1st Sunday of Advent (A) – 2015
Fr. Fleming takes his annual retreat on the First Sunday of Advent, so homilies for this day are scarce. Here is a homily he gave for Year B, but is applicable to Year A.
What’s helpful is not buying, consuming and filling up on everything – but rather – emptying ourselves out to make room, for Jesus to come in to our hearts and make himself to home there. The child we name our king at Christmas reigns from the throne of the Cross…

As we enter the season of Advent this weekend (with Christmas and a new year just around the corner) I’m wondering what seasons are weathering our souls, yours and mine, tonight? Is it summer, fall, winter or spring in our heart of hearts? Is my heart getting ready for Christmas? or wary of its approach? Whatever the clime within us, we bring our hearts to this first day of Advent, to a season for preparing to ready the way for Jesus to enter our hearts.
Like the seasons of our souls, Jesus pays no attention to the weather or the calendar. In any and every season he is ready to make his home within us: to warm what’s chilled; to put our grief to rest; to refresh what has wilted; and to stir up life new life and spirit. An inner season of worry and fear may keep me from lifting my heart in Christmas joy. I may not yet be ready to surrender my grief to healing. My heart may be too blue to think of new beginnings.
But no matter. No matter the season or the mood / in my heart or yours, Jesus comes in season and out of season, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, in hope and hopelessness, in sorrow and in joy. When I need him most and least expect him: Jesus is coming into my heart and yours. Not just at Christmas, not just in Advent, not just in December, but 24/7/365.
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