Is it already time? - Eugenio Ruberto

Is it already time? The fatigue of facing a new day

Commentary on the Gospel for November 30, 2025

First Sunday of Advent – Year A

Be vigilant, so you may be ready for his arrival.

From the Gospel according to Matthew
Mt 24:37-44

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples:
«As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and the other left.
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.»

The Gospel of the Lord.

No one wakes up another in bed so easily
When Christ awakens the dead in the sepulchre

We live in a slumber

We spend a large part of our lives asleep; we no longer expect anything, we don’t notice what is happening within us, we don’t pay attention to what is happening around us.

We live in a slumber because we prefer not to be disturbed, we don’t want to take the responsibility to change. Sometimes reality shakes us abruptly and without any delicacy. And then the awakening is so unpleasant that we get angry, we open our eyes and look at the world as if it were the first time we see it.

Adventum

«Wake up», Saint Paul suggests to us, because «our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed» (Rom 13:11), the Lord is closer every day because with every passing minute the moment we will meet him approaches. Let us wake up to prevent the Lord from passing by without us noticing! Sometimes, in fact, things happen in our lives, but we are not ready to welcome them.

God has come towards (*ad-ventum*) us, otherwise we would not be alive; he has loved us and continues to do so: he is the one who constantly comes to meet us. We, on the other hand, are by our nature those who welcome, because we are incomplete as creatures: we carry within us that constitutive void that makes us those who welcome. There is space within us to receive God.

The flood and the ark

If we do not wake up and do not pay attention to what is happening within us and around us, we will find ourselves swept away by the flood without realizing that it has started raining, without realizing that the weather was turning bad, underestimating the first drops. It is better to identify where the ark is in which we can take shelter from the flood. That ark is the relationship with God, which is why the Fathers saw in the ark a prefiguration of the Church that welcomes and protects.

Taken or left

We must wake up because we never know what might happen in our lives: we can be taken or left. Life is marked by uncertainty, only we can make a difference. Every moment of life is one in which I can be taken or left: *how would life find me today?* If Christ has indeed come into history, if Christ will come at the end of the world, there is also a third coming, as Saint Bernard states, which is the middle one: Christ comes in the spirit into the life of the believer, he comes into us through the sacraments, he comes in the Eucharist. But, precisely, how does Christ find us when he continually comes into our lives?

The path to awakening

On the First Sunday of Advent, the liturgy gives us a path to wake up: Isaiah invites us to transform our swords and spears, that is, the instruments of war, into plowshares and pruning hooks, which are tools used for cultivation, for generating life.

Mostly, we handle swords and spears daily, we pour our energies into conflicts, we try to defend ourselves and attack, but where does this violence lead us, regardless? There are many forms of violence: we can also be violent with silence, with judgments, with indifference. Isaiah does not ask us to throw away our swords and spears, because ultimately they represent the strength and resources we have; he asks us to transform them, we can use them to generate life and not to kill.

To transform

We must wake up! Let us try to transform the instruments of death into resources of life: my anger can become energy to face life’s difficulties, my feelings can become an opportunity for compassion rather than a source of resentment, my thoughts can become a way to develop life strategies rather than staying to brood over revenge strategies.

The Lord opens a path for us today, but we must wake up to be able to see it!

Reading within oneself

If you were to open your eyes to what is happening within you and in your life outside of you, what would you see?
What are the swords and spears in your possession that you can transform into instruments of good?