Rejoice! | The Third Sunday of Advent
By Br. Jerome Masters, O.P.
Rejoice! We have made it halfway through this season of Advent, and now the Church has shifted her focus from the second coming of Christ to the first. We hear in the second reading from St. Paul writing to the Corinthians, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!” Indeed we should rejoice for the hope that our savior will be born in a mere 10 days. “The Lord is near,” says St. Paul and He truly is.
We can see this rejoicing visually in the Mass today especially. The vestments the priest and deacon wear are rose instead of purple, the rose-colored candle is lit on the advent wreath, and the readings take on more of a joyful sentiment rather than a penitential one. We can also see this from the phrase that the Lord is near. The first two weeks of Advent talked about how Christ is coming, but now Christ is near. Our hope for his coming is soon to be realized by his birth. We have the special privilege of knowing Jesus Christ. All the prophets from the Old Testament would do anything to trade places with us because the one that they foretold is near to us. This is a great cause for rejoicing. This Sunday is like the beginning of a crescendo of a great piece coming to the grandest moment. The readings begin to take on that crescendo to the birth of our savior.
In the gospel today, the people coming to St. John the Baptist thought that he might be the Christ. We hear that these people’s hearts are “filled with expectation.” We can see how we might relate to these people, our hearts expect Christmas to be here sooner rather than later. The plans of visiting families have been most likely put in place, Christmas shopping is more likely than not done, and the meal for Christmas day is most likely planned. We are filled with the expectation that the Christmas spirit will come into our hearts. But St. John the Baptist reminds us that not only is he not the Christ, but also that the Christ is coming. “Exhorting them in many other ways, he preached good news to the people.” This good news is that the savior of the world is near to us, and all our hopes for redemption are to be fulfilled in a matter of days. But St. Paul tells us to rejoice always.
This year certainly has not been the easiest year for many, and causes many people to despair. How can we rejoice always? Because the truth that Jesus Christ was born to save us from a fallen world is as true today as it was 2000 years ago. This rejoicing does not always mean that we are always smiling from ear-to-ear because life is so great. This rejoicing comes from the consistent foundational truth that Jesus Christ came to this earth out of a plan of sheer goodness. He does this, as the Catechism says, so that we might “share in his own blessed life.” This causes in the hearts of believers joy to know that we have a God in heaven who draws so near to us that he was willing to take on the form of a man and be born so that he might save us from our sins. Rejoice always in the Lord, because he is near.
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Photo Credit: Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.
