Gaudete Sunday 2023

On this Third Sunday of Advent, we read about the wonderful things that will happen when the Messiah comes. This most hopeful reading comes from the Prophet Isaiah (61: 1-2a, 10-11), who speaks the Word of God to the people who await the coming of the Promised One! We hear that He will heal the broken hearted, proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners…. He will make justice and praise spring up before all the nations.

These were the words that rang in the ears of those who followed Jesus when at last He came. So of course they were expecting that there would be no more injustice, no more broken hearts, no more captives, and all nations would praise God.

Alas, that never happened. Not in the time of Jesus, and not in our day, either. it seems. So, what are we meant to expect from our Messiah?

The apostles asked the same question, along with many others who had taken Him at His word. as the people of Jesus’ time did when He was crucified, and they said to themselves so sadly, “Well, I guess that’s THAT….”

But let’s not be too quick to feel we have been badly disappointed.

Remember when our elders told us, “You can be anything you want to be. Just believe”? We might have thought, along the way into adulthood, that they were wrong. But the meaning behind those words has probably come clear to us now that we’re older: that anything you want didn’t mean exactly what we thought it meant. Now we understand that our desires change as we mature, and when we believe something is possible, we work toward it and it happens.

It’s the same with the Word of God. When Isaiah spoke about the good things that would happen when we let God into our world– that is, our heart–miracles do happen.

I was thinking of this yesterday when I received the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I’m in the middle of making an eight-day retreat (what a gift!), and had been preparing for confession, both because that’s so important during a retreat, and especially just before the Feast of Christmas.

While I looked forward to the Sacrament, it was sobering for me to see myself in new ways as I prayed over my examination of conscience. But when I spoke to good Father Christopher and he spoke in the Name of Jesus the words I so longed to hear, I absolve you from your sins, I felt–no, I knew–the release of my burdens and the liberty from my personal captivities. and I realized for sure and certain that this was only possible because our Messiah had come to earth that first Christmas to do just this. And to heal the brokenhearted, as He has so many times in our lives.

As for all nations praising God, we know that is happening. It’s all over the internet!

I recommend that each of us allow the words of Isaiah to be true in our own life. The Sacrament of Reconciliation will be celebrated in our parishes this week and next weekend in preparation for Christmas, when the Messiah will come. He WILL come, again, to you, to our families, to all nations, through Holy Communion, through the joy of the celebrations around the table, to those who have suffered loneliness and been healed by the kindness of so many people like yourselves in the name of Jesus this season. And through the Sacrament of Mercy. I pray that you will experience the promise of the prophets and the Gift of Jesus in new ways this week as you prepare your heart for His coming anew in our world.

May your last nine days of Advent be spent in knowing that Jesus still comes. And may we pray for one another the words of the second reading at Mass from St. Paul. 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 (1Thessalonians 5:16-24).

God bless you and all those you love.