It is now the Third Sunday of Advent. With reference to the Entrance Antiphon, also known as the Introit, the Third Sunday of Advent is also known as Gaudete Sunday. In Latin, Gaudete means "rejoice." Hence, today is the Sunday we light the rose-colored candle and can wear the rose vestments. On Gaudete Sunday, the season of Advent makes what I like to describe as a turn. We turn from looking forward to Christ's glorious coming at the end of time to looking back at his first coming as an infant.
The Entrance Antiphon, which is typically not used in most U.S. parishes, bids us: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near."
This turn to looking back is made explicit up-front in the Collect, which begins: "O God, who see how your people faithfully await the feast of the Lord's Nativity..." We look forward and behind, of course, from the standpoint of the present. What else but your life connects the past to the present and the present to the future. Now is always the intersection of the past and the future. Advent is about the collapse of time. This is translated poetically into lyrics by Michael Card in his song "Maranatha," which was yesterday's traditio: "We long for the time when all time is past."
Indeed, the incarnation of the Son of God marked a turning point not just in the history of the world but in the history of the cosmos. It ushered in the beginning of the end of time. As a result, every day is the end of the world until the end of the world. During the first two weeks of Advent, we are reminded of this daily.
With our singing the Mary's Magnificat as our responsorial on this Third Sunday of Advent, we are reminded of again of the power of Christ's coming, especially in the words of the third verse: "He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he has remembered his promise of mercy." God's promise of mercy is nothing less than promise of himself. He gives himself to us in and through Christ by the power of the Spirit.
The first part of the Entrance Antiphon from which Gaudete Sunday takes its name converges with our reading from Saint Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians. It is very likely that this letter, probably written in around AD 50, is the first of the documents, collectively known as the "New Testament," to be written. And so, it is one of the seven letters the scholarly consensus assures us was written by the apostle himself.
What does the man from Tarsus enjoin the Christians of ancient Thessaloniki to do? "Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thess 5:16-18). Context aside, I think this exhortation is timely for us as well. But without a doubt, it is a tall order.
It's no great secret that 2020 has been a challenging year for virtually everyone. It's been a devastating year for many people. What is there to rejoice about? We can rejoice in the reality, stated succinctly in the last line of today's Entrance Antiphon that "the Lord is near." After all, is Jesus not Emmanuel, God with us? He accompanies through life's difficulties. He walks with us through the shadow of the valley of death. While he does not abandon us, he is not a Deus ex machina that comes down and instantaneously resolves our difficulties. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he is in it with us to the end and beyond. Hence, he is not hovering over and above us indifferently.
He is with you to help you through whatever it is you're experiencing. He weeps with you, laughs with you, suffers with you, and celebrates with you. He's so close to you that he is often hard to see.
It's because he's so near and often hard to see that we need to pray without ceasing. Maybe it seems like sometimes your prayers "bounce off the ceiling" because the Lord is in the room with you. You are always in God's holy presence. A good rule of thumb for praying is to spend at least as much time listening as you speaking, perhaps more.
"It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ our Lord" (Preface I & II of Advent). According to this phrase, which we invoke weekly during the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer, giving thanks is our salvation! In other words, giving thanks in every and all circumstances is the means of our salvation in and through Christ.
While I mentioned the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer, it bears noting that there are two Prefaces for Advent. While either can be used on any Sunday of Advent, when one considers the season in terms of the other prayers and the lectionary, it makes sense to use Preface I for the first and second Sundays and Preface II on the third and fourth Sundays.
Preface II also bids us to look back:
For all the oracles of the prophets foretold him,The word "Eucharist" means to give thanks. In its Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, the fifty-fifth anniversary of the end of which was last Tuesday, 8 December, taught:
the Virgin Mother longed for him
with love beyond telling,
John the Baptist sang of his coming
and proclaimed his presence when he came.
It is by his gift that already we rejoice
at the mystery of his Nativity...
the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord's supper (sec. 10)In the Prayer after Communion, we pray that holy communion will "cleanse us of our faults and prepare us for the coming feasts." While this certainly refers to the feasts of the Lord's Nativity, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, Epiphany, Presentation, and the Lord's Baptism, it also refers, perhaps even more specifically, to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. This should make our grateful hearts rejoice!
By our own baptism, like the Baptist, our vocation, our divine calling, no matter our state of life, is to "make straight the way of the Lord." To prepare for his coming but also to point out his nearness even as we await the glorious revelation of the Son of God and our revelation as the children of God during the beginning of the end of time.
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