Archbishop of Sydney

First Sunday of Advent

St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
Is 63:16-17,64:1,3-8; 1 Cor 1:3-9; Mk 13:33-37

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
27 November 2005

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, when we begin our period of preparation for Christmas, the most popular festival in Australia.  It is good that Sydney’s authorities are allowing public recognition of this feast, which celebrates birth, new life, family.  For us as Christians there is a more important foundation for all this; our firm belief that God has visited us, sending his only begotten Son to become man, to take on a human nature into his divine Person through his mother Mary.

Last night I had dinner with our Archdiocesan Finance Committee and one or two people there could not believe that there are only four weeks to Christmas.  But it is true!

The run-up to Christmas is a busy time for many and I am convinced that the biggest religious danger is that we shall be too busy with other things, such as arranging family get togethers, buying the presents, sending cards, to spend much time on a spiritual and personal preparation for this Christian feast.  Let us resolve this morning not to let Christ be crowded out of the feast or the time of preparation.

We live in an age when many of the opinion makers are irreligious, and quite a few serious Christians are reluctant to raise their voices publicly.  Recently in an interview it was alleged that a Senator from a small political party had claimed that religious points of view had no right to be considered in public life.  What is remarkable is not so much that this view is mistaken as much as the fact that the claim was publicly uttered at all!

80% of Australians believe in God; nearly 70% describe themselves as Christian, but a small secular minority seem to suggest that in a democracy only irreligious views can be considered.

In our type of democracy all are able to speak freely and publicly, and this is equally true for the irreligious minority and the religious majority.  Religion in Australia generates more interest and especially participation than the political parties.  No one is compelled by law to attend Church, but people are compelled to vote (a law I support incidentally).

But irreligion is often confident in Australia and I think the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, who was also living in an age of confident pagans, has something to say to us.  “Why, Lord”, he asks, do you “leave us to stray from your ways and harden our hearts against fearing you?”

“No one invoked your name or roused himself to catch hold of you.  For you hid your face from us and gave us up to the power of our sins”.

There are many who do raise up God’s name at this time of year (and regularly) but for many God’s face is hidden, sometimes because of surrounding circumstances, but sometimes because of their sins and the sins of society.  They are either unable or unwilling to acknowledge that we are all clay in the hands of God, who is the potter trying to shape us to His will.

So today, at the start of Advent, we too should pray with the psalmist “Lord, make us turn to you, let us see your face and we shall be saved.”  The psalmist did not believe that God would appear miraculously, but he was praying for an increase of faith.  Faith can wax and wane.  Regular sin can weaken our faith and a refusal to pray regularly certainly damages faith.  Strong faith at one time is our life is no guarantee of strong faith forever.  Therefore Advent is not only a time for a personal spring-clean, for our biannual moral audit (Lent is the other), but it is a time to re-examine our faith and work to strengthen it.

We have been enriched in many ways, we do have many gifts from the Spirit, but we need to use them, especially through our regular prayer.

Let us pray in this Advent time that we shall believe more strongly God does guide those who act with integrity and strive to keep his ways in mind.  We need not pray for any cosmic miracle, for any tearing down of the heavens, but we should pray that our hard hearts will open, so that the eyes of our heart see the God of Love more clearly in the Christ Child and his mother.

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