The Catholic Church has a three-year cycle of Sunday Readings, and Sunday, 30th November this year, 2025, was the first week of a new cycle.
Year A's Gospels will mainly be from St Matthew's Gospel.
Year B's from St Mark's
Year C's from St Luke's
Parts of St John's Gospel are used at special times in each Church year.
First Sunday of Advent Year A Mt Ch 24:37-4
Jesus is talking to his followers about Noah building the Ark. He talks about all the other people just carrying on as if nothing bad is going to happen.
His main message seems to be, 'Stay Awake,' ie, read the signs of the times. Don't hide your head in the sands when it looks like disaster is looming.
He uses some great examples as always, like, if we knew there were plans for a burglary at our house one night, we'd do something to protect ourselves.
The whole point of his message seems to be that he will come back one day when we least expect it and we need to think about whether we'd be ready to face him.
One image I had from this Gospel, which came to me when I was trying to figure out what we could take from it, was about all of us building our own ark.
My ark would be constantly reminding myself about and being thankful for how good God has been to me all my life, taking me as I am, which is what I believe anyway, because God knows I'm always trying but mostly failing to improve my weaknesses, and also for getting me out of many a scrape.
Also trying to pray properly, not just saying, sending my love and thoughts. and then forgetting straight away.
Another plank in my ark would be to cling to my firm belief that, no matter how bad things might seem to be, in my life or those of others I know and love or in life and in the world in general, that how we live and love and try in our own small ways to share our love with those around us can make a difference, can make life worthwhile.
Ps
I've always struggled with the term, 'Son of Man,' which Jesus uses three times in this gospel reading. I've heard quite a few explanations over the years but nothing that's really resonated with me.
Perhaps it's something that the people of that time would understand.
I noticed though, that he also uses the term, 'Your Master,' seemingly in the same context. If that's the meaning, I really get that and like it a lot. I'm totally happy with the idea of Jesus being my Master. We couldn't ask for a better one, could we.
I've been reading and thinking about this gospel all week but, even though it's short, I've found it quite difficult in some ways. For example, it uses the phrase, Son of God, three times, and I've always found that a hard phrase to understand, despite the various explanations I've heard.
The only enlightenment I had, on the umpteenth reading, was noticing that Jesus used the phrase, Your Master, in what seemed to be the same context as 'Son of Man.' It is always taken that Jesus is talking about himself but I still don't quite get it - but I do get Master.
I went back from Ch 24 to Ch 21 to discover that this talk to his own followers happened between Palm Sunday when all the crowds had gone crazy for Jesus, and Good Friday, when they were baying for his blood. Fickle but just as crowds can be now and probably always have and will be.
All that week he'd been talking to crowds of people and dealing with the religious leaders who were trying to get at him all the time. He knew perfectly well what was going to happen and was trying to prepare his friends for it.
He had also been teaching them to be aware of what was likely to happen to him because of the jealousy and hatred of the leaders against him.
He talks about the story of Noah and the ark so I looked it up. It seems like a very immoral time with nobody following God's ways. Quite why Noah decided to build an ark isn't obvious, well it wasn't to me but at least he saved the day for a remnant of the human race, well his own part of it anyway.
The story of two men standing together and one being taken and the other surviving reminds me of stories of the war when that happened literally.
Then the bit about no warning and what we'd do if we knew a burglar was operating in our area would do if made me think of examples of sudden warnings like schools that get to know there's going to be an Ofsted 24 hours from now and rush around getting things looking as good as they can in the short time they have.
Or if the police get a warning about a bomb being planted somewhere. Also the desperate messages sent by the passengers on the planes during the 9/11 atrocities in America, all telling their loved ones how much they loved them.
His main aim was to tell them not to think that things were just going to go on as they were when everything was ok,
He uses the example of a homeowner who, if he had known that someone was going to break into his house, would have made sure that his property was protected.
Jesus' point is that we don't usually get warnings so we need to protect ourselves by being alert at all times, ready, with God's help to deal with whatever arises.
