A Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent

+ Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico Gaudete, St Paul insists in the epistle this morning. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
 
For some of us, at times, the emphasis on joy and rejoicing and happiness and feeling good that we encounter in the Church or in her whitewashed liturgy can seem very hollow indeed. For we suffer. We suffer from sickness and from unexpected illnesses that turn our lives upside down, or even threaten to bring them to an end, as do those whom we love. We grow old and fear much of what that may involve. We have our plans for our lives ruined by the loss of work, by pandemics which cage us in and by individuals with power who, in the pretence of doing good and even in the name of God, for some reason which we cannot fathom, wish us ill and seek to destroy us.
 
It is hard to rejoice when there is not much to rejoice about, indeed, when there is plenty to bemoan!
 
But let us listen to St Paul again:
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand.  Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
 
My brothers and sisters, by ourselves there is very little about which to rejoice: that is the sad reality of fallen humanity—a reality we know only too well through our own sins and in those of others that are visited upon us.
 
But St Paul is not teaching us to rejoice in ourselves. No. He exhorts us to “rejoice in the Lord.” And it is precisely here, in the Lord, as baptised and confirmed members of His Body the Church assembled to offer Him worship and to be fed from His altar, that we are able to rejoice—no matter what pestilence, potentate or disorder persecutes us. For in the Lord we share in His victory over sin and death. In the Lord, in and through the life of the Church and most particularly through our fervent and frequent reception of the sacraments, we can live and grow in that “the peace of God, which passes all understanding [which] will keep [our] hearts and…minds in Christ Jesus.”
 
Thus, we may rejoice. Thus we must rejoice – even if we must continue the daily struggle to be faithful to Christ in a world which, in respect to the eternal truths in respect of the God-given nature and destiny of every human person, is fast moving from amnesia to euthanasia.
 
Here, too, St Paul teaches us: “Let all men know your forbearance.” Our perseverance in the particular vocation I have been given, in the monastery, in the sacrament of Christian marriage, as a cleric or a single man or woman in the Church, is a powerful witness in a consumerist world in which fidelity, devotion, duty and faith are regarded as, at best, quaint but useless commodities. Our God-given task, our vocation no matter where we have our place in the Body of Christ on earth, is to persevere. For as St Benedict is very fond of teaching his monks, it is “he that shall persevere to the end shall be saved.” (Rule, ch. 7; Mt 24:13)
 
Perseverance, however, is not a facile matter. The crosses laid upon us may well press us down, even beyond our strength at times. Again, St Paul teaches us: “The Lord is at hand.  Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Even if our circumstances have us cry out Domine, salve nos—perimus! (Save us Lord, we are perishing! Mt 8:25) we know that “the Lord is at hand.” With and in His grace we shall experience a strength beyond our own measure. And in this, truly, can we rejoice!

But if we are to be able rejoice, if we are to remain in His grace, we must do our part.  The Sacred Liturgy of the Church, like a wise mother reminds us of this in the Ember Days on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of this coming week. We must detach ourselves from this world and from our sins through fasting and penance, and attach ourselves to Christ with more fervent prayer and a good and humble confession, if we are fully to receive His grace, His strength, His life.
 
As we offer ourselves the altar this morning, let us rejoice in humble confidence that help, indeed that Hope Himself, is at hand, and pray fervently that we, and those we love and hold dear, shall be truly open to receive Him. +

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