A series of reflections on the 4 Sunday Gospels of Advent.
1st Reflection
Advent always begins in the dark.
We gather this evening by candlelight because the Church wants us to feel that darkness—not to frighten us, but to help us recognize how much we need the true light. The first Gospel of Advent places us with Jesus speaking of the days of Noah, of people going about their ordinary lives, unaware that everything is about to change. Into that scene he speaks a simple command: “Therefore, stay awake!”
From the beginning, Christians have wrestled with a question hidden beneath those words: Where do I stand before God? Am I among the saved or the lost? In different ages, the “signs” people looked for have changed. Some saw worldly success as proof of God’s favor: many crops, many children, prosperity, good health. Others turned to spiritual experiences: extraordinary visions, consolations in prayer, miracles, special gifts.
But all of these, in themselves, miss the point. The Father has already given us the one true sign: his Son. He has sent Jesus into the world not to condemn it, but to save it. You are not waiting to see whether God might decide to care about you someday. He has already decided. In Christ, he has called you personally, by name.
So if the question in your heart is, “Am I among the elect?” there is a real sense in which the answer is already yes. In baptism, God has chosen you, claimed you, and marked you as his own. The real question now is: Will I live as someone who has been chosen? Will I live awake?
Jesus’ warning is not an invitation to anxiety. He is not telling us to scan the headlines for hints about the end of the world or to obsess over reading God’s will in every little success or failure. The people in his parable are not doing bad things; they are simply lost in the ordinary. Eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage—normal, human joys. The danger is not that life is ordinary, but that we can live it without reference to God at all.
To “stay awake,” then, means to live with an alert heart, to refuse to drift through our days on spiritual autopilot. It means that my work, my family life, my friendships, my use of time and money—everything—belongs inside my relationship with the Lord. Nothing is neutral space where God is irrelevant.
How do we begin to live that way? Not by chasing extraordinary signs, but by returning to the simple foundations: prayer and reflection.
Advent is a privileged time to reclaim silence. The world becomes louder as December goes on; our calendars fill; the marketing grows more urgent. Yet in the midst of all that, the Lord invites us to carve out space to sit before him, quietly, and let his Spirit shine on our lives. We “stay awake” not by constant activity, but by allowing ourselves to be seen by God.
One of the most practical ways to do this is the regular examen of conscience—not only before confession, but as a daily habit. At the end of the day, we can sit—even for five or ten minutes—and gently review our day with the Holy Spirit. Not with harsh self-criticism, but with honesty.
- Where today did I live as someone loved and chosen by God?
- Where did I live as if he were far away or uninterested?
- Is my daily business truly an expression of my vocation, a way of sanctifying the world? Or is it sometimes a way of avoiding thinking about God at all?
This kind of reflection leads to concrete decisions. Perhaps there is some habit that simply numbs me—endless scrolling, constant noise, busywork that fills the hours but empties the heart. Staying awake means being willing to throw out those distractions, or at least limit them seriously, and to replace them with prayer and attentiveness.
Tonight, in this quiet, the Lord is not asking you to decode hidden messages about your eternal destiny. He is asking something much simpler and more demanding: Live now as my beloved. Live now as someone I have chosen. Stay awake.
As we move into our next reflection, we will hear another voice calling us awake—the voice of John the Baptist crying in the desert. If this first Gospel asks, “Will you live as one who is chosen?” the next will ask, “What kind of life flows from that choice? What fruit does it bear—for you, and for those around you?”
2nd Reflection
In our first reflection, we heard the call of Jesus: stay awake, live as one who is chosen in him. Now, in the second Gospel, another voice rings out—a voice that does not whisper. John the Baptist appears in the wilderness, rough clothing on his back, living on locusts and wild honey, and he cries out with urgency: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
The images in this Gospel are not gentle. John speaks of an axe already laid at the root of the trees, of branches cut off and thrown into the fire, of a coming one who will separate wheat from chaff. These images are meant to jolt us. They are spiritual thunderclaps, shaking us out of complacency.
He directs his harshest words to the religiously confident—the Pharisees and Sadducees who come to his baptism secure in their ancestry. They rely on the fact that Abraham is their father, that they belong to the “right group.” In other words, they have not really reflected on what their faith means. They have allowed their identity as God’s people to become a slogan, a label, something presumed rather than lived.
We can fall into a similar illusion. We say, “God is my Father.” And it is true—beautifully, gloriously true. But what does that mean, concretely, in my life? Does my way of speaking, spending, working, forgiving, show that I am a child of such a Father? John insists that repentance must be visible: there must be fruit.
This is not about scrupulosity. It is about taking our relationship with God seriously enough to let it reshape our choices. The examen and prayer we spoke about earlier are not ends in themselves. They clear the fog so that we can see the road ahead more plainly. John’s call insists: once you see, act. Prepare the way of the Lord by actually changing what needs to change.
But John goes further. The call to “make straight his paths” is not only about the road into my own heart. It is about the paths by which others may come to Christ as well.
We do not journey to God in isolation. From the moment of our baptism, we belong to a people. Our salvation is always intertwined with the lives of others: family members, friends, co-workers, fellow parishioners, the poor and forgotten. If all have been chosen and called by God, then all are in need of a clear way to him. That means that, mysteriously, I am part of God’s plan for their salvation.
So our reflection must widen. When I examine my life before the Lord, I cannot think only in terms of my private sins and virtues.
- Do my choices make it easier or harder for others to encounter Christ?
- Does my speech encourage, or does it wound?
- Do I carry my neighbor’s burdens in prayer, or do I live as though their struggles have nothing to do with me?
- In my home, my workplace, my parish, am I one who smooths the road to God—or one who adds obstacles?
To live awake, then, is to live responsible for others. Not in a controlling or anxious way, but in love. Love refuses to pretend that we are isolated units. Love knows that my indifference can be someone else’s stumbling block; my fidelity can be a light on their path.
This is one reason intercessory prayer is so essential. Part of staying awake is carrying specific people into our prayer: that co-worker who is bitter, that family member who has drifted from the Church, that friend who carries a hidden grief. We ask the Lord not only to help them, but to show us what role he wants us to play. Perhaps a word of encouragement, a listening ear, a quiet sacrifice offered for their sake.
John reminds us that religious identity alone is not enough. “Abraham is our father” becomes, in our own mouths, “I am Catholic; I was baptized; I go to mass.” These are real gifts, but they are meant to bear fruit. The tree that does not bear fruit is not living its purpose.
The good news is that the very urgency of John’s message is a sign of mercy. God bothers to warn us because he refuses to give up on us. He sends a prophet ahead to prepare the way for his Son. The axe at the root is not the last word; it is the wake-up call before a greater gift.
In our next reflection, we will hear that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John himself. If John’s voice shakes us, it is because God desires to give us something far greater than we expect. He is not content with a minimal, half-awake religion. He wants to make us new—so new that even the greatest prophet of the old covenant is only a shadow compared to the smallest saint of the new. That astonishing promise is where we now turn.
3rd Reflection
By the time we meet John the Baptist again in the third Gospel, everything has changed. He is no longer at the river, surrounded by crowds. He is in prison. The desert wind has been replaced by the darkness of a cell. The man who once cried with certainty now sends a question to Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”
Even John, the great prophet, reaches a moment of uncertainty. His circumstances seem to contradict the coming of God’s kingdom as he imagined it. If the Messiah is here, why is the herald in chains? That question lives in many hearts today as well. We try to stay awake. We repent. We pray. Yet we still face sickness, broken relationships, persistent weaknesses. At times we wonder: is anything really changing? Is Jesus truly at work, or should I look elsewhere for hope?
Jesus answers John not with arguments, but with evidence. He tells John’s disciples to report what they see and hear: the blind receiving sight, the lame walking, the deaf hearing, the dead being raised, the poor receiving good news. In other words: Yes, John. The kingdom is real. It may not look the way you expected, but grace is truly transforming lives.
Then Jesus turns to the crowd and does something remarkable. He honors John. He reminds them that John is not a reed swayed by the wind, not a courtier seeking comfort, but a true prophet—the very messenger promised by Scripture. And then he says something even more astonishing: among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
What does that mean? How can the smallest saint of the new covenant be “greater” than this fiery prophet?
Jesus is revealing the immensity of what he has come to give. John stands at the threshold of the kingdom, pointing to Christ. He prepares the way, but he dies before the cross, before the resurrection, before Pentecost. We, by contrast, have been given sacramental access to the very life of the risen Christ. In baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist, we are not just warned and instructed; we are re-created from within. We are made “a new creation” in Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit.
If we could glimpse, even for a moment, the beauty of a soul in a state of grace, we would be overwhelmed. The least in the kingdom—the most hidden grandmother praying the rosary, the quietly faithful man who goes unnoticed at work, the struggling sinner who returns again and again to confession—if they are in grace, they share in something John himself could only look toward: the indwelling of God.
Why, then, do we so often feel unchanged? Why do we look at our lives and see the same patterns, the same sins, the same fears?
Part of the answer is that we are still, in many ways, asleep. Grace has been given, but it seeks our cooperation. The Lord desires to heal our blindness, but sometimes we close our eyes. He wants to strengthen our lame steps, but we cling to habits that keep us hobbling. He speaks, but we keep our hearts too noisy to hear.
The examen and repentance we have been speaking about are not exercises in spiritual bookkeeping. They are invitations to name, concretely, where we are still blind, still lame, still deaf. Where do I refuse to forgive? Where do I give in to despair or cynicism? Where have I settled for managing my sins rather than truly turning away from them?
Here, Advent invites us to trust that a different kind of life is possible. When Jesus lists the signs of the kingdom—the sick healed, the poor evangelized—he is not describing a world long ago and far away. He is describing the world he desires to bring about in us, now. This does not mean a life without suffering, but a life in which suffering is penetrated by grace, in which love becomes possible in situations that once seemed hopeless.
Practically, this may mean returning to the Sacrament of Reconciliation with renewed faith, not as a routine obligation but as an encounter with the One who makes all things new. It may mean committing to a concrete step of healing in an area we have long avoided—for example, seeking counsel for a wound, or making amends where we have harmed someone. It may mean simply asking, each day: “Lord, where do you want to recreate me today? What small step of faith are you asking of me?”
The good news is that we are not striving alone. The same Christ who walked the roads of Galilee walks with us in the hiddenness of our days. The same Spirit who raised him from the dead dwells in us. The least in the kingdom is “greater” than John not because of personal achievement, but because of the gift they carry.
In our final reflection, we will see how this astonishing plan of God enters history in the most unexpected way: through an unnoticed young woman and a bewildered carpenter, in a small town on the margins of the world. There we will discover that the very places in our lives that seem most unworthy, most fragile, most overshadowed—these are often the places where Emmanuel, “God-with-us,” desires to be born.
4th Reflection
The fourth Gospel for Advent turns our gaze to the beginnings of Jesus’ earthly life: a betrothal, a crisis, and a dream.
Mary is betrothed to Joseph, but before they live together, she is found to be with child. Joseph knows the child is not his. He is described as a righteous man, unwilling to expose her to shame, and so he resolves to end the relationship quietly. From his perspective, this must have felt like the collapse of his hopes—a painful and confusing situation in an obscure corner of the world.
Into that confusion God speaks. In a dream, an angel addresses him by his royal lineage and then gives a command that will change everything: “Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.” Joseph wakes, and he obeys. In that simple obedience, the history of the world hinges.
Notice whom God chooses and how he chooses to work. He does not begin in the palaces of Rome or Jerusalem. He does not select the powerful or the celebrated. He turns instead to an unwed mother in a small town, and to a tradesman whose first instinct is quiet, merciful withdrawal. From a worldly perspective, these are not the people to whom you entrust the salvation of humanity.
But this is precisely the point. God acts in such a way that we cannot confuse his work with human greatness. He chooses the unprepared, the forgotten, the weak, so that it will be unmistakable that the power at work is his.
This has everything to do with our own lives. Many of us approach God, even unconsciously, as if we need to impress him. We think: “If I could just get my act together, fix all my bad habits, become more competent, then God could really use me.” Or we come to prayer offering our talents and successes, saying in effect, “Here, Lord—take my strengths; put me to work.”
But the mystery of the Incarnation tells a different story. The God who chose Nazareth, who entered the world through the yes of a young woman and the obedience of a bewildered carpenter, is the same God who looks at your life. He is not waiting for you to present a polished résumé of holiness. He is drawn, instead, to your poverty.
Your hurts, your losses, your failures—these are not embarrassments to be hidden from him. They are often the very places where he desires to reveal his mercy. They are not obstacles to grace; they can become channels of grace, if we allow him to enter them.
Think of the moments you most wish were not part of your story: a broken relationship, a sin you deeply regret, a grief that still aches, a limitation you resent. So often we carry these like sealed boxes, pushing them into the corner of our hearts. We come to God with the parts of ourselves we find more acceptable, while keeping these wounds out of sight.
Advent invites us to do something far more daring: to bring those very wounds into the light. To say, honestly: “Lord, this is where I feel small, ashamed, weak, inadequate. This is where I do not understand. I cannot fix this on my own. But I believe you can enter even here.”
That kind of honesty is a deeper form of staying awake. It is possible to be very busy with spiritual practices and yet still be spiritually “asleep” because we never allow God into the real places of our need. Joseph could have remained righteous in a purely human way by ending the betrothal and moving on. Instead, he let God’s word re-interpret his situation. He let God tell him who he was and what this crisis meant.
We, too, are called to let God re-interpret our weaknesses. Instead of seeing them only as sources of shame or frustration, we can begin to see them as potential gateways to deeper compassion and communion. The person who has known failure can be uniquely patient with others who struggle. The one who has walked through grief can accompany the grieving. The one who knows anxiety can understand the anxious. God does not waste anything he is allowed to touch.
This is why reflection remains so central. By now, in our journey through these Gospels, we have heard the Lord call us to stay awake, to repent and bear fruit, to open ourselves to the immense transformation he desires to work, and now to offer him our weakness.
- What am I running from in my own heart?
- Where do I feel most fragile, most ashamed, most unwilling to look?
- What have I never really brought to God in prayer, because I feared his judgment or doubted his interest?
Advent is an ideal time to bring these questions to the Lord—perhaps before the Blessed Sacrament, perhaps in confession, perhaps simply in the quiet of one’s room. The point is not to indulge in self-pity, but to let Emmanuel, “God-with-us,” be truly with us where we need him most.
As we finish this series of reflections, we can see how they fit together. The first Gospel reminded us that we are already called, already chosen in Christ, and urged us to live awake. The second challenged us to let that call bear real fruit—not only for ourselves, but for our neighbors. The third opened our eyes to the astounding dignity of the least in the kingdom and the transforming power of grace. And now, the fourth assures us that this grace is not reserved for the strong and successful, but is offered precisely in our weakness.
We sit tonight in the soft light of candles, a small flame pushing back the darkness. Each little light is fragile, but together they make the room glow. In a similar way, your life—awake in faith, repentant and fruitful, open to transformation, offered in weakness—can become a place where Christ is born anew.
This is the heart of Advent: to let the God who is with us enter more deeply into who we really are, so that, through us, his light may quietly spread into the waiting world.