Archbishop of Sydney

First Sunday of Advent

St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
Is 2:1-5; Rom 13:11-14; Mt 24:37-44

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
28 November 2004

Soon after the middle of the first century Paul wrote to the small Christian community in Rome, the first city of a mighty empire, telling them the time has come, the night is almost over, that it will soon be daylight.

He knew that Christ had died and risen again, so he was obviously talking of something else, of Christ’s second coming, of his final return for the definitive establishment of the Kingdom of God.  If he thought Jesus would return soon and in his lifetime (and he probably did), then he was mistaken.

But all mainline Christians, not just Catholics, do believe in Christ’s second coming, when everyone will experience the resurrection of the body and there will be the final separation into the sheep and the goats, the good to eternal reward and the evil to eternal punishment.

This is one central element in the season of Advent, which is usually and properly geared to the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Son of God at Bethlehem.  But there are other dimensions, including one where we must welcome Christ into our hearts now as well as at His final appearance.

Occasionally, at different periods, there has been a popular and vivid expectation of Christ’s return e.g. at the time of the first Christian millennium, but at most periods, and especially today even the Christians are like the Jews just before Noah’s flood.  As Jesus explained graphically people were eating, drinking, taking wives, and taking husbands, suspecting nothing, just before Noah’s flood.  Jesus too had urged his disciples, as Paul did later, to stay awake and not allow anyone to break into the house because they did not know when the Master would come.  We need to be on our toes, because no one, not even youngsters can be certain when we might be called to give an account of our stewardship.

Thirty years ago I helped re-found a Catholic teachers college in Ballarat, now a campus of Australian Catholic University.  Yesterday we had a reunion of the first graduating group of about 40 or 50.  I was surprised and a bit shocked to learn that four of that group had died.

It is always useful, and part of a proper understanding of Advent, to remember that we Catholics do not believe that all the just go to perfect happiness after death.  As well as the possibility of the eternal punishment of hell, Catholics also believe in a time of purification (purgatory) where the deceased are prepared for God’s presence; and we pray that the dead, especially our loved ones, might be released from this.  As children we were encouraged to pray for those in purgatory who had no one to pray for them; a beautiful practice.

Our age is often very explicit about sex, but timid and reticent about dying and life after death.  Probably these two facts are connected.  Promiscuity makes it harder to acknowledge God.  When someone explicitly devotes himself to the pursuit of pleasure he wants the party to go on forever.

Those who have constructed their own gods in this life are often loathe to be reminded that we all have to die and keen to reject any suggestion that God will judge with reward or punishment the good and the evil.  Christian values and explanations do not dominate the media and even though 70% of Australians call themselves Christian, we become heavily influenced by these secular stereotypes, often hostile or corrosive to the Catholic imagination.

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that our spirits survived after death, but Christians also believe in the resurrection of the body on the last day, when Christ will inaugurate a new heaven and a new earth in a final cosmic triumph.

Recently I visited Orvieto Cathedral, 120 kilometres north of Rome, a black and white Gothic Cathedral dedicated in 1290 and described by Pope John XXIII as the most beautiful in the world.  The town is a walled fortress protected by steep cliffs, and was a place of residence for some medieval popes.

Among the Cathedral’s many artistic treasures there is a famous chapel, painted by Fra Angelico and Luca Signorelli towards the end of the fifteenth century, depicting the Last Judgement when the just are rising with their new bodies to eternal happiness, while the sinful, full of despair, are herded by the devils into hell.

Fra Angelico painted the beautiful image of Christ the Judge, serene and reassuring, but the more powerful figures belong to Signorelli.  The Renaissance, the rediscovery of ancient learning, had just burst into flower and painters and sculptors were displaying the beauty of the human body for religious as well as artistic purposes.  Unlike the other monotheists, Christians believe the Son of God took on a human nature.  We also believe that our bodies will participate in the next life.  Matter and the human body are good.

While we all agree on this, the amount of bare flesh in Signorelli’s chapel is striking even to contemporary religious tastes.

In one section of the frescoes he captures well the moral struggle between good and evil in this life, which has such drastic consequences.  Central to this evil is the figure of the anti-Christ, malevolent and charismatic, with the devil whispering in his ear.  Surrounding his pulpit are people of every age and type (including confused clerics), violence and oppression, immense temples, evidence of hatred and disorder.

He is not painting the future age Isaiah described today where swords have been hammered into ploughshares, where there will be no more training for war.  The light of the Lord is only beginning to shine as the judgement, the separation commences, while this part of the painting reminds us why we must live decently, why our armour must be the Lord Jesus Christ.  Why we must struggle not to fall.

The paintings also jar other modern sensibilities.  We do not like to think every day acts could have eternal consequences and we struggle with the notion that a good God could condemn humans to eternal punishment.  Probably here is a topic for another sermon listing the reasons, good and not so good, why we struggle with the notion of eternal punishment.

Signorelli inspired Michelangelo’s masterpiece of the Final Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, Rome where the pope is elected.  His paintings today still make any Christian who is fortunate enough to see them, think deeply.  They are certainly a useful stimulus for Advent meditations.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.