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A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for December 16, 2012, the Third Sunday of Advent | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Zep 3:14-18a
• Is 12:2-3, 4, 5-6
• Phil 4:4-7
• Lk 3:10-18

“Great joy,” wrote G. K. Chesterton, “has in it the sense of immortality…” Joy, like love, hope, and goodness, cannot be adequately or convincingly explained through material processes or properties. Joy is a gift pointing to a transcendent giver. And that giver is the Lord, the giver of both natural and supernatural life.

Gaudette Sunday is a day of joy and rejoicing (the Latin word for “rejoice” is gaudere), and the readings reflect this theme. The reading from the prophet Zephaniah contains an exultant call for Israel to shout and sing for joy. Why? Because the Lord had staved off judgment, rebuffed Israel’s enemies, and stood as King and Savior in the midst of the chosen people.

The responsorial Psalm, from the prophet Isaiah, echoes the same: “Cry out with joy and gladness, for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel.” And the Epistle, from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, has a hymnic, even rhapsodic, quality: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!” The reason, again, is due to the immediacy of God’s intimate, life-giving presence: “The Lord is near.”

The Gospel reading does not directly refer to joy, but instead anticipates and points, through the words of John the Baptist, toward the source of joy. The anticipation has two different but connected qualities. The first is external and focuses on the natural moral virtues; it is drawn out through the question asked by the crowds, the tax collectors, and the soldiers: “What should we do?” John’s response, in essence, is that they should act justly toward their neighbors and those in their communities.

Treating others with respect and acting with justice are, of course, moral and virtuous actions. However, they are lacking to the degree they are solely human. The need for something more is hinted at in the raised expectations of the people, who “were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ.” Having recognized the need for natural goodness, they now hunger for supernatural goodness, that is, for the Christ. Having tasted the joy that comes from seeking the good for others, they wish to receive the joy that comes from the good given by God (cf. CCC 1804).

The distinction and relationship between the human and supernatural virtues is highlighted further in comparing the baptism of John the Bapist to the baptism of the Messiah. The first is an external sign, a washing of water symbolizing the need for purity and the desire for holiness. The second is an efficacious sign, a sacrament, which accomplishes what it signifies. “By the action of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit,” explains the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the sacraments “make present efficaciously the grace that they signify” (par 1084).

What about the fire mentioned by John? While water symbolizes birth and life, “fire symbolizes the transforming energy of the Holy Spirit's actions” (CCC, 696). Both water and fire can destroy, but both are also necessary for life. And in the case of baptism, this life is supernatural, divine, Trinitarian. In baptism, original sin is destroyed, the chasm between God and man is closed, and the soul is ignited with divine fire. Joined in the death of the Son (cf., Rom. 6), those who are baptized are transformed by the Holy Spirit into sons of God, made anew for the glory of the Father, and prepared for life in the new heavens and new earth.

Here, then, is the source and heart of our Advent joy. The season anticipates the celebration of Christ’s birth, but it also illuminates the purpose of the Incarnation: to remove judgment, to destroy sin and death, and to grant intimate, life-giving communion with God. “All seek joy,” said St. John Chrysostom, “but it is not found on earth.” It is found instead in the Son, who comes from heaven to earth—to the crowds, tax collectors, soldiers, and us. Great joy flows from immortality. Rejoice!

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the December 13, 2009, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

The image of Saint John's vision in the Apocalypse (1360-1390) is by Jacobello Alberegno. I chose it because the Eternal Father is vested in a lovely rosy pink garment. Gaudete Sunday in heaven?

Third Sunday of Advent
A Homily on the Introit

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer let your petitions be made known to God (Phil 4:4-6).

Rejoice in the Lord Always

We began Advent on the crest of a surging wave, an immense welling up of hope that lifted us out of ourselves and carried us Godward: "All my heart goes out to Thee, my God; I trust in Thee" (Ps 24:1). Last Sunday, the Introit did not address God at all; it was a clarion call, a trumpet blast to wake us up, to shake us up, a summons to open our hearts to the joy of the glorious voice of the Lord (Is 30:30). Next Sunday, the Introit will again become pure prayer, a cry wrenched from the depths of human experience, a plea for the dew from heaven, the dew that refreshes and makes fruitful. "Send down dew from above ye heavens, and let the skies pour down upon us the rain we long for, Him, the Just One" (Is 45:8).

Today's Introit is one of the few drawn from the Epistles of Saint Paul. It is an exhortation to joy, but its mood is quiet and reflective. "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer let your petitions be made known to God" (Phil 4:4-6).

Grace, and Loveliness, and Joy

What the Latin gives as, "gaudete" and the English as "rejoice," is astonishingly rich in Saint Paul's Greek. Any one translation would be inadequate. Paul says, "chaírete." It is the very same word used by the angel Gabriel to greet the Virgin of Nazareth. "Chaire, kecharitoménè!" "Joy to you, O full of grace!"(Lk 1:28). The word is untranslatable. Just when we think we have seized its meaning once and for all, another door opens inside it. "Chaírete" was the ordinary greeting of the Greeks. It embraces health, salvation, loveliness, grace, and joy, all at once. In the mouth and in the ear of Christians, the taste of the word is indescribable. "Grace to you, and loveliness, and joy in the Lord; again I wish you grace, and loveliness, and joy" (Phil 4:4). Saint Paul's greeting is not so much an imperative -- a command to be joyful -- as it is the imparting of a gift in the Lord. "What I wish for you, what I send you, what I offer you in the Lord is grace, and loveliness, and joy."

The Lord is at Hand

The second sentence becomes more intelligible in the light of the first. Paul says, "Let your gentleness -- or your modesty, your courtesy, your forbearance, your serenity, your meekness -- be known to everyone" (Phil 4:5). In other words, give evidence around you of the gift you have received: grace, and loveliness, and joy in the Lord. Show each other faces that are serene and peaceful, radiant with joy, faces that reflect the loveliness of God. And he adds, "the Lord is at hand" (Phil 4:5). This is the great central affirmation of the liturgy today, and every day. "The Lord is at hand" (Phil 4:5).

No Anxiety

He who is to come is already here, near to us, close at hand. God is present, and from his presence streams all grace, all loveliness, all joy. Saint Paul draws a very practical conclusion from this: "Have no anxiety about anything"(Phil 4:6). Were God absent, had God not yet come in His Christ and in the gift of the Holy Ghost, we might have reason to worry, reason for anxiety, and for fear. Worry and anxiety are an affront to the graciousness of God, a denial of his nearness to us, a turning from Him who has turned His Face towards us. Saint Paul is categorical: "Have no anxiety about anything" (Phil 4:6). You will recall the words of Saint Teresa of Jesus: "Let nothing frighten you. All things are passing. God alone is changeless. He who has patience wants for nothing. He who has God has all things. God alone suffices."

A thousand reasons not to follow Saint Paul's mandate come to mind. "But I have this, and he has that. This thing is lacking, and of another thing there is too much." This kind of thinking leaves us wide open to an attack of the "what ifs." "What if this happens, and what if that?" It is easy to listen to the voices of our fears, our insecurities, our need to arrange, rearrange, and attempt to control even things beyond our control. The Apostle says, "Have no anxiety about anything," but we hold ourselves excused, saying, "Is not a little anxiety, just a little bit of worry reasonable and right?" Saint Paul is not moved by our rationalizations. "Have no anxiety about anything" (Phil 4:6).

Behold!

The Epistle repeated, word for word, the text of the Introit. And the Communion Antiphon will deliver the same message: "Say to those who are of a fearful heart, be ye comforted and have no fear; behold, our God will come and save us" (Is 35:4). Again, the marvelous pedagogy of the Church! She knows that during the Introit, the Epistle we may have been distracted for a moment or inattentive. She wants us to hear the message nonetheless, and so she repeats it again and again at Communion: "Say to those who are of a fearful heart, be ye comforted and have no fear; behold, our God will come and save us" (Is 35:4).

The "Behold" of the Communion Antiphon echoes the "Behold" of the invitation to Communion: "Behold, the Lamb of God; behold, our God will come and save us!" And so, he comes. The Lamb comes in the adorable mysteries of His Body and Blood; He comes in His Eucharistic advent to comfort us and deliver us from every fear.

Prayer

Saint Paul gives us the key to a worry-free life, the means to stop grumbling, fretting, and trying to manage and control everything. "In everything," he says, "by prayer let your requests be made known to God" (Phil 4:6). Saint Paul sends us to prayer because in prayer God accomplishes the things that of ourselves, and by ourselves, we are unable to do. In prayer we wait, all of us -- the weak, the poor, the misshapen, the broken, and the wounded-- for God's gifts of grace, and loveliness, and joy.

God Silent in His Love

It is in prayer, especially in adoring silence before the Blessed Sacrament, that we experience the truth of what the Prophet Zephaniah declares: "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty, He will save; He will rejoice over thee with gladness, He will be silent in His love, He will be joyful over thee in praise" (Zeph 3:17). How I treasure that one mysterious phrase in Zephaniah's prophecy: "He will be silent in His love" (Zeph 3:17). Silebit in dilectione sua. The silence of Christ, loving us in the mystery of His Eucharistic advent, is the wellspring of all our joy. Join Him in His silence and He will give you the joy of His dilectio, the love by which He singles you out, cherishes you, and reveals Himself as the Bridegroom of the soul.

The Sacrament of Our Joy

Today's Introit, you see, is a blessed imperative and a gracious gift. It prepared us to hear the Word of God and, in a few moments the remembrance of it will send us to the altar, to the place of Christ's Sacrifice to the Father. To us who "know not how to pray as we ought" (Rom 8:26), the Holy Ghost communicates the perfect and all sufficient prayer of Christ Himself. The Most Holy Eucharist is the sacrament of our joy. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the inbreaking of divine joy. "Joy to you in the Lord at all times; once again I wish you joy" (Phil 4:4). Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

Joy! Anticipation! Fire?

Gaudete in Domino semper!