A Homily for Gaudete Sunday

+ The Sacred Liturgy of this Third Sunday of Advent is full of hope and expectation. We are to rejoice in the Lord always, according to the Introit. Saint Paul is in a good mood in the epistle, full of confidence in the nearness of Almighty God to those who follow Him. The gradual and alleluia sing of the majesty and strength of the Lord who will come for our salvation. In the Holy Gospel the humility of St John the Baptist cries out that we make straight the way for the coming of the Lord. The offertory antiphon sings of the pardon of our guilt, and the communion antiphon is explicit: “Take courage and have no fear ye who are faint of heart: behold, our God will come and save us.”
 
Well, indeed, we might rejoice before these eternal realities on this Gaudete Sunday!
 
But Almighty God will not force Himself upon us. He will not abduct us and take us to heaven as prisoners or as slaves. He invites us into nothing less than divine sonship! To accept this invitation, we must freely do our part. We must open ourselves to His grace. We must cooperate with all that He wishes to do within us.
 
This third week of Advent includes the very ancient Ember days – the traditional three days of particular prayer, fasting and abstinence which occur four times a year (which is why they are sometimes called the quarter days). Whilst not required by the current law of the Church, we shall do well to use this coming Wednesday, Friday and Saturday – in so far as we can – as days of fasting, self-denial and particular prayer.
 
We would do well to make an extra effort to assist at Holy Mass on these days. We could use them as days of greater recollection, perhaps in preparation for making our Christmas confession.
 
The collect of today’s Mass is particularly beautiful. “We ask Lord, that your ear will accommodate our prayers; by the grace of your coming shed light into the darkness of our minds.”
 
If we desire this light, if we truly wish to rejoice in the Lord, we must resolve to do what is necessary to allow that light to shine unimpeded in our minds and hearts. It may well show us things about ourselves which we need to address with the help of the recollection of the Ember days and the grace of the Sacrament of Confession. This light may well show us a path opening before us that perhaps we would ourselves not have thought is ours, or which may fill us with apprehension: yet if the light is of God, we ought to have no fear.
 
Indeed, we ought to have all the confidence, hope and expectation of which the Sacred Liturgy sings today. That we may live from, and ourselves become beacons of, the strong, radiant light of Christ that dispels all darkness, let us pray with great fervour at the altar of God this morning. +

---

Please consider supporting our 2020 Advent & Christmas fundraiser.
Please click here.