Third Sunday of Advent

Jan 29 2025

Rejoice Always

Certain watchwords are associated with each season of the church year, almost becoming a motto. Advent’s is “Wake up.” It then leads to other words like “Watch,” “Wait,” and “Witness.” But every Third Sunday of Advent, we anticipate the coming Christmas season, whose key word is “Rejoice.” This Sunday was traditionally called Gaudete (“Rejoice”) Sunday. Priests continue to wear rose-colored vestments today, signaling joy.

Joy is not only for Christmastime and the occasional Sunday. I remember as an altar boy, before Vatican II, Mass began with the “prayers at the foot of the altar.” The priest would begin: “I will go up to the altar of God.” The server responded: “To God who gives joy to my youth,” or as some translations had it, “To God, my exceeding joy.”

It was a reminder that God is the source of all joy and that joy is one of the great gifts of God, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul reminds us that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (see Galatians 5:22). Now there is a good list for Christmas giving. Tell your loved ones your Christmas gift this year will be to pray throughout the coming year that the Spirit will bring them one of these gifts.

John’s gift to the people who came out into the wilderness was to call them to prepare for the Lord, to give them a sense of heightened anticipation that the One coming to them would fill them with joy.

Consider/Discuss

How do you think of joy? Is it the same as happiness?
Do you recognize that the Spirit who dwells in us is the giver of joy?
Have you asked for this gift?

Responding to the Word

Dear God, source and giver of joy, open my heart to receive your joy. As the Advent season continues, help me to live in a spirit of anticipation and watchful ness for how Christ continues to come into the world, a spirit of joy rooted in the awareness that you are faithful to your children. Amen.

Jan 29 2025

Scripture Study for

The anointing of the prophet mentioned in the first reading may be a figure of speech, but the duties that accompany it are very real and explicitly social. They include healing and comforting. The primary duty is prophetic proclamation. The good news promises the coming of the “year of the Lord,” a time when the poor will be the beneficiaries of the blessings of God. This will be a time when the oppressive economic and political systems will have to contend with the vengeance of God. The reading begins with a promise of salvation and ends with a prayer of thanksgiving for the salvation granted.

The Letter to the Thessalonians includes exhortation, encouragement, and blessing. Paul does not overlook the realities of suffering in life, nor does he advocate a false sense of happiness. The joy he urges is the joy that comes from knowing that in Christ’s resurrection, even death itself has been overcome. This should be the source of their thanksgiving. He admonishes the Christians to discern the spirits active within the community. He prays that God will bring to completion their holiness in every aspect: spirit, soul, and body. He ends on a note of confidence, assuring them of God’s faithfulness to the promises of salvation made to them.

The first verses of the Gospel reading clarify the identity of John the Baptist in relation to the light that is to come into the world. John is not the light, but is to bear testimony to the light. He is the voice that proclaims that the light is soon to come. The second section contains his own testimony regarding his relationship with Jesus, the man who was to come after him. John refuses to be identified with any messianic figure. He is not the messiah. His role is preparatory; he explains this when the officials question his reasons for baptizing. John is content to be the witness and the herald, nothing more.

Jan 24 2025

A No Can Open Up to a Yes from God

In today’s Gospel, the Baptizer shakes his head and says no to his questioners: No, I am not the light; I am not the Christ; I am not Elijah; I am not the Prophet. No, no, and no.

We often hear about Mary’s yes and how we should imitate her. What about John the Baptist’s no? Should we imitate his no too? What if the man crying out in the desert had answered yes? What if he had taken the praises he received as his due, puffed out his camel hair–covered chest and said, “Yes, I am Elijah. I am good. I am the Prophet. Look at me!” He could have. But he would have lost his way.

I was pondering that no a few days ago as I walked to my office. I was treading one of the numerous sidewalks on the Notre Dame campus, the one that leads from my car to the theology building. Directly in front of me was one clear line where the concrete sections came together. I put my left foot on that crack and tried to walk straight and stay straight. I imagined, “Hmmm . . . so this one is my line, my path.” If I turn aside from that line, through envy or the distraction of wishing that I were on someone else’s route, I could lose my way and miss what I was created to do.

John the Baptist stuck to his path. He was as at home with who he was not. His clear no opened the space for the grander yes of his particular mission: he readied the world for Jesus.

We can imitate that no to what we are not. You and I are unique children of God, each with a unique mission. We too can ready the world for Jesus.

Consider/Discuss

Who are you? Who are you not? To what identity does God ask you to say no? How can you and I lose our way, wishing we were someone else?
Where are the small ways we say no in our lives? Saying no to that slice of double-chocolate cake may open the space for a slimmer figure. Telling ourselves no to that extra fifteen minutes of sleep after the alarm rings opens space for a healthier breakfast and a more relaxed preparation for work. How can no open the space for God’s vision for us of a bigger and grander yes?

Living and Praying with the Word

Savior of the World, here we are. As we are. You have anointed us to bring glad tidings to this world. Give us the courage to imitate John the Baptist’s no. Strengthen us, so that we are people of honesty, clarity, and valor, willing to say no to anything that does not further your glory. For you are coming soon. We rejoice heartily that you want to use our unique gifts and talents to help to prepare this world for your coming. Come, Lord Jesus, our Emmanuel!

Jan 24 2025

Scripture Study for

Despite the promises of glorious restoration given through earlier prophets, decades after the Exile, Jerusalem and Judah remained small and poor. Isaiah’s answer to the question “Why isn’t God doing anything?” has two aspects. The first answer is to be patient and trust, with a hopeful confidence that what God has promised will be done. The second aspect is captured by the phrase “wrapped me in a mantle of justice.” The people must also take responsibility for the problems that led to the Exile in the first place, especially widespread injustice, which seems to have continued after the Exile. Trust in God’s fidelity had to be combined with resolve to mend their ways and live within God’s will.

Saint Paul concludes his First Letter to the Thessalonians by encouraging a people that has struggled to make sense of the apparent delay in the return of Christ. It is difficult to maintain religious fervor and faith under such circumstances, and the tendency was to grow doubtful or negligent. But the Thessalonians should rejoice and keep up their prayer, especially thanksgiving. Attend to the gifts that God has given, Paul says, but do not be naïve: everything must be tested for its goodness. The letter ends with a prayer that God will preserve the Thessalonians during this difficult time, keeping them holy and blameless. God is faithful. The promises given in Christ will come to pass.

As in last week’s Gospel, John the Baptist announces that he is preparing the way for one greater than himself. In response to a challenge from the priests and Levites, who want to know what role John believes he plays in the expected coming of the Messiah, he assures them that he is not the Messiah, nor Elijah (see Malachi 3:23–24), nor “the Prophet” promised by Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15), understood by some Jews in the first century to be a messianic figure. By what authority, then, does he baptize, if he has no messianic pretensions? John affirms that he has no authority; his role is simply “to testify to the light” coming into the world.

Jan 13 2025

The Promise of Joy

Joy is different from happiness. Happiness is a transient experience, but joy has more depth to it, more lasting roots. It can be independent of what is going on around us. In John’s Gospel, the night before he died, Jesus says to his disciples that he wants his joy to be in them and their joy to be complete (John 15:11). And Paul writes to the Thessalonians: “Rejoice always” (2 Thessalonians 5:16).

Today’s readings invite us to think about what brings us joy. Isaiah offers images of a world that will blossom or bloom, flowering into fullness. The prophet gives us wonderful images of dry, parched land suddenly breaking into a colorful display of new and abundant life.

This fullness also results from something being restored that had been lost or that was missing from the start: sight, hearing, being able to sing and leap with joy, health of body and spirit. Such fullness comes from God. It is gift, pure and simple.

God wants us to have this fullness of life, to be sure. It will come with the coming of the Lord. In the meantime, we are to wait patiently, not complaining, but with hearts marked by certitude. We have assurance in that we have already been welcomed into the kingdom at our baptism. The rest is only a matter of time. In speaking of John as more than a prophet, Jesus concludes by saying, “Yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11).

Consider/Discuss

What makes you happy? What makes you joyful? Is there a difference?
How is God asking you to be patient at the present time?

Responding to the Word

We can ask God to give us that joy that the world cannot give, a joy that is found rooted in our faith in God, in our trusting that the God who raised Jesus up will also bring us to fullness of life.