A Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent

+ Gaudete in Domino semper; iterum dico, Gaudete. These opening words of the Introit and Epistle of this holy Mass, from which this third Sunday of Advent takes its more popular name, are instructive. But they are also capable of a shallow, facile misinterpretation.
 
We know only too well, the more years that the Lord gives us on this earth, that there are many, many things in about which it is very difficult, if not impossible, to rejoice: the godlessness of the world and its secularist agenda; the appalling violence done to innocent human life—most particularly to the unborn and the aged and sick, now in many countries subtlety pressured into the ‘option’ of euthanasia—and the reduction of the noblest of human activities, conjugal love, to a recreational commodity and the various forms of abuse that engenders.
 
We must lament the persecution of our brothers and sisters in the faith throughout the world—a persecution which, in our days, faces each and every one of us if we speak the politically incorrect truth in the public forum. And even within the purportedly ‘inclusive’ Church herself, at present we must endure the persecution of clergy and people whose ‘crime’ is to worship and live according to the traditional rites (and the faith) of our Fathers. We find it hard to rejoice in the particular crosses that we ourselves must bear, especially those of serious illness and physical or mental suffering. And, rightly, we most certainly do not rejoice over our sins, let alone those of others.
 
To laugh-off these realities so as to maintain a superficial happiness is inappropriate. They call us to repentance, to prayer and fasting and to action, not to mirth!  In what, then, does Saint Paul instruct us to rejoice? Gaudete in Domino, Saint Paul instructs us. We are to rejoice in the Lord.
 
My brothers and sisters, the world and even the Church are rent by sin and evil and by so many things and even people who are not of God and who would destroy all that is true, good and beautiful. It was not always so. As the book of Genesis teaches us, the world was created good, and man and woman—the apex of God’s creation—are the very image and likeness of God. But mankind fell. Our sin disfigured and maimed creation, and ourselves. The world in which we now live bears the scars—and indeed sometimes the open wounds!—of the fall. Yet we are to rejoice in the Lord. Why?
 
Here we come to the fundamental reality of the coming feast, to which we look forward all the more intensely in this third week of Advent. For no matter what evils we or the world have and can produce, no matter what suffering we may have to endure, the Incarnation of God the Son, the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ as the definitive revelation of God in human history, as the unique Saviour of mankind, gives us a—no, the—reason always to rejoice. For the Lord has come definitively to conquer sin, evil and death for us, despite (or precisely because of) our utter inability so to do. Such is the love of God that He takes on our own flesh so as to corporeally suffer and die, as we all must, but so that the fall may be overcome and we may be offered the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life! This is why we are to rejoice, this is why we are to rejoice in the Lord, always!
 
This is true and substantial joy, joy founded on supernatural reality and hope. It is a joy that cannot be taken away by pain and suffering. It is the joy of the martyrs and saints who persevered heroically in fidelity to Christ no matter what trials they had to endure. It is a joy that is ours for the asking, as it were, if we are prepared to open our hearts, minds and souls—indeed every element of our lives and persons—to its promises, and to its demands.
 
By way of reminding us of what we ourselves must do to partake in this supernatural and enduring joy, the Church’s liturgy this morning addresses to us Saint John the Baptist’s cry: “Make straight the way of the Lord.” For if we are to profit from the reality of the Incarnation, if we are indeed to rejoice in the Lord, we must welcome Him into the intimacy of our hearts, minds and souls by clearing out all that would impede Him—be that our sins and vices, for which me must each make a good confession, or our hesitations in responding to His call and our unwillingness to go the extra mile in His service, etc. Whatever stands in the Lord’s way, whatever impedes us from living in and from the joy he comes to bring must be cleared out and cast away.
 
This coming week of Advent is Ember week: Wednesday, Friday and Saturday are particular days of fasting, prayer and penance in preparation for the coming feast. Amidst our material business, we would do very well to observe these days of prayer and fasting, for prayer and fasting are the very means of clearing away all that impedes God living and acting in and through us. Through these hallowed means let us do all that we can to make straight the path of the Lord, so that in Him we may rejoice now even amongst the trials of this life, and forever in the life to come with all those who before us have themselves made straight the path of the Lord and who have persevered unto the end. Amen. +