e are a Roman Catholic community of believers in Jesus Christ in Lincoln Park and surrounding areas, located in the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey. Our Bishop is Bishop Arthur Serratelli. Please feel free to visit the pages of our Parish site, learn about who we are as a community of faith and the services our parish provides. If you are thinking about moving to the Lincoln Park area, we cordially invite you to make St. Joseph's your parish.
In our first reading Is 11:1-10, Isaiah, offers us powerful images of hope and gives us a vision of what will come to pass when our God comes. “Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them…”
Advent, like Lent, leads us to take a serious look at our lives. Lent gives us more time and space to do it. Unlike Lent, Advent is not primarily a season that stresses sin and contrition. Advent, placed just a few weeks before the birth of Jesus, asks us in the hustle and bustle of the season, to prepare for the birth of Jesus Christ.
Advent is a time for waiting, preparing and hoping. “Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all." Emily Dickinson's definition of hope captures what many of us have difficulty defining.
Hope is not unbounded optimism, nor narcissistic certainty, nor wishful thinking. Hope, the theme of today's reading, is the knowledge that God would not abandon us, that we will endure difficult times to see a better day. Hope gives us the strength to seek peace and demand justice, and to envision the world as God intended it to be.
Overwhelmed by the demands of the season, we can wait for Jesus in a state of anxiety, or cynicism, or indifference toward the miracle that is Christmas. Or we can take our cue from the prayer we hear and “wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” Welcoming Jesus into our homes, with our hearts, full of hope and joy, prepares us to properly celebrate Jesus' birth and expect his return.
For part of his response he borrows from the story of Noah and the great flood. It caught the people of that time unaware and unprepared. The disciples are warned. “Therefore, stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come”
The end of the secular year isn’t far off and we’re distracted by so many misplaced priorities on the run up to Christmas. The great feast of the Incarnation, the ‘first’ coming of Christ can still catch us off guard. Let’s allow this warning of the second coming to move us to prepare our hearts.
