homily - Advent 3rd (Gaudete Sunday)

This Sunday is called Gaudete Sunday because "gaudete" (the command to "rejoice!") is the first word of this week's Mass. The entrance antiphon begins the Mass with the words "Rejoice"!

This is echoed in our first reading today from Isaiah 61 v. 10: I rejoice heartily in the Lord. The Hebrew language uses repetition for emphasis, and thus the word rejoice is used twice in a row, as it is also picked up in the Latin translation St. Jerome gave us 14 centuries ago: "I rejoice rejoicing in the Lord."

In today's 2nd reading, it becomes clear what true joy is: holiness. And St. Paul makes it clear that holiness doesn't come from us.

May the God of peace make you perfectly holy and may you entirely, spirit, soul, and body, be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will also accomplish it.

However, this does not mean we do not cooperate, as I stressed last week from the message of repentance we hear from John the Baptist. (Gregory of Nyssa) He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring what he already knows.

In fact, St. Paul also gives us a recipe for joy. We can all probably think of a type of Christmas cookie or other special food that we really cherish around this time of year, and each one of these has a special recipe. If we don't follow that recipe, we won't end up with the same cookies or whatever it is that we remember so fondly. If we try to abandon that and do it our own way, we end up missing our goal, it's not right.

If you want to be joyful at all times, simply follow the recipe of St. Paul, the advice he gives us today. Try it for the next two weeks. See if it works. If you do nothing that goes against this, you will have joy. Rejoice always, he tells us, and then gives us the program: Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances. Test everything; retain what is good. Refrain from every kind of evil.

 

CCC 736 By this power of the Spirit, God's children can bear much fruit. He who has grafted us onto the true vine will make us bear "the fruit of the Spirit: . . . love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." "We live by the Spirit"; the more we renounce ourselves, the more we "walk by the Spirit."
(Basil the Great) Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise, led back to the Kingdom of heaven, and adopted as children, given confidence to call God "Father" and to share in Christ's grace, called children of light and given a share in eternal glory.