by Fr. Tommy Lane
Prepare for the future! That is the message of Advent and the message of Jesus in today’s Gospel (Matt 24:37-44). Build your future on God. Before the Great Flood in the days of Noah, Jesus said, people were wining and dining as if all were well, when it was not. Jesus makes a parallel between those days before the Great Flood and his Second Coming. His Second Coming will be at an unexpected time, so he urges to be ready. Build our future on God, not on wining and dining. “Make God and Our Lady the foundation of our future,” is another way we might say it. Is this country, is our world building its future on God, making God and Our Lady the foundation of our future?
Paul, in our second reading, expressed it more forcefully saying we are to put on the armor of Jesus (Rom 13:11-14). Putting on the armor of Jesus is having Jesus all around us to protect us. That same thought is expressed in what we know as St. Patrick’s Breastplate. We are most familiar with the last verse because it has become a popular hymn that expresses beautiful sentiments of Jesus being with us in every moment:
Christ be with me,
Christ before me, Christ behind me.
Christ in me, Christ beneath
me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ where I lie down, Christ where I arise,
Christ in the
heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of
everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
(There are many
different translations of St. Patrick’s
Breastplate, varying slightly, which I assume are in the public
domain as the prayer is so old)
Paul said to put on the armor of Jesus and St. Patrick’s Breastplate is a description of the armor of Jesus.
Christ be with me:
Jesus is with us since baptism and at the end of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus commanded that all be baptized and said he is with us always, to the end of the time (Matt 28:19-20)
Christ before me:
Jesus invited his disciples to follow him. He said, “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.” (John 12:26) Jesus said during the Last Supper, “if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.” (John 14:3) Jesus has gone to heaven to prepare a place for us and we hope to be with him there in the future. Christ before me.
Christ behind me:
Invite Jesus back into your past to free you from anything that is not of him. Jesus is outside of time so he can walk back into your past to heal it (see Heb 13:8). Christ behind us. Jesus forgives our sins so that we are free to live as his disciples.
Christ within me:
Jesus said, “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” (John 6:56) Christ within me when I receive him in Holy Communion.
Christ beneath me:
Jesus said, “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11:28) Christ beneath me uplifting me when needed.
Christ above me:
Jesus stretched out his hands on the cross for our salvation. The women and John stood beneath Jesus’ cross. I like to see them representing us all beneath Jesus’ cross. Christ above me with his hands outstretched saving me.
Christ on my right, Christ on my left:
By praying to Jesus every day, we invite Jesus into our lives. Prayer gives us the spiritual food we need to live as followers of Jesus every day. Pray to Jesus and Mary in your own words, with your heart. Pray every day so that prayer becomes a joy that you would miss it if you did not pray. You learn to swim by swimming; learn to pray by praying. Through prayer we have Christ on our right, Christ on our left.
Christ where I lie down, Christ where I arise:
Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love” (John 15:10) “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.” Christ where I lie down, Christ where I arise.
Christ in the heart of
everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who
speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in
every ear that hears me.
Jesus said, “whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matt 25:40)
In all these different ways we put on the armor of Jesus and build our future on God. We build our future on the foundation of God and Our Lady in our lives. When we build our future on God, then our passing from this life will be just a blip in a long life lived with Jesus at the center and is nothing to worry about. Prepare for the future! That is the message of Advent and the message of Jesus in today’s Gospel. Build our future on God.
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2022
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for the First Sunday of Advent Year A
Wake from sleep and be clothed in Christ 2016
Related: Advent: preparing our hearts for the the Second Coming of Jesus
Second Reading Related: St. Augustine converted reading this text of Romans
stories about Advent