We have now arrived at the first Sunday of the Season of Advent. The word “advent” is derived from the Latin word “adventus,” which means “coming.” And, to be more precise, it is the season of preparation for the coming of Christ, which is celebrated as His birthday on Christmas Day. This season lasts for four weeks and is set aside to contemplate what the coming of Christ means to the world and to each of us. So, during this season, we are invited to reflect on the coming of the Son of God in human form, as the babe in the manger, and His coming into the lives, hearts, and actions of those who accept Him as their Savior. We also contemplate His future coming, when Jesus will return to the Earth as a King who comes to judge and rule the whole universe.

Hence, the theme of Scripture readings and teachings during Advent prepare us for the Second Coming while also commemorating the First Coming of Christ at Christmas. We celebrate with gladness the great promise in Advent, yet we know there is also a somber tone as threat is added to the theme of promise. This is reflected in some of the Scripture readings for Advent, in which there is a strong prophetic tone of accountability and judgment on sin. However, this is also faithful to the role of the Coming King who comes to rule, save, and judge the world.

Historically, the primary sanctuary color of Advent is purple. This is the color of penitence and fasting as well as the color of royalty to welcome the advent of the King. It is the color of hope. The purple of Advent is also the color of suffering used during Lent and Holy Week.

This points to an important connection between Jesus’ birth and death. The nativity -- the Incarnation -- cannot be separated from the crucifixion. The purpose of Jesus’ coming into the world, of the "Word made flesh" and dwelling among us, is to reveal God and His grace to the world not only through Jesus’ life and teaching but also through his suffering, death, and resurrection. To reflect this emphasis, Advent originally was a time of penitence and fasting, akin to the season of Lent.

Finally, the meaning, theology, and the traditions of Advent remind us that we are not mere spectators of this whole event but active, watchful participants. So “Mark the season of Advent by loving and serving others with God’s own love and concern.” (Mother Teresa of Calcutta)

This Sunday, we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints. The veneration and mediation of Saints are familiar devotional practices for Catholics. In our liturgical calendar, we have Feasts, Memorials and optional Memorials for the Saints in addition to our own favorite Saints and Patron Saints. The Catholic Church officially has a list of more than 10,000 Saints.

The Church does a thorough examination before declaring a person is definitively in heaven and is worthy of universal honor. They comb through the person’s writings and look for miracles. They even appoint a “devil’s advocate” whose job is to argue against canonization—just to be sure. The process is extensive, but that’s how someone becomes an official Saint of the Church.

Yet, countless more men and women are in heaven right now singing the song of triumph. They could be our parents, siblings, friends or any of those who have gone before us. We honor these anonymous, unacknowledged Saints, especially today. There are millions of them, spanning every century and every generation since the birth of the Church. Pope Francis says we should not forget that “To be a saint is not a privilege for the few, but a vocation for all.”

Then comes the Feast of All Souls, the commemoration of the faithful departed, celebrated on November 2. Its placement immediately after the Feast of All Saints shows the intimate connection between the two.

As Catholics, there are many reasons to pray for the dead. This practice develops in believers a deep awareness of the true nature of the Church as a mutually interlocking communion of all the faithful-- both the living and the dead. Praying enables us to consciously live and experience the communion of saints in our everyday lives.

This affirms that no Christian lives alone and no Christian dies alone. A Christian is always assisted by the prayers of the entire Church. Also, this belief helps to dispel the fear and trauma, the darkness and despair that accompany the thought of one’s own death. In addition, the concern we have for the wellbeing of the dead not only helps the departed in their purifying encounter with the love of God but also generates, in those who pray, a connected concern for the living. Finally, these two feasts of the Church remind us once more that the ultimate goal of our life is sanctity in the Lord.

Saint Paul quotes Jesus as saying that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35) This is obviously true. It is equally true that you cannot give unless you have first received. In his encyclical letter, “God is Love,” Pope Benedict XVI says that one cannot keep on giving love unless one continues to receive love. This is true not only of love but of all dimensions of our life.

When we stop to think about it, we realize that we have gotten a lot from our hometowns, churches, country and their rich heritages, both religious and cultural. In a sense, they have made us what we are today. That is why we are now in a position to give.

There are two great tasks of human life: to find ourselves and to lose ourselves. We find ourselves by discovering our destiny and being true to it. Yet, it is not enough to find ourselves; we also must lose ourselves. The “loss of self” is really about seeing that we are connected to something larger, something that had a life before us and will have a life after us. For us, that is God and recognizing that those who both found and lost themselves in God, found happiness.

There is another way to lose ourselves. It is to dedicate our life to giving and to leaving the world better than we found it. This connects us to the future and links us to the past.

It is true that, as ordinary humans, we cannot do much to change the world. However, we should not underestimate our ability to make a significant contribution. We should not forget that history is made by the acts of human beings, which start as ripples that grow into currents that eventually sweep down the mightiest walls.

So, let us embrace the blessedness Jesus offers (and St. Paul illustrates) to give more than we take and begin a process that leads to the transformation of persons, communities, and societies.

I believe that God did not come to remove suffering; He came to fill it with His presence. There are people who feel a lot of resentment about the way life has treated them. They hope that someday they will start to really live by putting all the unpleasant experiences of life behind them. But every attempt to close our eyes to the present, and deny the past, often turns out to be a useless exercise. Why not accept life as it is and understand the simple but beautiful truth of these words: “Life is difficult”?

Most of the time, we feel that our “real life” is about to begin but there is some obstacle in the way: something to get through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid... then life will begin. Has it ever occurred to you that these obstacles may be your life? These obstacles--the things that we want to put behind us--they are our life. They are the stuff of which life is made. Why are we afraid of pain? It is part of our life. Why are we afraid of suffering? It is again part of life. The fear of suffering can be worse than the suffering itself.

These words of Jesus are so true: “Every day will have its own cares” (Mt 6:34) and “Was it not ordained that Christ should suffer and then enter into His glory?” (Lk 24:26) As Christians, we are called to accept suffering and pain in life as our master Jesus suffered so much for us. Also, we have the examples of the heroic lives of the Saints who tread the same path.

As we are currently going through this very disturbing period of pandemic, we hear some say that 2020 “will be a year pulled from my calendar.” Denial of what we are going through is a kind of fleeing from life and waiting for a better climate and environment in which to live our life; this denial serves as an illusion. It is like waiting for one's retirement in order to write a book. We hardly come across such books. If you want to write a book, start the first sentence today. Live in the present.

Denial of our concrete reality is not going to help us because we will never have a day without cares. By accepting what we are going through, we learn the skills to manage the tensions and cares. There are plenty of such options yet the best one would be to turn to our faith life and be nourished by our spiritual heritage and traditions.

Once you choose hope, anything is possible because hope is a powerful force in the life of any human being. Without hope, it is impossible for anyone to continue his or her life. Hopelessness leads to despair; whereas, a remedy for depression is hope which energizes people.

Yet, human hope is born of what we do not have and is totally future oriented. On the other hand, Theological Hope is different from human hope. Theological Hope is born not of what we do not have, but of what we have already been given and what is to be realized in our lives. Christian hope begins and rests on the irrevocable nature of God's promise. God has made a covenant with His people to redeem them and to establish His Kingdom. Inauguration into that Kingdom is already amidst us in Jesus. All the same, Jesus taught His disciples to pray for the arrival of God's Kingdom, indicating that the Kingdom of God is an already and not yet reality.

That's why, at times, the world around us looks very dim and we tend to be pessimistic, but we know and trust that the risen Lord is with us and the Holy Spirit is active in us and among us. This is the reason we are able to experience hope even in hopeless situations. As Saint Paul says, "We can do all things with Jesus who strengthens us" precisely because He is not encouraging us from without but engaging in history with us from within: sharing not only our lives but also our struggles and sufferings.

As we go through this very difficult time, full of uncertainty and anxiety, let us strengthen ourselves in the faith that Jesus is journeying with us and in the hope that, in spite of the apparent worldly failures, God fulfills His promise and establishes His Kingdom, making us sharers of His glory. For our part, we need to be patient and concentrate on living a righteous and holy life without giving in to hopelessness.

"Tribulation works patience; and patience, probation; and probation, hope." Romans 5:3-4

Saint John Chrysostom tells us: "And even as the violence of the wind, when it rushes upon strong trees and sways them in all directions, does not root them up, but renders them still firmer and stronger by these attacks; so the soul that is holy and lives in a religious state and is not supplanted by the inroads of trial and tribulation but stimulated thereby to more patience and then hope; even as the blessed Job, whom they made more illustrious and honorable at the end."

The Season of Lent is a gift for us to prepare ourselves for the great feast of Easter, where we commemorate our exodus in Jesus Christ. It is our exodus from death to life, from the slavery of sin to the abode of freedom. So, during Lent, we need to pay more attention to our spiritual affairs and to realize that it is a time for our spiritual welfare. The human tendency is to fight always. Its proper orientation, however, is not against other people but against the evil that is within us.

So, the following points are some suggestions to get into the real spirit of Lent and to experience renewal. These are things all of us can do to commit ourselves to being more reflective during Lent:

• We can be more observant, more aware of what we are experiencing - paying more attention to our inner selves. Then, we can start paying attention to our desires. We can identify the desires we currently have, determining which of them need to be purified; which may need to be abandoned; and which are wonderful desires that are there but haven't been acted upon. By getting in touch with our deepest desires and dealing with them, we help guide the way we make our choices and establish new spiritual patterns for Lent.
• We can be more generous during Lent. Generosity is an attitude. It is a sense that, no matter how much I have, all that I have is gift, and it was given to me to be shared. It means that sharing with others in need is one of our personal priorities. That is quite different from assessing all of my needs first and then giving away what is left over. A spirit of self-less giving means that one of my needs is to share what I have with others. Lent is a wonderful time to practice self-less giving because it takes practice. It also joins us with Jesus, who gave Himself completely for us. Establishing new patterns of giving will give real life and joy to Lent.
• Penance is a remedy, a medicine, a spiritual therapy for the healing we desire. The Lord always forgives us. We are forgiven without condition. But complete healing takes time. With sin or with bad habits that took years to form, we need to develop a therapeutic care plan to let the healing happen. We need to act against our old patterns of behavior by coming up with a strategy to work on a "change of heart" and to look concretely at what circumstances, attitudes, and behaviors must be changed. Curtailing and modifing such behavior can be very difficult but would be a real way of practicing penance during Lent. It would bring lasting healing to our souls.

Since we have celebrated Christmas, Epiphany and the beginning of His ministry with His Baptism in the River Jordan, we are now invited to reflect on and be partakers in the ministry of our Lord Jesus. We have to understand that the Holy Spirit has played a crucial part during Christ’s ministry on Earth -- from the time the Virgin Mary conceived Jesus through the grace of the Holy Spirit to the time He breathed His last breath on the cross. Therefore, we need to understand and to have a great thirst for the Spirit of the Lord, who will help us fulfill the great mission Jesus has entrusted to us, which always includes being like Christ to the world.

Because the gifts of the Holy Spirit are quintessential for each and every Christian believer, it would be impossible for us to be the image of Christ without them. These gifts can help us understand the true meaning of being His disciples and get to know Him closely, in His true image.

The Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Bible 93 times: 90 times in the New Testament and 3 times in the Old Testament. We believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are bestowed on us in Baptism and further strengthened when we receive our Confirmation and becoming ours as disciples.

Saint Thomas Aquinas divided these seven gifts into two categories: 1) Gifts that direct the intellect and 2) Gifts that direct the will towards God. The gifts of wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and counsel come in the intellectual category while fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord draw our will towards God. If you observe closely, all these gifts are interrelated to each other, and one seems impossible without the other. For instance, without knowledge there cannot be understanding and wisdom. Also, piety, fear of the Lord, and fortitude are closely interlinked. As St. Bonaventure says, "the Holy Spirit comes where He is loved, where He is invited, where He is expected." Therefore, as we pray for our daily bread, let us seek and pray for the Spirit of the Lord because the power of the Spirit can transform, empower and make us new creations.

Let us pray, in the words of St. Augustine: "O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there thy cheerful beams.”