Third Sunday of Advent

December 13, 2020

I overflow with joy in the Lord, and I am glad of my God.

Always be cheerful. Be consistent in praying. Thank you all the time.

Readings

First Reading

Reading the book of Isaiah 61, 1-2a. 10-11

The Spirit of the Lord, God, is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me.
He has sent me to give the good news to the poor, to heal torn hearts, to proclaim amnesty to captives, and to prisoners freedom;
to proclaim a year of the Lord’s grace.
Overflow of joy in the Lord, and I rejoice with my God:
because he’s put me in a suit of salvation, and he’s wrapped me in a cloak of justice,
as a groom who puts on the crown, or girlfriend who is adorned with her jewels.
As the soil casts its buds, as a garden sprouts its seeds,
Thus the Lord will bring about justice and hymns before all peoples.

Psalm

Lk 1, 46-48. 49-50. 53-54

I’m happy with my God.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
My spirit rejoices in God, my savior;
because he has looked at the humility of his slave.
From now on, I’ll be congratulated by all generations. R/.

For the Mighty has done great works in me: his name is holy,
and his mercy reaches his faithful from generation to generation. R/.

The hungry are filled with goods, and the rich are dismissed empty.
Help Israel, his servant, remembering mercy. R/.

Second Reading

Reading St Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians 5, 16-24

Brothers:
Always be cheerful. Be consistent in praying. Thank you at all times: this is God’s will in Christ Jesus with respect to you. Do not extinguish the spirit, do not despise prophecies. Examine everything; and keep the good stuff. Beware of all kinds of evil. May the God of peace himself fully sanctify you, and may all your spirit, soul, and body be kept unprehensed until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls them is faithful, and he will do it.

 

Gospel

Reading the holy gospel according to John 1, 6-8. 19-28

A man sent by God, named John, emerged: he came as a witness, to bear witness to the light, that all may believe through him.
He was not the light, but the one who testified of the light. And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him:
“Who are you?”
He confessed and did not deny; confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”
They asked him, “So what? Is that you Elijah?”
He said, “I’m not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He said, “No.”
And they said, “Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who have sent us? What about yourself?”
He said, “I am the voice that shouts in the wilderness, ‘Pave the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.
Among the envoys were Pharisees and asked him, “Then why baptize if thou art not the Messiah, neither Elijah nor the Prophet?”
John said, “I baptize with water; in the midst of you is one that you do not know, the one who comes after me, and who I am not worthy to untie the strap of the sandal.”
This happened in Bethany, on the other bank of Jordan, where John was baptizing.

Comment

Advent advances and we already hear on the horizon the arrival of Christmas. Even with the difficulties of the present moment, with the problems of confinements and restrictions because of the pandemic, with the limitations we all know, we are already seeing Christmas lights, more or less or less ornate trees, fillies placed in our churches and homes, which herald one more year the next celebration of the greatest event of our Christian faith: the birth of Jesus Christ , the Lord, born of Mary the Virgin for our salvation.

That is why the Church and the liturgy invite us particularly today to rejoice, on this Sunday called Gaudete (rejoice) or Sunday of joy. Perhaps this year, more than any other, we will have to insist on the meaning and importance of Christian joy. Sadness and discouragement have ruthlessly invaded us in recent months. Sickness and death have knocked on the door of our homes and taken the smile off our faces and even kindness in gesture. We are relieved by everything that has come to us in the current situation: material shortages, economic tightening, lack of work, job loss, risk of contagion anywhere, esttachment from our loved ones. Anyway, if it’s not for the pandemic it will be for other reasons, but we all have reason to be sad, to feel defeated or disappointed by myriad causes.

It could happen that this year’s “rejoice” sounded particularly hollow to us, at an empty invitation of content, in dead letter. How are we going to rejoice when the pain passes us by? What are we going to rejoice in when we are robbed of the deepest essence of who we are and want to be? Why should Christians rejoice when most of the world lives cocky and sad?

Today’s Word of God, which is always a living and effective word, comes to help us reverse this apathetic and annodine situation of sadness and abulia. To do this, without seeking reasons in it that convince us, we must open our hearts to their message and let ourselves be enlightened by the feeling that it is Christ Himself who invites us and impels us to discover the mystery of joy, true joy, even in the most lacerating pain and sadness.

Our joy is Him, and only He, who has become one like us, being born poor in a stable surrounded by animals, in a secluded and forgotten place, away from worldly noises, accompanied by Joseph and Mary, two innocent and inexperienced young men. Our joy is He, who has stepped on the mud of pain and death in his assumed human nature, and has overcome. Yes, he has overcome sin and death, and has opened a path of hope for those of us who do not want to be hostage to the culture of death, pain, or sadness in any of its forms; for those of us who do not want to selfishly self-settle in grievance, in grievance, in lament, making it almost a means of life with which we seek to hide so many injustices, so many inconsistencies. Our joy is He who looks at us with love and makes us witnesses of His mercy.

In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah shouts in the first person, “I overflow with joy in the Lord and rejoice with my God.” And the strength of his joy is in the Spirit of the Lord, who has anointed him and sent him to give good news to the poor, to heal broken hearts, to proclaim amnesty to the captives, and to prisoners freedom. Also in the Magnificat, which today we pray as Psalm, Mary puts the cause of her joy in the strength of the Lord who manifests heses himself in his humility, from which the Mighty does great works.

St Paul invites us to be always joyful, to be constant in prayer and to give thanks at all times, stating that this is Christ’s will over us. Certainly God does not want us sad, hesitant, or ungrateful. The three imperatives seem like three requests from the Apostle to the Christians of Thessaloniki to entrench three fundamental attitudes in them. However, they are intimately intertwined: in reality, the Apostle asks us for trust in the Lord, who feeds himself in prayer, and leads us to live always joyful, even in the midst of so many sufferings, and to thank God for all that we are and have, even in the midst of so many deficiencies and needs.

Undoubtedly, joy is the light of the soul that enlightens all who approach those who possess it. In the gospel, John the Baptist appears as the witness of the light that is Christ. The voice that communicates the Word of the Father. He, before he was born, had already leapt with joy into the womb of his mother Elizabeth when Mary visited them, taking in his bosom Jesus, whom John now prepares the way. Christ was also the joy of John and that is why he announces it, he is his witness. Joy, like good, is communicative and diffuse. You can’t hide. It has to be shared, and sharing it grows and multiplies.

Let us ask the Lord to live our Christian faith with joy, not to be sad Christians, with a permanent face of funeral or vinegar, as Pope Francis says with a good sense of humor; Let us ask Mary to smile always, to smile, even if we have a soul full of tears, as her song says. True and permanent joy, not momentary, superficial or cover-up of reality; joy that is founded on the strength of the Spirit of Christ that always aggss and accompanies us. May nothing and no one deprive us of the joy of the Lord. He’s our joy.

Prayer

God, it’s raining your justice!
Open up, earth!
Germinate the Savior!

O Lord, Pastor of the house of Israel,
that you lead to your people,
come and rescue us by the power of your arm.
Come soon, sir. Come on, Salvador!

O Wisdom, out of the father’s mouth,
announced by prophets,
come and teach us the way of salvation.
Come soon, sir. Come on, Salvador!

Son of David,
banner of peoples and kings,
to whom the whole world cries,
come and set us free, Lord, don’t be late anymore.
Come soon, sir. Come on, Salvador!

Key of David and Scepter of the House of Israel,
you who reign over the world,
come and free those who in darkness await you.
Come soon, sir. Come on, Salvador!

O Rising Sun,
splendor of eternal light
and a sun of justice,
come and enlighten those who lie in shadows of death.
Come soon, sir. Come on, Salvador!

King of Nations and Cornerstone of the Church,
you who unern the peoples,
come and free the men you’ve created.
Come soon, sir. Come on, Salvador!

Oh Emmanuel,
our king, savior of nations,
peoples’ hope,
come and set us free, Lord, don’t be late anymore.
Come soon, sir. Come on, Salvador!

(Advent Hymn)