keep awake
How To Stay Spiritually Awake
1st Sunday of Advent – Year A
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: November 30, 2025
Keep Awake! This is the message we hear from Jesus as we begin the Season of Advent. Now I have tell you something about myself. When I was in the seminary studying I was well known for falling asleep in class. In fact, the other guys would sometimes bet on how quickly I would dose off. That is why I am very understanding if any of you fall asleep during my homily. One day as a joke my uncle gave me an ear piece that you put on your ear and when your head fell forward it would ring to wake you up. Very practical way to keep awake in class.
Falling asleep in class did not really matter much, but falling asleep spiritually really matters. Jesus speaks urgently to his disciples, “keep awake.” It is his message to you and me, “keep awake.” Falling asleep spiritually leads us away from a relationship with the living God. It blinds us to the beauty of our world and our life. It prevents us from being an instrument of God’s peace in the world.
What causes us to fall asleep spiritually? It is usually not something that happens due to some major event or happening. Usually it is just a slow drifting away without even realizing it is happening. Our hearts become cool and we lose our connection to the living God.
It is very much the same as what can happen in a marriage, or a friendship, or within families. Slowly we stop connecting, stop talking, stop listening to the other. Slowly we stop paying attention and reaching out to the other. Slowly the relationship becomes cold and empty.This can also happen to us spiritually in our relationship with God.
It can happen even when we are still coming to Mass, still acting as Christians on the surface. We can spend time talking about God, reading the Bible, but that does not substitute for talking with God. Spiritual death comes slowly when we stop talking with God.
Jesus realizes how easy it is for us to full asleep spiritually. What do we need to do to keep awake? Just like in any relationship, in a marriage, a friendship, a colleague, we need to do something to keep that relationship awake and alive. Here I will present just a few things that you might want to do during Advent to keep awake in your relationship with God.
1. Listen to Scripture. One challenge of a good relationship with friends or family, is to listen to them. In fact, listening carefully to another person is like a form of prayer. So, take some time to listen carefully to the Word of God in the Bible. Perhaps during Advent, plan on reading one of the gospels and listen carefully to what you hear there about Jesus.
2. Come to be at the Sacraments, especially the Sunday Mass. In a healthy relationship we need to find ways to be with those we love. We know how difficult it is when those we love live in another country or far away. It takes real effort to be with them. Spiritually, Jesus left us the Mass as a way for us to spend time with him. It takes some effort, some time, perhaps even sometravel to come and be with Jesus in the Eucharist. But, that time with Jesus is important to keep your heart from becoming cold.
3. Confession. Advent is a time when many will make the effort to celebrate the Sacrament of Confession. No community or relationship can continue to exist without forgiveness. Sometimes we fail each other, we let each other down, we hurt each other. It requires one who is ready to admit they were wrong, to confess that they are sorry. It requires another to say I forgive you.
This is true in any family or any community. It is so important that Jesus has left us a Sacrament to come and confess our sins and experience God’s forgiveness through the words and actions of the priest.
4. Apps for prayer. You might be surprised that I would suggest using Apps. It is true that Social media can be a distraction in our relationships and interfere with our communication. Also, our phones can take us away from prayer, take our attention away from God, lead us to fall asleep spiritually. But there are tools that can also help us. Apps that assist us to pray, that provide us with reminders to pay attention to God. Such good Apps can be like Jesus calling to us, Keep Awake. So, search for a good App that provides tools to lead you into prayer.
5. Silence. We cannot be with others in a good way if we do not take time for silence. Times of silence open our hearts to be able to hear others more clearly. This Advent commit to some times of silence, maybe in a church or maybe out on a walk or in a room in your house.
We need to honestly look to see if in our relationship with God we are not falling asleep. What do you need to do to keep awake? I was given an ear piece to keep me awake in class, what do you need to keep awake spiritually? Take some time to review your life, your relationship with God. Are you falling asleep?
What is one or two small things you can do during this Advent to Keep Awake? Listen to God by reading the gospels. Spend time with God in the Sacraments, especially the Mass. Confess your sins honestly in the Sacrament of Confession and experience God’s forgiveness. Find a good App that will help you in your prayer. Take some time of silence.
My homily today could have been very simple, the words of Jesus in his preaching in today’s
Gospel. Hear those words throughout this coming week. Keep Awake.
Playing And Praying
1st Sunday Of Advent 2022
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: November 27, 2022
Recently I was at a meeting at a school in which they were discussing issues about recess and how the young children were having difficulty with play. After two years of Covid they struggled with recess play time. They were coming up with a strategy to support them in playing. Imagine that we have to teach children how to play!
Well, we live in a society that only considers things to be important that are useful, doing something that is productive in some way. Pure play just for the sake of playing can seem a waste of time.
I think there is a connection between playing and praying. Prayer can also seem to be useless, a waste of time in our society. It does not achieve anything or produce anything, at least not in a visible way. Both praying and playing are missing at times in our society.
We are too busy, have too many useful things to do, so we do not have time to play or to pray.
How many do not have time just to play with their children and how many of us say we do not have time to pray?
Jesus says to his disciples, “Keep Awake.” I do wonder if most of us would even notice if Jesus came to us today? We are so busy being productive, doing useful things, being busy. Doing many things, full schedules, rushing to get the list done from our to do list. But, are we spiritually asleep?
We do not pray to produce something, we do not pray to make something happen, we do not pray with any expectation of achieving something. We simply pray to hopefully be awake to the presence of God coming to us in our daily life. Our prayer does not make Jesus come, our prayer might allow us to be awake to notice Jesus coming in our daily life.
“I am bored.” How many will say that today? “I am bored.” Is it that life is boring? Is it that this universe is boring? Every moment, every encounter, every person, everything has the potential to be the presence of Jesus coming to us, has the potential to be a moment of grace. It is not that it is boring, it is that our hearts and souls are not awake to notice the grace.
In the great silence of God, we need to keep awake. Prayer can help us to be awake to God in utter silence, in the most difficult moments of life. The silence of God is not the absence of God. Quiet moments of prayer throughout the day can keep us awake to recognize the grace of God.
Before everything we do, very simply say, “Come Lord Jesus.” When we are cooking dinner for our family or friends, when we are going to visit an elderly parent struggling with dementia, when we are going on-line, when we are visiting a friend, when we are going for a walk, when we are commuting to work, when we are coming to the church for Mass, when we are going to do our Christmas shopping, just stop before going and pray, “Come Lord Jesus.”
That little moment of reflection before anything we do will maybe keep us awake to see the grace in that person or moment. It does not need to be long time in prayer. Simple and short before each new thing we do. Praying in our heart, “Come Lord Jesus”
During this Advent, take time to pray and to play. Both of them are useless and unproductive. But both may be able to keep us awake and ready to notice the grace in each person, in each place and in each moment.
Time For 2-Minute Spiritual Drill
First Sunday Of Advent 2020
Deacon Tom Vert
Preached: November 29, 2020
“It’s time for our 2 minute drill”!
As most of you know, I worked at Dofasco Steel for 30 years and as you can imagine safety is absolutely critical!
With liquid steel at 3000 degrees Fahrenheit, high pressure gases like oxygen; buildings and structures over 300 feet high, there is so much risk of people getting hurt.
Over time we developed many safety procedures and tools to help improve our safety results with a decrease in injuries of over 95% at my time there.
One key tool we introduced was the 2 minute drill. When you think about safety, many times people review the safety hazards first thing in the day for whatever job they were working on.
This is good, however, we found that many injuries occur later in the day as the situation changes and so we introduced the 2 minute drill to take just 2 minutes to review what has changed and does the team have to adjust to ensure that injuries are prevented.
This focus on situational awareness is what I think Jesus was trying to tell Peter, James, John and Andrew in the gospel today.
He says twice…Be aware, keep awake…in other translations be on guard, take heed, stay alert!
This short parable is interesting as the disciples would understand it well. In those days a wealthy home owner would have a housing complex like a large square with a centre courtyard and different rooms around the centre.
At one end would be the door or gate to the outside and this is where we would find the porter or doorkeeper situated who would keep watch.
They worked 4 hour shifts or watches to ensure they were alert looking for either animals or people that would do the family harm or potentially steal from them. The doorkeeper would be focused to prevent this and also to ensure when the owner came home, he was let in immediately.
The guard was not to be sleeping or napping, but instead to be situationally aware, checking the surroundings constantly for any changes.
In our spiritual lives, Jesus is calling us today to have this same vigilance each day and not “sleep walk” so to speak through our days and weeks taking things for granted, but instead being aware throughout the day of God working in our lives.
I believe God works in our lives in 2 ways which we need to be aware of…first, when he comes into our lives to help us and guide us; and second, when he brings others into our lives who need our skills, talents, or presence to help them.
So firstly, we need to be aware of God coming into our lives, so we don’t feel like the ancient Israelites in the first reading today who lament “why do you hide your face from us” “why do you let us stray” – in other words we don’t feel your presence in our lives.
When we pray each morning or throughout the day, God hears and many times answers us in ways we don’t recognize if we are not aware. We may pray simply for a good day and God may answer with a phone call of a friend we haven’t talked to in a while who makes us smile.
Or maybe we will have a moment with one of our children or grandchildren that makes us laugh or eases our stress and that is the answer to prayer.
God may come in the form of a co-worker who shares a snack or a story that makes us feel thankful.
It is hard to see these things if we don’t pay attention, if we don’t look for God working silently through the hands and feet of the people who come into our lives.
Which brings us to the second way God enters, in giving us opportunity to bring His love and care to others.
In can be in the smallest things but they lift people up more that you would believe.
One example is something that happened to me this week. I was being a chauffeur and dropping people off for a quick hospital blood test and I was waiting with my car while scrolling through the news on my phone.
I didn’t realize I left my lights on and the battery on the car died!! Oops! So I started to think who could help me and for some reason (maybe the man upstairs?), one of our parishioners popped into my head so I called them on my cell phone.
They didn’t even hesitate, grabbed their cables and truck and drove down the boost of the batter and my rescue!
It’s a great lesson, because to be God’s hands, you need the tools and you need the willingness to other focused.
How many people does God bring into our day for us to “boost”?
Maybe it is a struggling student for a teacher?
Maybe it is a frustrated person in the line or a cashier at Fortinos who just needs someone to listen to their frustrations about Covid?
Maybe it is an aging parent who just wants a phone call to know that someone still cares as they are so isolated?
This first Sunday of Advent, as we have this time of “Holy waiting” for Christ to come into our lives, God is asking us to be awake, to be alert to His presence in our lives through those who come to us and those we go out to see.
As we are told into 2nd reading from St. Paul “you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait”, it is only for us to tap into this well spring of holiness and love to go forth.
So how do we increase this awareness? What is our 2 minute drill in the spiritual life?
The good news is that we have this in our Catholic tradition with a nighttime examination of conscience!
Now we don’t have to follow the Jesuit model for this which is 5 steps and may take a little more time than we would need as beginners.
But lets try 2 minutes and do a simple review each night before bed….for one minute think about who God brought into our day to help build us up; and for one additional minute, who did God bring into our lives to help.
And maybe we recognize that we didn’t accept that person God sent, or we didn’t help the person we could have, but each day as our awareness grows, we can improve as we walk our spiritual journey of faith.
Let us be ready each day, let us be prepared as we never know when God comes into our lives, which form he comes, who he may send (to help or to help us) – be open to God entering each day!
And each night let us say: “It’s time for our 2 minute drill”!
Remember You Must Die
32nd Sunday On Ordinary Time
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: November 8, 2020
One day there was a large crowd in the doctor’s waiting room. One elderly man rose and approached the receptionist. He said courteously, “Madam, my appointment was for ten o’clock and it is almost eleven now. I cannot wait any longer. Would you kindly give me an appointment for another day?”
One woman in the room leaned over to another and said, “He must be at least eighty years old. What sort of urgent business can he have that he cannot afford to wait? ” The man overheard her. He turned to the lady, bowed, and said, “I am eighty-seven years old, ma’am. Which is precisely the reason why I cannot afford to waste a single minute of the precious time I have left.”
Memento Mori. This is a Latin phrase which means, “Remember you must die.” In the past, sometimes monks or others would put a skull on their desk as a memento mori, a reminder that they must die. This was not meant to terrify or create panic or to create fear. It was to keep them awake, to live this moment fully. To keep their eyes focused on the Living God.
The parable in today’s Gospel that Jesus presents, you could call a memento mori. Some of the bridesmaids did not fill up their oil lamps, they became drowsy while waiting for the bridegroom. So, when he arrived late they were not ready and were left out. Jesus concludes by saying, “Keep Awake for you do not know the hour or the day.” In a sense Jesus is offering a memento mori, is saying, “Remember you must die.”
Are we awake? Are we ready for the coming of God today?
During this Covid time, one effect has been many different conspiracy theories being spread, especially on social media with many of us stuck there. Unfortunately these conspiracy theories and visions and predictions, leads to fear and are not helpful in genuinely living a gracious life of faith now.
This parable of Jesus was not about being ready for some great end time event, some apocalyptic event that was coming soon. If that was what Jesus was teaching then this Gospel parable has been useless for the past two thousand years. Jesus wants us to be awake today, not for some great end time event. It is about living graciously in this moment, for God is coming to us in every moment, in every day. Will you be ready, will you be awake to notice the grace of God in your life today?
The Sacraments are all meant to keep us awake for the coming of the Lord not just during this celebration or at some end time, but more importantly to keep us awake for the coming of the grace of God in our daily life. Our prayer is also not about making God come to us or to be near God. Our prayer is to keep us awake to notice the presence and grace of God at all times and in all places, always very near to us.
The Lord God will be present and bring grace:
- while you are sitting at home with your spouse.
- when you are driving your children to some activity.
- when you are doing the simplest bit of housework.
- when you are sharing a meal with friends.
- when you are quietly at home on your own.
“Remember you must die.” So be awake, be aware of the presence and grace of God now in this place, in this moment.
Being ready for our death pushes us to look at what needs healing in my life? With whom do I need reconciliation? What is distracting me from what matters most in life?
A disciple once turned to his spiritual master and asked, “Why learn something new one week before you die?”
The Master replied, “For exactly the same reason that you would learn something new fifty years before you die.”
Memento Mori: “Remember you must die.” So, be awake. Be ready to recognize the presence and grace of the Living God coming into your life in each moment and in each place.