Gaudete Sunday
Third Sunday of Advent
Gaudete (Rejoice) Sunday
Carla Mae Streeter, OP
We are about smack in the middle of Advent, this season of waiting. What are we waiting for? Surely not a repeat of Jesus’ coming in history. Maybe we are waiting for Jesus to return in majesty? But that’s in the future. Ah…but there’s that subtle coming in mystery, that coming right now…today…and so we’re told: “Rejoice always…in all circumstances give thanks…” Iraq…the tsunami…Katrina…the economy…scandal in the Church…
Surely this is but pious exhortation, yes? Really…isn’t it scandalously out of touch with reality? Light your lamp and look deeper. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.” There’s the key to the mystery. In the depths of our souls…nationally, ecologically, and ecclesially as well as personally, there is a Presence and a power that holds us as the storm buffets us left and right. It is a creative Spirit-power that gives life to all that is. Bonded to the DNA that is the gift of my parents, this life-giving creative energy pulsates at the depth of my being. This is where the rejoicing comes from.
I rejoice that I indeed, like John, am a voice crying in the wilderness of the chaos around me…I rejoice that what I await has already come, has already grasped me, is already at work in my one wild little life. Yet I still wait with immense longing for that Guest within me to have full sway in my life, to be revealed in how I live, to be born of me. I wait to be able to give this gift to the world. Rejoice? You bet. I rejoice in the God who is the joy of my soul, who like the Mary who carried him, I cry out: “…for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation…a mantle of justice.” No, not mere pious exhortation, but fact…the facts of faith.