Today, “For as it was in the days of Noah”, people eat, drink, marry and give in marriage (cf. Mt 24:37-38). But there are also, as in patriarch Noah’s day, saints in the same office and in the same place as the others. And one of them will be taken and the other left, because the Just Judge will come.

We must be awake for “only those who are alert are not taken by surprise” (Benedict XVI). We must be prepared with our love enkindled in our heart, as the torch of the wise virgins. This is precisely what it is all about: there will come the time when we will hear: “Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!” (Mt 25:6), Jesus Christ!

His arrival is always causing joy to those who carry the torch fastened in their heart. His coming is something like the parent who lives in a faraway country and writes his family: —when you least expect it, I will be there. From that day on, all is joy in that home: Our Dad is coming! Our model, the Saints, lived like this, “waiting for the Lord to come.”

During Advent, we learn to await with peace and love, the Lord who is coming. Nothing of the despair and eagerness typifying the nowadays man. Saint Augustine gives us a good recipe to await: “Live your life as you would like your death to be.” If we await with love, God will satiate our heart and our hopes.

Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come (cf. Mt 24:42). Clean home, pure heart, thoughts and sentiments in Jesus’ style. Benedict XVI explains: “To watch means to follow the Lord, to choose what He has chosen, to love what He has loved, to conform one's own life to His.” Then the Son of Man will come… and the Father will embrace us for resembling his Son.

Today, on this Sunday, when we are just entering the time of Advent, we are also starting a new liturgical year. We can use this status as an invitation to refurbish some aspects of our life (spiritual, family, etc.).

In fact, we need to live our life, day by day, with a new rhythm and hope. Thus, we can move the danger of routine and boredom further away. This feeling of permanent renewal is the best way to be alert. Yes, we must be on the alert! It is one of our Lord's messages that He transmits in the words of today's Gospel.

First of all, we need to be alert because the reason for our mortal life is for the preparation of our eternal life. This time of preparation is a gift and a grace from God: He does not want to impose upon us neither His love nor heaven; He wants us free (which is the only way to love). A preparation for which we do not know when it will end: "We announce Christ's advent, and not only one, but also another one, the second one (...), because this present world must eventually terminate" (St. Cyril of Jerusalem). We must, therefore, struggle to keep a hopeful attitude of renewal.

Second, we must be alert because routine and adjustment are not really congenial with love. In today's Gospel the Lord reminds us how in the time of Noah people "were eating and drinking" and "they did not know until the flood came and carried them all away" (Mt 24:38-39). They were "busy in other things" and —we have already said it— our time here must be a time of "betrothal" for our freedom to ripen: the gift that has been granted to us not to get rid of others, but for our deliverance to others.

"For as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man" (Mt 24:37). The coming of God is the great event. Let us prepare to welcome Him with devotion: "Lord Jesus, Come!"