Mt 24/37-44 1.Background
Advent is a time of warning, a time of preparation, a time of urgency. It is supposed to prepare for Christmas, but the Christmas of every day life as much if not more than the festival of December 25. While the apocalyptic rhetoric of today's Gospel might not be the exact words of Jesus and while in any case that rhetoric was not meant to be taken literally, the urgency of the message is surely his. We must not slip into the routine of ordinary life and miss the opportunity of life itself. Time and with it life slips through our fingers. Tomorrow never comes but ends up yesterday until there are few tomorrows left in our life and all too many yesterdays. It looked like forever and it was only a very short time, so little time. And so much waste, so many lost opportunities. Advent is a time of recalling opportunities lost in the past and taking steps to miss fewer opportunities in the days and weeks and years ahead, such as these may be.

2. Story
Once there was a young woman who was eager to have a baby. One of her friends said to her, "Why are you and your husband so set on having children? You know that the child's life will be filled with suffering and disappointment. You know that the child will cause you heartache and pain. You know there will be times when the child will hate you and you will be very angry at the child. You know there will be terrible pain for the child often in her life. You know that you will die and the child will suffer your loss. You know that the child will die too, perhaps horribly. It doesn't make any sense at all does it?" And the future mother replied, "even if everything goes badly eventually, it is better to have a chance to live, a chance to love, a chance to give, a chance to receive, a chance to believe. When our children come I will tell them how precious life is and how much they should take from it which means how much they must give to it. Above all, I will tell them that it is necessary to hope for their children just as I hoped for them." "Hope that they will not suffer and die?" "No, hope that they will live with enthusiasm and love. If they live that way, love never ends."