Welcome to the Catholic influences podcast where we go deeper into Sunday's gospel reading to help you influence the world for Jesus. I'm Danny Sullivan and I'm father Rob Galea. And this podcast is presented to you by fig ministry. Welcome to our advent special. Ooh, fancy . This is that a little bit fancy? You know what, this frenzy, yeah , what I'm holding in my hand, this is a a coffee, but it's a Bailey's coffee. These are secrets that we probably don't like.
Me and Janine know that they're there, but I don't think there's alcohol in this. We did look at the back and it was like how special trait , so we probably have it like once a fortnight or even maybe less than that, but it's like 0.0, zero, zero 1% so I'm working so I shouldn't be drinking on the job, but don't tell the boss. Well they do our office. So Janine , Janine is proudly in my assistant, proudly saying that she drinks Baileys during, during office hours. So productive.
Danny , we need to file a report. Who do I follow that here for ? The advent special, which is exciting. Yes. I don't know . I'm excited. Adventists , a beautiful time. Time of preparation for Christmas. A time of preparation for the coming of Jesus in our hearts, in our lives. How awesome. Is that? Pretty awesome. Do you know where the word advent comes from? You tell me. I say it's not so much fun when someone asks you a question. I think I know it's the dawning of something.
Is it the beginning? Is it ? Oh no . This is a good feeling. Now tell me it's , it comes from the Latin word Aventus. I assume that's how you pronounce it. I've never looked at Latin oven to add the first one I had the Ventas . Yes . This is much better. It's the Latin word for arrival. So we're waiting for the arrival of Jesus Christ. There you go. So I guess you went that wrong. No , it was daunting , but it , it felt nice to be able to put you on the spot for once.
You've only taken two whole seasons. Yeah . I like learning new things. So this is, yeah, it is a good opportunity. So this is interesting and this is a fun day in the office, a full day in the office. We're actually even being filmed today.
So this is something that you guys can look out for on social media, social media, at Catholic influences under Scott , which this morning, like I knew that we were going to get like film this one and we want to do that, especially for advent, like we're really excited about this series. So I even, I don't want to , you know, brag or be about vanity or anything. I put makeup on. That's pretty , that's a pretty big day for me.
And then this terrible thing happened where, so I came to work, I actually came early today, eight 30 wow . And at about nine 30 my nose was running. I had the worst head cold. And now I just look, I asked your name before, I was like, do I look like I've been hit by a bus or a van? And she's like, no. Some way between a basting and a peanut allergy. I was like, Oh, that is not what I want to hear. I wouldn't have noticed. Oh yeah, it looks lovely. You had a cold . Okay. Well thanks.
We're very excited for advent. It's a really beautiful time. I like at school especially, I remember when advent started, sorry, in Australia, we do our school year from January to December. So advent was kind of like the counting down to Christmas holidays and summer holidays where we had like six to eight weeks off. And then as I got older I kind of started to realize the beautiful time of preparation that it was for the incarnation, for the birth of Jesus Christ.
Yeah. That's a , and it's so it can see advent can so easily be seen as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. It is a beautiful time of impact, a time of change, a time of transformation. And so , um , every advent I make commitments as well to , to make some change in my life and to make sure that I'm more ready for the coming of Jesus.
Yeah. I think that, and maybe society culture is something within our world. Um , we've kind of put lent into this basket where lent is a time of fasting and prayer and preparation and you know, it takes where there's penance and all the things like that. And then admin is more of a time to joyfully look forward to the coming of our Lord or shopping. Yeah .
Oh , you know, putting up the Christmas tree or whatever it might be, but it's still, we're still called , um , you know, it's time of fasting and prayer
to use the word we've been using too . It's this time of truth . It's a time of their thing , a time of getting ready for something as well. Again, this is what advent is about. It's about preparing, getting ourselves ready, being prepared, being ready. Because if you are not prepared, then it will come like a surprise on us and then all of a sudden we would have wasted a whole season of the church.
It is a beautiful season and that's why the church categorizes it as a season and not , um, not just , um , a moment in or just in part of a season, but it's isolates it as a , as a season within the church calendar.
Also a very exciting season because it's the new year. Yes . We enter a new church here , um , this Sunday. So yeah, it's happy new year, I guess
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to you to , to , to you too , but I knew, yes , this, this season we're doing something different this advent season, different, different type of podcasts too . Why don't you quickly explain maybe this to us, how we're doing things a little bit different this time.
Yeah. I mean obviously advent, it's a very short series. It's only going to go for four Sundays, but we still want to focus on the gospel. Like we've heard a lot of feedback from people that have found it so encouraging and so fruitful in their lives to just, you know , get a bit more out of the word of God. So we're going to read this Sunday's scripture. We've left Luke for now and we're going into Matthew's gospel for this period of advent, which is really beautiful.
So we're going to read the scripture reading the gospel reading from Sunday, and then we're going to like just talk a little bit about how to advent I guess. So we'll get to that after the gospel after we've read that and kind of, you know , looked at the message and the context of history, you know, like we've been doing for season two, so we're gonna to do that. I guess.
So over to you as, as we read the, this gospel reading, which is a first Sunday of advent.
Yes, sorry , the gospel this Sunday comes from Matthew 24 verses 37 to 44 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. In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the Ark. They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away. So it will be also at the coming of the son of man.
Two men will be out in the field, one will be taken, one will be left, two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken and one will be left. Therefore stay awake where you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this. If the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed away and not let his house be broken into. So two , you must also be prepared for an hour. You do not expect the son of man will come.
And so this is a, I think the, the gospel. This is an a beautiful way to start advent. It's about preparation, about not wasting the time. We have not seen advent as a time of, of waiting. It's you see, if we're just going to wait, the things are going to go over us. You know, if you just go and you swim in a river and you jump in the river [inaudible] swimming against the current, you're going to be taken down. So this is, advent is a time of preparation.
The time of swimming against the current, even if we spend the whole year not swimming against the current, now it's the time of effort to start making change in our own lives. And it's not just that. You see a lot of people make decisions that are last moment before new year's day. That's when they want to make change. I'm going to become fit, I'm going to become strong. I want to stop swearing. I'm coming to going to doing this.
But this is, the church actually gives us these four weeks to prepare for change for holiness. It's not change for ourselves, but it has changed to become more like Jesus. It's not changed to lose weight, to become fitter, to become stronger, which is great if it's going to need our holiness. And I'm like, wow, like a big advocate for, for being healthy here . That goes everyone's eye-rolling .
But because I believe that when there's health in body, yes, that can reflect and also the health of the rest of our lives. But what is more most important is that this is a time of four weeks of preparation to make sure by the end of advent, we're holier than we were at the beginning of advent. So practically ,
what is this scripture telling us about preparation for admin? Obviously there's watchfulness.
Yes. And so I think one of the things that the church teaches us here and the gospel is telling us here is , is that we need to be watchful because not being watchful invites disaster. So if you're not watchful, you never know that the , the idea of the thief coming, if you're not prepared, you know, people say, Oh , I'm not going to put in a , um, an alarm system. My parents, for example, they don't decide to, they had an apartment, they've never been rubbed before.
And then the , I keep telling them, I put a security camera, put something, do something. Then all of a sudden, a few weeks after I told them, they said, no, no , we'll do it now. We'll do, they got get broken into and everything from beginning to end, it's taken out of the house, stolen from the house. And the thing is because they weren't prepared. Now if they had been prepared, I know it's an effort. I know it's an expense, but at the end of the day, it's about watchfulness.
And this is what, again, advent is about secure preparing the security cameras of our hearts , preparing the, making sure that the windows are locked to evil and open to the presence of God. And so this is what the scripture is telling us. If we're not ready, if we're not watchful, if we're going to invite disaster, because all our neighbors, everyone around us has security cameras. You're the only one without, where's the [inaudible] going to come? It's going to come to you.
And so I think we need to be prepared to repair our hearts and secure our hearts with the love of God, with the protection of Jesus. How are we going to do that? There are many ways, and I hopefully will talk about this even in this podcast, practical ways we can do this.
Another , um, I guess invitation for disaster is this idea that there's plenty of time that, you know, the, there's plenty of time to prepare and you know, we've got four weeks to prepare. That puts a time limit on it, but that doesn't mean that we should stop preparing the rest of the year as well. Um, but just I think that that's a real problem when we think that, yeah. Like there's plenty of time, I'll do it tomorrow or I do it next week. Like we , we can't kind of have that complacency.
Yes. And complacency is the passive complacency like you can have , can be passive and think, ah, okay, I'll do something later. But there's also an active complacency where you think, ah , let me have some fun first and then I'll do it later. Let me enjoy this for a moment and for a while . And then when I'm older, then I'll start to think about things I'd add . So there's the passive that things all it will go away. It will, it will, nothing will happen.
And then there's the P the the active, which thinks, no, I want to have fun. And I don't care if I get into trouble, I don't care if this goes wrong. Um, but this, this active thing that it also leads to disaster. So we need to also be prepared in those ways.
Uh , one thing that I find really interesting is in this gospel reading , um, you know, Jesus is telling his disciples that there's someone going to be left and someone will go. And you know, kind of like in the days of nowhere , as he mentioned at the start of the gospel, like some people were prepared, they got onto the boat and then the others are washed away in the flood. And he's likening that to the second coming.
But I guess, you know, that preparedness and that, you know, knowing that we have to prepare now and being ready is part of like an acceptance of our duty as Christians to be ready now. Yes . And then, you know, the negative comes when we reject that duty.
Yes. And so it's about being prepared. You know what I mean? I don't know , again, to go to fitness and I like using fitness analogy. Like it's if I, if I don't prepare my meals, if I don't prepare what I'm going to eat , my , um , the Presbytery where I live is full of cakes. Oh , everywhere you look there , cakes and sweets and things that are, so I need to plan every time I see I pass by that kitchen that I have food that I can eat. Otherwise, if I'm hungry, guess what I'm going to eat.
So the thing is I need to be , um, faithful one to what I've committed to. But also I need to plan ahead. I need to have my meals. I can eat. I need to make sure that I stay, that I'm not just going to say, okay, I'm going to stay. I'm going to say no to the cake. I cannot say no to the sweets , but I can say I'm more likely to be able to say no is if I, before I step into that kitchen, I have a purpose that I'm going to head straight from my healthier vegetables or whatever it is.
And I'm having that focus. The fidelity to that focus allows me to find the strength. And so again, this is what Advent's about. It's about planning, planning ahead, not just letting holiness happen because it won't, it won't as much as you try holding. This doesn't just happen. It's a , it's a cooperation. It's a , it's a, it's a partnership with Christ that allows us, this partnership , uh , um , allows us to become Holy big but cause he's carrying the weight.
But the thing is we have to plan ahead by spending time with Jesus, we have to plan ahead by making sure we're staying close to the sacraments. We have to plan ahead by making sure we close the door to certain sins in our lives. And so it's, it's done again. It cannot just happen. Um, and Adventism moments of grace where God says, Hey, okay, I understand this doesn't just happen.
Let's work together in this moment of grace to make things happen, to plan and to make sure that by Christmas you're this little bit holier than you were before advent.
And what a nice way to like start this new year, this new year in the church with this moment of like, yeah, let's make some practical steps to just completely in every way that we can and with the grace of God transform our lives so that we can start the year off kind of like new year's resolutions, have , you know, gone to the gym everyday or stopping eating chocolate, whatever it might be.
But this is, you know, a more fulfilling and grace-filled and beautiful time to just transform our lives. Um , at the start of the year before Christmas, they can, you know, we are preparing for Jesus, you know, becoming men by becoming as much like him as we possibly can. And a beautiful thing that the church does as well is at mass or wherever it might be in your workplace if you were in a Christian workplace or at your school. And there is the advent Wraith which is really beautiful.
And each week we light a different candle and that signify something different. And for week one, it actually signifies hope. And I think that this scripture reading as well lack reflects that. That there is the hope of the second coming of Jesus. That yes, he came as a little baby and then there was his ministry and there was the crucifixion and the resurrection and Ascension and that's beautiful.
But there is also the hope that he's coming back and that we have resurrection as well through him. So I don't know that what a beautiful way to,
it's the each week , each candle we light is a, is a sort of a landmark in our journey. And so we start off with hope, hope that Jesus is going to make us Holy. Hope that Jesus is going to carry the yoke , that Jesus is going to help us with the planning and making us Holy. And so this is why we like this first candle of hope
and other ways that we can remember advent. We mentioned at the start, you know, this podcast would look a little bit different and I guess that's what we're going into now. We're going to talk a little bit like how to advent each week we're going to pick a different prayer, a different Saint and a different activity. And as a Catholic influences family around the world, we're going to do these together to build up and encourage each other to become more Holy, to become more like Jesus.
So first things first this week, the activity I think that we could all do very exciting is set up our nativity sets. Yup . I I got a new nativity set this year. I'm very excited. Maybe I'll put a photo up on Catholic influences Instagram cause it's quite beautiful and it's sitting in front of us here as we recall it. And we can watch , they can watch it on the video, they can watch it on the video where so much is happening in this podcast.
Um, and you know, at the moment it's just got Joseph and Mary because Jesus, we're still waiting for him. So it looks a little bit bled but it's beautiful. But set up UNItivity saying, you know, you have that as a , at a focal point in your homes that as you go and you might rush in and out to work or pick up the kids, whatever it is, you're reminded that we're in this season of preparing and waiting for baby Jesus to appear in the nativity.
Yes. And I , I think it's also a witness for people who visit us. I know people who own a store in Shepparton, I don't know. There aren't many stores that do that, but they ha they're in a prime S state place, like a prime place and they set up their nativity every and no one else does that and so on. It's a beautiful witness. People pass by and they stop and they look. And so it's a beautiful witness to ourselves but also to others. Yeah . Yeah.
And a beautiful reminder about the real meaning of Christmas, which I think sometimes at this time of year where we want to prepare, we want to become more Holy, but it's so easy to get distracted as work and school and parties and presence, whatever it is. Like there's so many things pulling us away, but just having this visual reminder in front of us to remind us, yeah, what the real purpose is and the real meaning of Christmas and advent especially.
Um , and then this Saint that we can all look up and we'll, you know, we're going to post about this on Catholic influences Instagram. So follow us and journey with us through advent is Saint Francis of Assisi. So he is an incredible, I'm sure many of you have heard of him. I'm an Italian Saint . He started the Franciscan order. He was from a CC, hence his name. One interesting fact is that then a Tivity scene, you know, they're stable and Mary Joseph the animals is attributed to st Francis.
So we're going to learn a little bit more about him through social media together and we'll pray to him as well. But that brings us to the prayer that we can pray together, this advent. And that's a prayer for the grace to prepare for the coming of Jesus as father. Rob was saying, well, we need God's grace. We need to cooperate with that grace to, you know , prepare as well as we can for the coming of Jesus.
That's right. And so these saints as well help us. They carry, they carry us through Jesus. And having this guy in st France , I wish, I wish one day that I love Jesus, like Saint Francis loved Jesus. And this is the whole point. That's why we look to these saints, not because they want attention to themselves, but they draw, always draw our attention to their love for Jesus, for us to be inspired by their love for Jesus.
We'll finish up with a proud and her father be , if you want to lead us in prayer, especially for that grace , um , that you know, that can be poured out upon us so that we can cooperate with that grace to prepare for Christmas.
Okay. So let's pray together that God will give us a strength, that God will give us the anointing for holiness. You know, this anointing is already on us, but we just need to receive it. So we'll pray in the name of the father and of the son and the Holy spirit. Amen. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the gift of hope. We thank you that you always carry us to become saints. You want us not to stay where we are. You'll love us where we are but love us too much to leave us where we are.
So Lord, we just pray for your fire in our hearts that this advent, we may make a commitment for change, that we may make a commitment to love you more, to be yours, more, to be like Jesus more . Help us spend time contemplating on your presence, on your love. And they teach us as well. This week as we reflect on the life of Saint Francis to become like him in love with you, sold out for you, desperate for you. And we ask your blessing and your peace upon us.
And every person who listens to this podcast make us ready, prepare us, and make us even a little bit holier by by the time we reached to to the your coming Lord Jesus to your birth. And so we will pray for the intercession of Mary, our mama as we pray. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women. And blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our day .
And we ask your blessing upon us in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy spirit. Come in. Amen. Now they need to stoop to be in touch. Everyone needs to be in touch with us. Please. Social media at Catholic influences underscore and the said , why is there now in the school?
And I can't remember the reason, but I think every other variation of like Catholic podcasts , Catholic influences influence a podcast was taken. Okay. So Catholic influences underscore . And then we have at FRG ministry, that's for our social media. Also, we have a few little updates on their fig ministry podcast or website. Um, so we've made it easier for you to contact us.
There's going to be resources as well to go with this podcast, to kind of lead us through the journey of advent is some random questions that father, Rob and I have answered so you can get to know us a little bit more. So go check out the website as well. Um, and yeah, be in touch. Please. We're really excited to go through advent with you. Okay, we'll see you next 3:00 PM from us next week. Be blessed. Ciao. Bye.