Third Sunday of Advent - December 17, 2023

12-17-2023Weekly ReflectionFr. Timothy Eck

This third Sunday in Advent is known as Gaudete Sunday, which is Latin meaning Rejoice! And truly our Mass this day is one of rejoicing. From our entrance antiphon where we sing “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near,” to our opening Collect, we hear of celebrations and rejoicing, and so to this theme continued throughout our readings and psalm.

But there is a natural question which we should ask ourselves: Why are we rejoicing? Sure, we are already at the seventeenth of December, we have made it through some of our Christmas parties. We are only eight days away from Christmas itself. The hurry of December is quickly coming to a close. There is reason to rejoice for some, and anguish, I suppose, for others.

Turning back to our readings, though, what is the occasion for rejoicing there? From the prophet we heard a prophecy concerning John the Baptist; we heard of a messenger of the Lord proclaiming a message of glad tidings, healing to broken hearts, liberty to captives, and a year favored or blessed by the Lord. That all sounds great. Who does not want liberty? Or who does not want a heart healed, particularly when this time of year can bring forth such vivid memories of times past?

At the heart of this proclamation is a message of salvation, and so when we look into our hearts, do we desire or see a need for salvation? These last two weeks have provided the recurring theme of being on the lookout for the Lord’s arrival. When he arrives, he will bring salvation, and so what does that look like? From what do we need to be saved? From what is the Lord coming to save us?

It is quite easy to call Christ our savior; but the thing is, he came to save us from particular things, not just anything. He came to free us from sin and death. This is why he will be born shortly; he needed a body so that he might be able to die for our sins. And we will readily profess this truth. We have repeated it since childhood. And yet, are we not disappointed at times with this supposed salvation from sin and death? Do we not still struggle with sin; do not people still die? As to the point on death, we can quote St. Paul and say, “If then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.” (Rm 6:5) Christ in his salvation did not promise that we would not physically die, but only that bodily death would not be the final end of our lives, that having shared in a death like Christ’s we shall share in the bodily resurrection when he returns at the end of time.

But even so, we still sin, we still experience sin, what salvation has been achieved here? The first point to note is that sin is like a disease. And so on the one hand it takes time to heal. Cancer does not go away after one session of radiation, and even after radiation treatment is concluded, there is a period of rehab. If this is what healing looks like for the body, why should the soul be any different? To experience the promised salvation from sin we must persevere in reception of the medicine of the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, and we must do the rehab of developing a spiritual life and charitable works.

On the other hand, like a disease, if we do not treat it or withhold treatment, that often only leads to the disease’s greater festering and in turn causes worse damage to the body. God does not force our salvation upon us. He wants us to freely open ourselves to his healing, and this is often why we stall in growing in God and overcoming sin; there is often some place within us that we will not welcome God into. Frequently this is some past harm which we will not or cannot forgive. So long as we withhold offering forgiveness, we put off receiving the saving treatment of God.

The second point is that we often do not know how to determine if we are growing in grace and away from sin. We do not know what it looks like to live a life filled with God’s grace. Now yes, joy is a sign of having received God’s salvation. That is why it has such a prominent place in our liturgy today. But we can at times reduce joy to the emotion of joy and think that there is something wrong if we are not feeling joyful all the time. This can become quite distorted, where we suppress all “negative” emotions, which can cause us to not allow God to heal those harms which prevent us from experiencing the emotion of joy.

Joy is not just an emotion, but is also an internal spiritual disposition. Our second reading gives us another word to help understand this dynamic: peace. The redeemed Christian should experience peace in this life, even during the midst of the storms of life. And so we can ask ourselves, are we at peace? When we look at our lives, are we at peace? In the midst of the many activities of this advent season, have we been at peace? And if not, why not? Our God is a God of peace, he gives peace, as we grow in relationship with him, we will grow in peace. That is one of the key indicators of how we have progressed in our relationship with God.

This Gaudete Sunday let us rejoice in the Lord, in his goodness to us, and on account of his imminent arrival both upon this altar and at his Nativity. In our joy let us take stock of the reasons for our joy and the peace which we have received. May we each come to this Christmas ever more joyfully to celebrate the birth of our Lord. Amen.