Mr Bean goes to church. (9:25)

Mr. Bean falls asleep in Church

This Advent what are we waiting for?

TELEVISION EPISODE CLIP

While at church, Mr Bean doesn't know the words to the hymns and falls asleep out of boredom, much to the annoyance of Mr. Sprout (Richard Briers) who is sitting next to him. When Mr. Sprout refuses to share his hymnal, Bean does not know the words to the hymn and sings mostly gibberish except during the chorus, where he obnoxiously sings an extremely loud and inappropriately emphasized "Hallelujah". From the first ever Mr Bean program in 1989.

SCRIPTURE VERSE

Jesus said to his disciples: “Be watchful! Be alert!...May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’” (Mark 13:33a,36-37)

ILLUSTRATION

Fr. Samuel Burke, O.P. uses the following illustration to open his homily for the First Sunday of Advent (Year A):

A slightly irreverent confession: whenever I hear today’s Gospel passage, I cannot help but think of a scene from Mr. Bean. The one which comes to mind is where Bean is trying to stay awake in Church while listening to a long, boring sermon. With Rowan Atkinson’s typical comedic flair, try as Bean might to stay awake, he simply can’t help dozing off. We’ve all felt like that, haven’t we? Some of you may even be presently experiencing something of that same somniferous feeling, in fact. Well, it’s one thing falling asleep in church — especially in mitigating circumstances — but it’s quite another thing falling asleep in life, more generally.

CONNECTION

Here is how the illustration is connected to the Gospel: "To the sleeper lurking in each of us," Fr. Burke says, "Jesus now speaks in rousing terms, on the First Sunday of Advent: “stay awake… if he comes unexpectedly, he must not find you asleep…Stay awake!” Fr. Burke then explains in the rest of his homily how we can live our life as disciples in the contemporary culture.

1. We must understand why we’re staying awake at all. 

2. We need to know what – or rather who – we’re waiting for.

3. it’s important to know how we are to wait.

READ MORE (Torch.org)  

What if Catholics Find the Mass Boring?

BISHOP ROBERT BARRON (3:15)

What to Do if You're BORED during Mass!! + how to be PASSIONATE about everything happening!

LIZZIES ANSWERS (32:48)

Why is Catholic Mass so Boring? (The REAL Reason!)

CATHOLIC TRUTH (10:28)