Dear Parishioners,

Today we start our journey of Advent with the gospel´s invitation to “STAY AWAKE”. Maybe after reading the Gospel it might seem that we should stay awake because of the scary and startling things that might happen and we need to be careful, but the most important message of the Gospel announced us is that we need to stay awake… “BECAUSE YOUR MASTER IS COMING”.

This Gospel reminds me the experience of Don Nelson, a man that I knew in El Salvador when I was on mission there. He sold coffee and bread in the University of El Salvador, and we went to this University to reach out to the young people there.

Before I went to El Salvador two missionaries from my community had already met Don Nelson because one of them saw him separating the pieces of broken bread from the good bread, to make sure he only sold the best and they went up to him for ask some of this broken bread. They introduced themselves, “We are Verbum Dei missionaries… We are here on mission with the youth…  could you please give us some of broken bread”.

Don Nelson listened to them excitedly and when they finished speaking, he prepared a bag with some of his better bread. The missionaries refused to receive it, “No, we want the broken bread”, because they didn’t want to reduce his earnings. And Don Nelson, “No, I want to give you my best bread” and they were arguing like this for a while! but Don Nelson was unable to convince them to accept his best bread.

Then, Don Nelson hit the bag so the bread broke and gave them the bag with the broken bread, “now it’s broken”. And they smiled and finished their discussion amid laughter.

After this humorous beginning, the Verbum Dei missionaries became good friends with Don Nelson and his family, and he began to tell them his experience of God. Not long before he met them, he had had a very deep conversion, God radically changed his life, and every morning he spent time praying, listening to God through the Bible. He told them:

“That day when you bring to ask me for my broken bread, I was praying with this reading, ´Stay awake, because you don´t know the day when your master is coming´. I understood that Jesus was saying to me, ´Nelson, stay awake, because today I will come´.  And so, when you came and shared to me the mission you were doing with the youth in the University, and also asked me for bread I could recognize that Jesus was there through you and I was awake and prepared to answer. Of course, I was not going to give the broken bread to my master. But since you insisted…” And they laughed again.

Hopefully this Advent we prepare our heart and we are awake and ready for the day and the hour when our Master comes, Jesus comes to us in the different people we meet, and that we can recognize him and like Don Nelson, give him our best.

Have a good First week of Advent, Sr Angelica Ramiro, FMVD