Don Bosco Philippines South Province

Jesus said to his disciples: “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’”.’ MK 13:33-37

1st Sunday of Advent Cycle B

My Nanay is 95 years old. Apparently, she won’t reach the century mark. Her small intestine has knotted and at her age, she won’t survive the doctor’s surgery. For 22 years she has yearned to be united with Tatay. Sadly, we have to let her go. She is still in pain but any day now she would leave us,

It is comforting to know that she (as well as we her family) has long been prepared for this. She will soon receive her reward from the Lord for spreading His word among the simple folks in the family’s farm in the province. Because of her charity to the people around the Lord will surely forgive her faults. Besides her husband, she would definitely meet the Lord waiting for her arrival at Heaven’s pearly gates.

The Lord would also come to us at the end of our own lives.

In the priest’s night prayer, we read “Protect us Lord as we stay awake. Watch over us as we sleep. That awake we may keep watch with Christ, and asleep rest in His peace.” In this prayer before sleeping, we see the close connection between sleeping and waking up. We sleep only for a while and only to wake up to another day refreshed, recreated and energized. This is the purpose why we sleep.

At the start of the Advent season in preparation for Christmas we are asked to wake up. If we sleep when we are supposed to be awake, we miss many things: we miss the lesson from our teacher, we miss the destination in our journey, we miss the story of the movie.

Although God occasionally talks to us even in our dreams, as in the case of St. Joseph, He prefers to give His message when we are conscious and wide awake.

Qoheleth says there is a time for everything including sleeping and waking up (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). But when God comes it is definitely the time to wake up. 

How can we say that we are awake in this Advent season? Like Nanay while we yearn to be with the Lord and with our loved ones who have gone ahead, we should occupy ourselves doing charity to people around.

PostScript: by some sort of “miracle”, Nanay is still alive and getting better two weeks after. Surely the daily masses, anointing and prayers from all helped.

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