Today is the first day of the liturgical year and it is the first Sunday of Advent. Advent as you know is that time when we ask ourselves: are we ready for the Second Coming of Christ as we look back to the First Coming of Christ? We realize that the Second Coming for Christ for anyone of us could happen at any time of course. So the question for us today: Are we ready to encounter Christ, now? We need to ask it regularly, but especially during this time.

St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans calls us to focus on this question directly. Here he is telling the Romans to make a choice to either embrace Christ or embrace Nero who was the emperor at the time. St. Paul actually gives an admonition where he speaks of what we call the sins of the flesh and this teaching reaches us today, but there is a deeper meaning to this teaching which we need to understand.

First notice what St. Paul says: the time is nearer than when we first began. That is true for each one of us. we do not know when our time will be, but we do know that we are closer to the moment that we meet Christ than we ever have been, and everyday that time gets shorter. We don’t know how short because we do not not know how long the time is for us individually or as a community to begin with but we know through simple logic that the time is in fact shorter for us now than before.

He is telling the Romans, who are converts from paganism not Judaism, to turn from the hedonistic pagan lifestyle to embrace Christ personally and as a community. This way when we encounter Christ we are known to him as a friend not strangers to the strong king.

However, it is here that today much of the teaching is misunderstood. I am guessing that many of you may not have heard what I am about to teach you and it comes from St Maximus the Confessor who lived about six hundred years after St Paul. He teaches powerfully with great wisdom.

You see many learned about sin in a way that many people think of school. At the end of your life Christ will judge you by how well you lived your Christian life, as if you have spent a life long test in a school. You are left to think: Will I get an A, or B, or C. Will I go to purgatory, Heaven or Hell Think back to those days when you worried about your grades and whether you would pass or fail. For some, thinking back at that great anxiety was itself a living hell. So when we translate that to our relationship with God, it just gives us greater anxiety. What will you do if I teach you that this is incorrect?

Remember, the entire Christian life is about growing in holiness and we grow in holiness by growing in wisdom. That is the key.

So what St. Maximus the Confessor teaches is that the more we listen to what St. Paul says rejecting the life of the flesh and embracing the life of Christ, the more we grow intellectually in the wisdom that leads us to us to have the mind of Christ. What he teaches is that when we embrace the life of the flesh, our ability to understand the greatest of all wisdom is curtailed. We may embrace the wisdom of the world, but not the wisdom that is infinitely greater, the wisdom of God. The more we embrace the life of Christ the greater we grow in divine wisdom, which makes us more as He is.

If we understand wisdom of Christ, then we will unite ourselves around truth in charity. If we reject the higher wisdom and instead listen to some “expert” who tells us that he is smarter than God then you may embrace a lifestyle that rejects Christ, but you will see factions grow between one false definition of truth and the other. The only way to bring unity in that case is for some force to bring the factions together. If they are united on any one element, it is the rejection of Christ. Then as you see in the Gospel The worldly wisdom group will always try to silence the divine wisdom group and maybe with force. This is what happened ultimately in Rome, indeed, the emperor Nero conducted a severe persecution against Christians. 

St. Paul speaking to the heart of Rome is asking them to embrace one definition of wisdom over another. Those who embrace worldly wisdom rooted in the flesh will eventually see their world collapse because they are not truly united, they cannot be brought to Heaven because they are not united to Christ or one another. The other group will suffer for their faith for a time, but if they persevere they will enter eternal life.

It is out of this wisdom that St. Paul is teaching and you can see it is far, far more profound than what we understand if we see the school based version of judgement.

So ultimately what St. Paul is saying is to embrace the ways of Christ and you will grow more fully into what it means to be a human being. This is the way of divine truth. Others will embrace the way of the flesh and that has no ultimate end except in decay and division. Paul then admonishes us to make our choice. Eternal life through Christ, or false hopes through worldly wisdom. Let us as this Liturgical year begins make that choice for Christ.

God bless you,

Fr. Robert J Carr

Fr. Carr is member of the Segundo Elo  of the Canção Nova Community. He is the pastor of Holy Trinity Quincy, MA and is the editor of this blog. He is the author of several books, blogs and hundreds of videos all of which you may find on Youtube.  You can follow him on twitter as @frbobcarr and on Google plus as+FrRobertCarr, his website is Carrbooks.us Thoughts, comments on the homily? Let us know at Facebook