us. Concentrate on today, on the
present hour, the present situation and respond to it in truth and love and the
future will take care of itself. Then we do not have to fear, no matter
when Jesus makes his final call. Because we know he is going to
say: “Come, my friend. I want to call you now; I want to share with you
my life that never ends.” And we will respond: “Yes, Lord, I am
ready. I have been waiting for you all this time.” It will be an
encounter, not of strangers, but of two old friends.
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Sunday,
November 30, 2025
First Sunday of Advent
1. Opening prayer
Lord Jesus, send Your Spirit
to help us to read the Scriptures with the same mind that You read them to the
disciples on the way to Emmaus. In the light of the Word, written in the Bible,
You helped them to discover the presence of God in the disturbing events of
Your sentence and death.
Thus, the cross that seemed
to be the end of all hope became for them the source of life and of
resurrection.Create silence in us so that we may listen to Your voice in
Creation and in the Scriptures, in events and in people, above all in the poor
and suffering. May Your word guide us so that we too, like the two disciples on
the way to Emmaus, may experience the force of Your resurrection and witness to
others that You are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice and
peace. We ask this of You, Jesus, son of Mary, who revealed the Father to us
and sent us Your Spirit. Amen.
2. Reading
a)
Key
for reading:
In the Liturgy
of the first Sunday of Advent, the Church gives us an extract of the discourse
of Jesus on the end of the world. Advent
means Coming. It is the time of
preparation for the coming of the Son of Man into our life. Jesus exhorts us to
be vigilant. He asks us to be attentive to the events in order to discover in
them the hour of the coming of the Son of Man. At the beginning of Advent, it
is important to purify our look and to learn anew how to read the events in the
light of the Word of God. And this in order not to be surprised, because God
comes without telling us, when we less expect Him. To show how we should be
attentive to the events, Jesus goes back to the episode of the deluge in the
time of Noah. During the reading of the text, let us pay attention to the
comparisons which Jesus uses to transmit His message.
b)
A
division of the text to help in the reading:
•
Matthew 24:37-39: The coming of the Son of Man
will arrive as in the days of Noah
•
Matthew 24:40-41: Jesus applies the comparison
to those who listen
•
Matthew 24:42: The conclusion: “Stay awake”; be “Vigilant”.
•
Matthew 24:43-44: A comparison to recommend
vigilance.
c) Gospel Text - Mt 24:37-44
37 'As it was in Noah's
day, so will it be when the Son of Man comes. 38 For in those days before the
Flood people were eating, drinking, taking wives, taking husbands, right up to
the day Noah went into the ark, 39 and they suspected nothing till the Flood
came and swept them all away. This is what it will be like when the Son of Man
comes. 40 Then of two men in the fields, one is taken, one left; 41 of two women
grinding at the mill, one is taken, one left.42 'So stay awake, because you do
not know the day when your master is coming. 43 You may be quite sure of this,
that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would
come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break
through the wall of his house. 44 Therefore, you too must stand ready because
the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
3. A moment of
prayerful silence
so that the Word of God may
penetrate and enlighten our life.
4. Some questions
to help us in our personal
reflection.
i)
Which part of the text struck you most?
Why?
ii) Where,
when, and why did Jesus pronounce this discourse? iii) In what exactly does
this vigilance, to which Jesus exhorts us, consist? iv) “One is taken, one
left”. What does Jesus want to teach with this affirmation?
v)
At the time of Matthew, the Christian
community, in a certain sense, expected the coming of the Son of Man. And
today, what is our way of waiting for the coming of Jesus?
vi)
In your opinion, what is the center or
origin of this teaching of Jesus?
5. For those who desire to go deeper into the theme
a) Context of the discourse of
Jesus:
The Gospel of Matthew -
In the Gospel of Matthew
there are five great discourses, as if it were a new edition of the five books
of the Law of Moses. The text on which we are meditating this Sunday forms part
of the fifth Discourse of this New Law. Each one of the preceding four
discourses enlightens a determinate aspect of the Kingdom of God announced by
Jesus. The first one: the justice of the Kingdom and the conditions for
entering the Kingdom (Mt from 5 to 7). The second one: the mission of the
citizens of the Kingdom (Mt 10). The third one: the mysterious presence of the
Kingdom in the life of the people (Mt 13). The fourth one: to live the Kingdom
in community (Mt 18). The fifth Sermon speaks of vigilance in view of the
definitive coming of the Kingdom. In this last discourse, Matthew continues the
outline of Mark (cf. Mk 13:5-37), but adds some parables which speak about the
need of vigilance and of service, of solidarity and of fraternity. Waiting for the coming of the Son of Man -
At the end of the first
century, the communities lived expecting the immediate coming of Jesus (I Thess
5:1-11). Basing themselves on some words of Paul (I Thess 4:15-18), there were
some people who had ceased to work, thinking that
Jesus was about to arrive
(2 Thess 2:1-2; 3:11-12). They asked themselves, “When Jesus comes, will we be
taken up to Heaven as He was?” (cf. I Thess 4:17). Will we be taken or left
behind? (cf. Mt 24:40-41). There was an atmosphere similar to that of today, in
which many ask themselves, “Is this terrorism a sign that the end of the world
is close at hand? What should we do in order not to be surprised?” An answer to
this question and concern comes to us from the words of Jesus which Matthew
transmits to us in the Gospel of this Sunday. b) Comment on the text:
Matthew 24:37-39: Jesus compares
the coming of the Son of Man to the days of the deluge
•
“As it was in Noah’s day, so it will be when the
Son of Man comes”. Here, in order to clarify the call to vigilance, Jesus
refers to two episodes of the Old Testament: Noah and the Son of Man. The “days
of Noah” refer to the description of the deluge (Gen 6:5 to 8:14).The image of
the “Son of Man” comes from a vision of the prophet Daniel (Dan 7: 13). In the
days of Noah most people lived without any concern, without being aware that in
the events the hour of God was getting near. Life continued “and they were not
aware of anything until the deluge came and drowned them all”. And Jesus
concludes, “Thus it will be when the Son of Man comes”. In the vision of
Daniel, the Son of Man will come on the clouds unexpectedly and His coming will
decree the end of oppressive empires,
which will have no future.
Matthew 24: 40-41: Jesus applies
the comparison to those who listen to Him.
•
“Two men will be in the fields: one is taken,
one left”. These phrases should not be taken literally. It is a way to indicate
the diverse destiny that people will receive according to the justice of the
works they did. Some will be taken, that is, will receive salvation, and others
will not receive it. This is what happened in the deluge: “You alone of your
contemporaries do I see before me as an upright man” (Gen 7:1). And Noah and
his family were saved.
Matthew 24:42: Jesus draws the
conclusion: “So stay awake”, be vigilant.
•
God is the one who determines the hour of the
coming of the Son. But God’s time is not measured by our clock or calendar. For
God one day can be equal to a thousand years, and a thousand years equal to one
day (Ps 90; 2 Pet 3:8). God’s time (kairos) is independent from our time
(kronos). We cannot interfere in God’s time, but we should be prepared for the
moment in which God’s hour becomes present in our time. It can be today; it can
be a thousand years from now.
Matthew 24: 43-44: comparison: the
Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
•
God comes when we least expect Him. It can also
happen that He comes and people are not aware of the hour of His arrival. Jesus
asks for two things: an always attentive vigilance and at the same time, a
peaceful dedication of the one who is in peace. This attitude is a sign of much
maturity, in which are mixed vigilant concern and the serene tranquility:
maturity which combines the seriousness of the moment with the awareness that
everything is relative.
c) Broadening the information in
order to better understand the text:
How should we be vigilant to
prepare ourselves?
•
Our text is preceded by the parable of the fig
tree (Mt 24:32-33). The fig tree was a symbol of the people of Israel (Hos
9:10; Mt 21:18). In asking to look at the fig tree, Jesus asks to look and to
analyze the facts that are taking place. It is as if Jesus were to say to us,
“You should learn from the fig tree to read the signs of the times, and in this
way you would discover where and when God breaks into our history!”
The certainty communicated to us
by Jesus
•
Jesus leaves us a twofold certainty to orientate
our journey in life: (1) surely the end will come; (2) certainly, nobody knows
anything about the day or hour of the end of the world. “But as for that day
and hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels in Heaven nor the Son, no one but
the Father alone!” (Mt 24:36). In spite of all the estimates or calculations
that men can do on the date of the end of the world, nobody can calculate with
certainty. What gives security is not the knowledge of the hour of the end, but
the Word of Jesus present in life. The world will pass but His Word will never
pass. (cf. Isa 40:7-8).
When will the end of the world
come?
•
When the bible speaks about the “end of the
World”, it refers not to the end of the world, but to the end of a world. It
refers to the end of this world, where injustice and the power of evil reign:
those things which embitter life. This world of injustice will come to an end
and in its place there will be “a new heaven and a new earth”, announced by
Isaiah (Isa 65:15–17) and foreseen in the Apocalypse (Rev 21:1). Nobody knows
when nor how the end of this world will be (Mt 24:36), because nobody can
imagine what God has prepared for those who love Him (I Cor 2:9).
•
The new world of life without death exceeds
everything, just like the tree exceeds the seed (I Cor 15:35-38). The first
Christians were anxious to be present at this end (2 Thess 2:2). They continued
to look up at heaven, waiting for the coming of Christ (Acts 1:11). Some no
longer worked (2 Thess 3:11). But “It is not for you to know times or dates
that the Father has decided by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). The only way to
contribute to the coming of the end, “in order that the Lord may send the time
of comfort” (Acts 3: 20), is to give witness of the Gospel everywhere, to the
earth’s remotest end (Acts 1:8).
6. Prayer: Psalm 46 (45)
“God is our refuge! We shall not
be afraid!”
God is both refuge and
strength for us, a help always ready in trouble; so we shall not be afraid
though the earth be in turmoil, though mountains tumble into the depths of the
sea, and its waters roar and seethe, and the mountains totter as it heaves.
There is a river whose streams bring
joy to God's city,it sanctifies the dwelling of the Most High. God is in the
city, it cannot fall; at break of day God comes to its rescue. Nations are in
uproar, kingdoms are tumbling, when He raises His voice the earth crumbles
away. Yahweh Sabaoth is with us, our citadel, the God of Jacob.
Come, consider the wonders
of Yahweh, the astounding deeds He has done on the earth; He puts an end to
wars over the whole wide world, He breaks the bow, He snaps the spear, shields
He burns in the fire. 'Be still and acknowledge
that I am God, supreme over nations, supreme over
the world.' Yahweh Sabaoth is with us, our citadel, the God of Jacob.
7. Final Prayer
Lord Jesus, we thank You
for the word that has enabled us to understand better the will of the Father.
May your Spirit enlighten our actions and grant us the strength to practice
that which Your Word has revealed to us. May we, like Mary, Your mother, not
only listen to but also practice the Word. You who live and reign with the
Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.
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