First Sunday of Advent: A Maryknoll Reflection

By Michael Bassano, M.M.

Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024
Jer 33:14-16 | 1 Thes 3:12—4:2 | Lk 21:25-28, 34-36

But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads, because your redemption is at hand. –Luke 21:28

The first Scripture readings for the Season of Advent tell of difficult times ahead. In the Gospel reading from Saint Luke, Jesus speaks of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the violence and terror the people will face as they flee for their lives to safety. Such a bleak warning seems to be incongruous for a start to a season defined by hope for the coming of our savior. Yet despite travails ahead, we hope for a God who accompanies us along the way and makes all things new.

For nine years, I lived in a United Nations refugee camp in Malakal, South Sudan. The camp was home to over 40,000 people internally displaced by civil war since 2013. Our U.N. camp became a place of refuge for thousands fleeing from the violence and conflict between government and opposition military forces.

As a Maryknoll missioner, and alongside a South Sudanese diocesan priest and a Comboni religious sister, I tried to organize the Catholic community traumatized by the fighting outside the camp and bring to them some comfort. We found materials to build a simple tin-sheeted church in Malakal for prayer and worship. At every Eucharistic celebration, every Sunday, we prayed for the gift of being able to live peacefully as sisters and brothers in Christ.

It was not an easy task. The challenge was to bring the three diverse ethnic groups, Dinka, Nuer, and Shilluk, to live peacefully together in this camp of plastic-sheeted homes, stacked closely against each other. Despite the violence that occurred frequently in the camp, and that continues to this day, the Catholic community in Malakal became a unifying force to stop the violence through dialogue and prayer.

A woman named Margaret made history in our camp by giving birth to triplets. When her husband found out, he abandoned the family and left the camp. She asked me to give names to her children and so I called them Miriam (Mary), Esther and Bakhita. Our Catholic community along with others in the camp, came to her aid with food, milk, and support. It was a moment that brought people together in our U.N. camp to be at peace and help one another.

One 12-year-old boy named Taban came to our church one Sunday and told me what he had learned from his time with us and our prayers: if peace is to come to South Sudan we must see all the ethnic groups in the camp as “one family of God.” Such is the birth of Christ that we await in this time of Advent. It reveals the incarnate love of God that can turn us away from violence and conflict to see the dignity of all migrants, refugees, and internally displaced people around the world. It gives us courage to lift up our minds and hearts as we persevere with hope to find a better way together to live as one family of God on this beloved earth.

Featured Image: Father Mike Bassano, a Maryknoll priest from the United States, visits with a family inside the Protection of Civilians area inside the United Nations base in Malakal, South Sudan. Father Bassano, also a member of Solidarity with South Sudan, lived in the camp. (CNS photo/Paul Jeffrey)

Prayer

God, Almighty Father,
we are your pilgrim Church
journeying towards the Kingdom of heaven.
We live in our homeland,
but as if we were foreigners.
Every foreign place is our home,
yet every native land is foreign to us.
Though we live on earth,
our true citizenship is in heaven.
Do not let us become possessive
of the portion of the world
you have given us as a temporary home.
Help us to keep walking,
together with our migrant brothers and sisters,
toward the eternal dwelling you have prepared for us.
Open our eyes and our hearts
so that every encounter with those in need
becomes an encounter with Jesus, your Son and our Lord.
Amen.
— Pope Francis