Again in French, with AI translation below.

For the first sunday in Advent
















In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Saint Paul tells us, "Now is the hour for us to wake from sleep." You see, we've had all these Sundays after Pentecost and perhaps we have fallen asleep. By dint of gathering the fruits, gathering the fruits, gathering the fruits every Sunday one after another, well, there is a tendency toward sleep, there is a tendency toward slackening. What kind of sleep is it? Spiritual sleep.


And you see that is why there are cycles. You see one moment the Lord rises, one moment He sets, one moment it is day, one moment it is night. That allows us not to fall asleep.
You know motorways, either you have seen them yourselves, or on television, videos, social media, and so on. One of the dangers of motorways... well, we have that here too, but it is especially motorways. It's when it's all straight, the road is straight. But when it's all straight, you are constantly like this. And what is the danger? You are going to fall asleep at the wheel.


So that's why on motorways, they always arrange for a right turn sooner or later, another one to the left. They try to do that. Sometimes, they also put other things, things around the road so that people look a little, people stay awake. Otherwise, you will fall asleep. You see, 24 Sundays in green, there is a risk of falling asleep.


Telling yourselves: "Oh, the sleep is over now." Now, it's the purple, we must prepare. So, let us prepare. First of all, prayer, this is the opportunity now, in the time of Advent, to look at our prayer. Do we pray? For it is a spiritual preparation. We cannot prepare spiritually if we do not pray. Firstly, do we pray in the morning, in the evening, at mealtimes, before eating, after eating? Do we pray? The chapel, do we say the chapel as a family? Does the family pray? Or does it not pray?
Well, Advent is the moment to wake up. If it is good, thank God. If it is good, we pray whether I am alone or as a family, thank God, we must persevere, we must continue.


Even if Advent is not truly a time of penance, there is no obligatory fast as for Lent, but we must still wake up. So this is the opportunity to look at penance. What am I doing? Am I still doing penances? And fasting is not the only form of penance.


You see, often, it's the girls, the mothers. "Oh, I'm hot, I'm hot." We put the shoulders out, the stomach out, the breasts out, we put everything out. "Ah, I'm hot, I'm hot." And I said: "But are you going to fast then?" "Ah, we are not priests." "Ah, you are not priests? But penance is for everyone." God did not say that penance is only for the priest and then the others do the... It's hot. This is the opportunity to do penance. The opportunity to do penance.
You see, sometimes we look for extraordinary penances and so on, but no, it's hot, we endure it, we do penance. We will get by without complaining, please. It's hot in the chapel, we endure it, we don't complain.
That's just an example. You are at the chapel, it's the church. I saw the children going out. "I'm thirsty." If I do that, I'm a bit thirsty. I go out, I drink, 5 minutes later I drink. What are you going to say? Endure it. Ah, he, he must endure it, right? The same as the women who say: "Ah, we are not priests so we don't do penance. There, we dress as we want because it's hot." There, the priest, he must endure the thirst, there, the alb, the Mass, and then well you go out as you want. Yes, we must do penance. We endure it.


There is no need for extraordinary penances. For small things like that, there, we endure it, we do penance.


Another thing, food. Ah, you see things that there aren't... I learned that at boarding school. One of the things we learn is that we don't eat all the time at any moment. What is snacking? There are schedules, there is a time for everything. There is a time to eat, there is a time when we don't eat. But we eat all the time. There, we go here. It's been 10 minutes since we snacked. Come on, let's snack again. We snack again, we snack, we snack, we snack. We don't endure it, we don't wait.


Yes, sometimes after Mass. "Oh, I'm thirsty, Father, I'm thirsty." There's no water. Oh dear, dear, dear... We must drink immediately. Ah, we rush. We want to be the first to drink and then there. The food, we want to be the first to go and then we take a mountain. Ah you... For the others? We eat first. We think of our stomach first. That's the boys, right? We eat more than the others. We serve ourselves first, you press for the others. But the dads often do it. They serve themselves and then well the children, that's their mother's problem, right? The mother will see if they have eaten or not.

We can't do penance. We must not hold back. Make sure the children have eaten, the children have eaten. Between the parents, the children who must eat, who are still growing. Let's make sure the children eat because at the same time it is the adults who can better endure hunger than the children. Because they are still growing, they do not yet have the will, the strength to endure.

So there, this is the moment to wake up. We must look at that, the question of eating. Do I eat all the time? Or do I know how to say "No, it's not the time yet, I'm not eating."


Ah yes, the dads and the women. "Why me, must I prepare? No." "Ah no, I'm tired. I'm tired, I'm not preparing. Oh, I prepared yesterday, right? Today I'm not preparing." Ah, that's good, right? Well, people don't eat. "Ah, that's not my problem. I'm tired, I'm not preparing." "Oh, I'm not alone. I'm not alone. The... what are they doing?" Yes, the... what are they doing? So we don't prepare, we don't eat. You must not, you must not dream of extraordinary penances. You are with people, people must eat, you are tired, you don't prepare. There. We don't eat. There, we are tired. Or maybe you prepared at 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. Well, all that time, what are people doing? They are hungry, but it's not your problem. You are tired.
You must not dream of extraordinary penances. That's it. You are with people, you are the one who prepared. They are hungry, but you, "I'm tired." There. We must eat every day. Tired or not, people must eat, prepare, that's all, it's not complicated. Because on Sunday, the tired priest is not going to tell the faithful: "I'm tired, I have a stomach ache, all that, I'm not saying Mass." But every Sunday, he must say Mass. He says: "We must prepare the chapel, all that every Sunday." You know how long it takes to prepare the chapel every Sunday. Is the priest never tired? Doesn't he have a stomach ache, and so on? But he does it for the faithful.
You must prepare every day, people must eat every day. You: "I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired." It's normal. Let us wake up, wake up. We must prepare so that people eat.
So there you have what Saint Paul says. "Now is the hour for us to wake from sleep." I spoke about prayer, I spoke about, there, food, preparing.


Finally, I finish with precisely how we behave with the people around us. Perhaps we must wake up there too. How do we behave with the people around us? First at home, everyone has their role. You children, "I'm tired." Follow me when... Dad, he doesn't even see the sun. But your dad, he works himself to death so that you eat every day. No, you go to school every day. He works himself to death to have the money for the taxi every day. Does he [say]: "I'm tired. Figure out how to get to school. Figure out how to eat. I'm tired." Wake up. That's it there. Wake up.

It can be at school. I'm not studying, right? I'm not studying. When I come home, I don't study, I play. School, all that, is not my problem. I don't study because that's normal. Are you sleeping there or is it going to say: "Wake up." School is not for sleeping, you must work. We come home, we do our homework. We must wake up. There in front of the uniform. Wake up. Wake up. Learn your lessons. Review. Wake up. Now is the hour for us to wake up.
Finally, work. At work. How do we do the work? You know, we pay, everything in the country is not advancing, it's always the same, it hasn't changed. But what hasn't changed? That means we must stop sleeping, Gabonese people stop sleeping. Nobody is going to come and build the roads for you, nobody is going to try to process the papers for you. You know they tell you that if you want the paper, normally the law says it's 3 days. When you go after a week, there's no paper. A month, there's still no paper. You must... I mean: "Wake up. Sign the papers, do your job, give the papers to people." It's been already, yes, it's already more than a month, a year rather that we are waiting for the car registration docuмent.

There, the last time we went there, [they] said: "Oh, we don't have time to go look for it, right? So you have to come back." Wake up. Who is going to go look for it? It's your job. "We don't have time, we don't have time." No time. That's it. In our place, the French, the colonizers, in our place, the others. We are sleeping. That's the problem. Let us wake up.

So let us also think about work. If there are things to improve, let's do it. And dear parents, remember to check with your children if they need to wake up in one area or another so that on Christmas Eve, we will all be ready to welcome Jesus.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.