Following is the text of the meditation by His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem marking the first Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2023:

The protagonist of the Gospel passage (Mark 13:33-37) we begin the Advent journey with, is a house.

To speak of watchfulness, in fact, Jesus tells a short parable in which we see a man go off on a journey and leave his house in the hands of his servants, entrusting each with a different task.

To the doorkeeper of the house, he entrusts the command to be vigilant, because, sooner or later, the master will return home, and he will want to find his servants to welcome him.

Therefore, the first thing this Gospel tells us is just this: the Lord Jesus is like someone who has left home and wants to return, he is on his way back to his home. However, what is this home, where is it?

It may be helpful for us to begin the journey of Advent by remembering that God's home is we: the whole humankind, the Church, each of us.

This is his house, because Jesus came to dwell among us, and the journey to follow him, can be considered as a way to become more and more the Lord's house, the place where he can return and dwell.

Jesus therefore entrusts each person with his home, which is humanity, and asks us to take care of it: this is our task as we await his return.

Watching, then, does not so much mean waiting passively and inoperatively: We have seen this repeatedly in the parables heard last Sundays.

Waiting means caring for life, with passion, with love, as one does for one's home.

Therefore, Advent begins with an invitation to watchfulness. An invitation, which, in the five verses, of today's short Gospel passage returns no less than 4 times, and which, in the original language, is expressed with two different verbs.

The first way to describe the attitude of watchfulness, emphasizes the nuance of being awake, without sleep, that is, of not living asleep.

The second, on the other hand, speaks of remaining alert, watchful, standing, and has the same root as a verb that also returns in the Easter narratives precisely to indicate "rising from the dead" (Mark 14:28; 16:6, 14).

Then we could say this: the Lord calls us to live a life as an awake, watchful person, and even more: as a risen person. He is watchful, living in expectation who grows into a full and free life, who becomes more and more fully, a living stone in the house of God.

The central question, however, that arises from listening to this passage might be this: but why shall we be watchful?

What is there to pay attention to?

One watches because there is something to look forward to, because one knows that something is to happen.

Moreover, what is to happen we find at the beginning of today's passage, in v. 33: "you do not know when the time will come."

This term, moment, in Greek is kairós, a well-known word that expresses the favorable moment, the time of grace.

Mark's gospel begins with the same expression as today's gospel, with the announcement that the favorable time, the kairós has come to fullness (Mk. 1:15); but in today's passage, which is now at the end of the gospel, we are told that no one knows when this time of grace is. Is the favorable time, then, fulfilled, or is it yet to come?

In today's Gospel we are told that indeed with Jesus a time of grace has opened up for everyone, a chance for new and full life.

But only those who are vigilant, those who wait, are able to realize that the Kingdom of God is present.

Only the one who is inside the house can welcome the Lord who comes, and who wants to return to his home.

+Pierbattista