Dear To Me, But Maybe Different For You.

1st Sunday of Advent

Gospel from Mark 13: 33-37

Verse 34 of the Gospel captures me, it says, ' If will be like a man who goes away from home on a trip and leaves his servants in charge, after giving to each one his own work to do and after telling the doorkeeper to keep watch'.

I always thought that adults were the wisest of all people, compared to youths or young adults. Sadly, I found that this is not true. Since coming back to Malaysia, I have come across foolish adults; I have seen adults who continued in their mistakes even after being told by their leaders, now that person ahs been saked! I have always listened attentively to adults' advice of living life respectfully; they will say things like be good, earn lots of money. When topics on religion arises, adults tend to take the path of compromise; in Malaysia the common advice on religion is to live well, do your religious duties once a while (a Sunday, for a Catholic) and be good.

Good advice! But in real life sadly these people have not proven that the advice are Truth, the truth with a capital 'T".

Very often people tend to compromise their beliefs when it comes to situation that may be harmful to the practitioner. Or, that the practitioner will be on the losing side if he/she should hold on to her understanding of life.

For me, I think Advent is a good time to sit back and rethink about what we hold dear to life. For me, I hold very dearly to God, and deeply, I find it so hard to compromise my understanding of life; I always go all out to advise or help others. I hold on to the 'pearl fo great price', because losing this 'pearl' is much worst then losing living in imitation of secular values (shop till you drop at Christmas time?:).

Thus Advent is a great time, a correct time to give each of us that sacred space to reflect on what we hold dear in life, and once we found that which is dear to us, to hold on to that sacred personal Truth. This is a Virtue we call Integrity and Sincerity, even perhaps Perseverance...

I wish each of us a good moment in Advent, and my this sacred time of Advent be beneficial to all of us.