1st Sunday of Advent
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
Live-streamed & TV Broadcast
November 30, 2025
Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done
When we pray the Our Father, it is easy to glide over the words, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” Even as we pray those words, we may find ourselves to be less focused on welcoming God’s Kingdom and more focused on building our own little kingdoms, for example, our careers, our financial security, and our legacy. And even as pray that God’s will be done, we sometimes do our best to ensure that it our will that prevails, or at least to ensure that God’s will conforms to our will! At Mass, right after we pray the Our Father, we tell the Lord that we’re “waiting in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.” We claim to be eagerly awaiting the end of the world and the second coming. But don’t we often avoid thinking about Christ’s judgment on our lives, and don’t we wish not to be alive at the end of the world? In other words, instead of looking to the future with hope, we cling to the status quo; we stay in our comfort zone.
On the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year, the Church offers us a vision of life in Christ that frees us to embrace the future – not merely the near future, but the absolute future, that future we were created for and that we long for – and what is it? It is a life of unimaginable joy and contentment in the presence of God: to be numbered among the saints and surrounded by the choirs of angels. But we hesitate. We are creatures of habit. We like what we know, and we know what we like.
And as the holiday season begins, we may find ourselves asking why we’re focusing on the end of time, the second coming, and God’s judgment? Isn’t Advent that nice little interlude to get us ready for Christmas? Isn’t Advent all about injecting a little spirituality into the holidays? Well, actually…no. There’s a lot more to it than that. Advent is about preparing to celebrate worthily the first coming of Christ so that we will be prepared to embrace Christ with joy when he comes in glory to judge the living and the dead – something we profess to believe in and hope for in the Creed. But don’t take this from me. Let’s give today’s Scripture readings the last word.
The Prophecy of Isaiah
. . . beginning with Isaiah’s prophecy about Jerusalem. He paints a beautiful picture of it, doesn’t he? He calls it “the mountain of the Lord” – the highest of mountains, a place towards which all the nations of the earth will stream, a place where there is no more strife, violence, or death. What Isaiah is describing here is the New and Eternal Jerusalem; he is speaking of the Kingdom of God for whose coming we pray each day.
Unlike the world we live in, God’s Kingdom is not a mix of good and evil, nor do the wicked and the righteous dwell side-by-side. No, in the New and Heavenly Jerusalem, we will gaze in love and amazement at the God who loved us first, and in that Kingdom, our love for one another will never fail. Faith teaches that, at the end, there be “a new heavens and a new earth” and it also teaches that we too will be re-created, made new and glorious. Isn’t that why the Son of God came into the world: to redeem us . . . to rescue us from sin, and to recreate in us the image and likeness of God, that image and likeness which sin has obscured and disfigured. Jesus came to remove from us everything that prevents us from participating in the love of God and neighbor that reigns supreme in the house of the Lord. In heaven we will love as God loves; we will love as the saints and angels love. This is the hope that prompted today’s response to Isaiah’s prophecy: “Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord!”
A State of Readiness
Both the reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, and Jesus’ own words from the Gospel of Matthew challenge us to use our time and freedom to prepare for entry into the Kingdom of God, We are, in other words, to prepare for the particular judgment after our death and for the general judgment at the end of time. We do this by clinging to Christ and welcoming the transforming power of the Spirit, so that, here and now, we can live as sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. We do this by immersing ourselves in the Mass and the Sacraments by which we pass from sin to grace and from grace to glory.
This is what St. Paul is driving at in our reading from Romans where he urges us “to cast off the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light.” He’s telling us to reject immorality and selfishness, quarreling and jealousy. Instead, we are “to put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” that is, to become Christ-like. For Christian morality isn’t a set of rules designed to constrain our freedom. Christian morality hinges on the grace Jesus and his Spirit lavish upon us to transform us into a new creation who reflects the beauty of God the Father. This transformation takes place throughout our lives, so long as we open our hearts to power of God’s grace available to us now in the Church’s sacramental life, so long as we strive to live as God’s sons and daughters on our way to the Kingdom—as those preparing in hope for the direct gaze of God’s Triune Love.
That is also why, in today’s Gospel, Jesus urges us to stay awake, to be alert, watching for the day when he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. In the midst of our daily lives (our relationships, our work, our leisure), in our darkest hour, in our most joyful hour, on our most routine day – we must keep our eyes of faith fixed on our hope of eternal life, and be alert to anything that diverts us from that destiny. During Advent, then, we should make a good, unburdening confession of our sins, seek to improve our life of prayer, and pay special attention to those in need…Above all, in the grace of this holy season, we need to overcome any trace of procrastination and presumption in our spiritual lives. Then, as we celebrate the first coming of Christ in the poverty of our humanity, we will be prepared to welcome him when he comes again in glory to gather us into his Kingdom where he lives and reigns with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen.