First Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 63:16-64:8
You, Lord, are our Father, your name is “The One who redeems us” from of old. Why, Lord, do you let us stray from your ways and harden our hearts so that we do not fear you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your inheritance. Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down—before you, the mountains would melt!
You came down, and at your presence the mountains melted. No one has ever heard, no ear has ever perceived, no eye has ever seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to the aid of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways.
See, you were angry, and we sinned; in our sins we have been a long time, and we shall be saved. We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquities.
Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.
This third part of the “Book of Isaiah” was written a century after the prophet’s death by an unknown disciple, full of his spirit and inheriting his outstanding literary quality.
The context in which these texts were pronounced and written is probably the return from exile, the discouragement that spreads among the people due to the mediocrity of the restoration, the precariousness of the new temple… This makes consolation necessary, the encouragement that the prophets try to instill in the people, their efforts to affirm more the faith in the Lord the Restorer.
And it is in this context that the faith of Israel is shown more purified than ever, and its knowledge of God appears increasingly free of many of its ancient, provisional, and primitive beliefs.
It is notable in this text the image of God. The Lord is called “our Father – the one who redeems us – the one who descends from on high – the one who makes himself found – our potter.” Once again, Israel expresses here how it feels that sin, infidelity to God, is the cause of all its ills, and how the Lord educates it to feel this way and to know him as the builder and restorer of the people.
The image of God as savior, restorer, shepherd, who is shaping his people and saving them from sin, is already extraordinarily close to the revelation of Abbá culminated in Jesus.
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge—even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you—so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
During the Sundays of Advent, we do not read continuously from any of Paul’s letters. The three texts of each Eucharist are selected to form a coherent whole.
This first letter to the Christians of Corinth was written by Paul from Ephesus around Easter of the year 57.
It is a letter to solve problems (divisions among the faithful, false wisdom, incest, recourse to pagan courts, marriage and virginity, meat sacrificed to idols, the order of assemblies, the various charisms, the resurrection of the dead…) addressed to a community already established, founded by the same Paul in the years 50-52, and which grows and consolidates in the midst of a cosmopolitan, tumultuous city, open to all currents of thought.
The text we read today is the introduction to the letter. Paul addresses a community rich in gifts of the Spirit, consolidated in its faith; from the first moment he raises the plane of his readers by making them aware of who they are and what their situation is as believers, full of the gifts of the Spirit, possessors of the knowledge of Jesus, called to communion with Him.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.