Triduum Part 1: 1st Sunday of Advent Year A

About a week ago, someone was trying to park his car and in the process damaged another. When the “offender” was confronted, instead of apologising, the person acted the maxim that the best defence was an offence. So, the guilty party turned aggressive and drove off without an apology. The owner of the car was upset and asked why Catholics behaved in such an un-Christ-like manner. Are you surprised by such behaviour?

I am not. Such unchristian behaviour was also prevalent or common during the time of St Francis Xavier. You might be wondering why mention SFX since this is the 1st Sunday of Advent. It is the Triduum of SFX which we begin today (Saturday), tomorrow and Monday. The good thing is that the readings actually help to draw together SFX and the 1st Sunday of Advent. The readings point towards the future coming. But this future coming is not principally focused upon the future as it is upon how we can make the future present. The future is described in the first reading as the “mountain of the Temple of the Lord where people gravitate to and where God may teach us his ways etc”. This future can be realised and in a measure attained through the process of moving into the light. St Paul says to the Romans: The night is almost over, it will be daylight soon—let us give up all the things we prefer to do under the cover of the dark; let us arm ourselves and appear in the light. Let us live decently as people do in the daytime: no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy.

During the time of St Francis in Malacca, he encountered such licentiousness. He was rather disgusted by the behaviour of his countrymen. The focus of his disgust was neither the “licentiousness” nor the “drunken orgies” but rather an exasperation that the grace of the Gospel had not penetrated the souls of those who were baptised, beginning most of all, with the Portuguese. We are no different. In general, there is a certain attempt to make our lives coherent. Regrettably, for many the coherence is only skin deep. We too suffer like the Portuguese from the Gospel not penetrating our hearts.

This is what Advent and also Lent are for. Advent is the period of preparation for Christ’s coming. Christ came 2000 years ago. We remember or commemorate that on Christmas. We also await Christ’s 2nd coming. Again, we anticipate that through Christmas. Set in the midst of remembering and anticipating is the possibility of making the future present here and now. Advent allows the Gospel to take flesh in our hearts. This is what we mean by Christ coming into our hearts at Christmas. [Christmas isn’t Christmas till it happens in your heart].

Earlier I mentioned about this business of being unchristian. Actually unchristian behaviour is too simple a category because we have not paid sufficient attention to a particular disjuncture, a break in the lives of many of us. This disjuncture is more than just a lack of correspondence or a lack of consistency. The description of the experience of St Francis in Malacca as the grace of the Gospel not penetrating the heart can be defined as a disjuncture between the head and the heart or a lack of connexion between the head and the heart.

There must be a head and heart connexion in order that what we believe illuminates what we do and what we do concretises or enfleshes what we believe. If not, we continue to have Catholics who come to Church simply because they have to and not really because they want to. It also explains why Catholics can “gostan” (reverse) into your car, break your light and then quickly drive off without even a note or a word of apology. My experience has been that there were so many times when I wanted to walk out of a funeral or wedding mass simply because we have Catholics desiring the sacraments without knowing why. Big disjuncture. They want a wedding mass but have no idea why they are there and when the mass goes on, they are doing all the stupid things and at the point of consecration, they are not even reverential. It makes a mockery of what is being done at the altar. There is no connexion between what they profess and how they act.

Today on the First Day of our Triduum and the First Sunday of Advent, let us take the opportunity to make the head-heart connexion. Penitence is not just about sorrow for sin. It also calls for a deeper reflexion where we begin to see where our beliefs have not informed our actions. Or how our actions contradict what we profess. Otherwise, we will live in two different worlds with such a dire consequence as my favourite Irish saying goes: Paddy went to Mass and he never missed a Sunday. But Paddy went to hell, for what he did on Monday.