AIDS & Advent

(A reflection from my homily for the 1st Sunday in Advent)

December 1 is World’s AIDS day. Advent provides a way to look at the reality of AIDS in our world, for Advent is a season of hope and a season of new vision. When we live with something for a long time, there is a danger that we can lose hope and fail to see possibilities. The reality of AIDS in our world can lead us into darkness and desolation but we need to remember that God does not want this disease. God does not want people to suffer and God does not punish people with sickness and death.

The prophet Isaiah gives a vision of hope and guidance for a people in desperate times. God calls us fervently to see that this is not a time of judgment or a time to remind blind. Rather, Isaiah’s vision of peace urges us into action, to become instruments of healing and advocacy, of compassion and justice, maybe as never before.

We believe in a God whose justice decries each act of violence and discrimination, whose heart breaks with illness and pain, and who weeps with each one that dies. God urges us to open our eyes to fresh possibilities, to beat the weapons of stigma and intolerance into instruments of understanding, compassion and care.

God works in the midst of darkness calling us to become the human family we were created to be. In the face of sorrow, pain and loss, God calls us to see more fully that we are one family, one creation, and one body. As brothers and sisters, we are the Body of Christ and the Body of Christ has AIDS.