Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons 15 December 2024

Third Sunday of Advent - Gaudate Sunday

We wait in joyful hope

Just after we have recited the Our Father at Mass, the following words are recited by the celebrant on our behalf:

'Deliver us, Lord, from every evil,

and grant us peace in our day.

In your mercy keep us free from sin

and protect us from all anxiety

as we wait in joyful hope for the coming

of our Saviour, Jesus Christ'.

In so many ways this is a most appropriate text to meditate and reflect on this third Sunday of Advent, which we call 'Gaudete' Sunday, that is 'Rejoicing' Sunday. The structure of the prayer is a sequence goes through several petitions: we ask to be freed from evil, then given peace in-our-day that is now, not tomorrow. We pray to the Lord to be protected from anxiety and sin, that so strengthened we can finally wait in expectation and joy for that final coming of Christ.

It is beautiful prayer, and one that I suggest. can be used as part of our own devotions each day during this Advent season (and beyond). In its simplicity it gives us the whole reason for this holy season, it is not Lent with its stronger accent on our repentance and penitential activities to prepare us for the great feast of our redemption. Instead it is a quieter, gentler period of inner prayer and fasting. In the Eastern Church (which does not do Advent as the Western Church does) this period is marked by the Nativity Fast, a preparatory period helping the Christian get ready to celebrate with great joy, the feasts of the Nativity season. If you somehow think the penitential discipline of fasting is not really connected with Advent, perhaps I can help us a little by looking more at that gift of joy, which is at the centre of our Sunday.

The search for joy

Our first reading from the prophet Zephaniah opens with the command to be joyful:

' Shout for joy, daughter Zion!

sing joyfully, Israel!

Be glad and exult with all your heart,

daughter Jerusalem!' (Zep 3:14)

This is a joy worked for, the end result of God's merciful dealings with Israel, who as a people have demonstrated repentance by returning to the ways of the Holy One . This understanding of joy as something to strive for, is important and our second reading from Philippians gives to us something practical, a spiritual blueprint for obtaining that perfect joy, which is what we hope to obtain when we meet God face to face in the Kingdom. To realise this journey of joy is to tackle that which impedes our own progress, by involving ourselves more fully in our vocation and destiny to be people of prayer, namely this :'Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God'.(Phil 4:6)

Other guides to joy

There are many spiritual guides to help us find joy, but all of them remind us it is not a gift that we can simply demand. As Advent (and Lent) reminds us, to be a rejoicing person, taking the time to search for perfect joy which will not depart from us, demands commitment.

The desert monastics understood that the aim of their disciplined and penitential life was to achieve joy. In a story told by Abba Theophilus of Scetis, the son of a philosopher faces a number of insults because of his bad behaviour towards two friends of his father, finally when he has been forgiven, he ends up in Athens at the philosophers gate, only to be insulted by an old man who seems to have as his vocation challenging any would-be-philosopher. :'When he insulted this young man, the boy began to laugh, and the old man said, 'Why are you laughing, when I have insulted you?' He told him, 'Would you not expect me to laugh? For three years I have paid to be insulted and now I am insulted free of charge. That is why I laughed.' Abba John said, 'The gate of the Lord is like that, and we Fathers go through many insults in order to enter joyfully into the city of God.'

What does this mean? Quite simply it is as St Thomas Aquinas says because 'joy is caused by love, either through the presence of the thing loved, or because of the proper good of the thing loved exists and endures in it.'

Joy is found in the love of Christ

As we journey through this season, the presence of the thing loved is threefold. Christ comes amongst us in flesh, whose feasts we shall soon celebrate. Christ who is present to us in so many ways now in the life we lead, and the Christ who will come again in glory. The expectation of these connections with Christ begins to fill our hearts with that gift the Spirit gives us, that of unending joy. But we have to collaborate with the gospel method, walk the road with Christ to train ourselves a little bit more. John the Baptist in today's gospel also outlines the methods of our actions, All that he mentions are right actions, concrete ways in which we fulfil the command to love our neighbour, and so increase the way of love. This is because the whole of the great commandment is based on a love greater than our own, for ourselves or our neighbour, for it begins and ends in that love we possess for God. Romano Guardini put this well when he wrote in his book, The Lord' :' The love Christ means is a live current that comes from God, is transmitted from person to person, and returns to God. It runs a sacred cycle reaching from God to an individual, from the individual to his neighbour, and back through faith to God'.

Amen. Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus come!

LECTIO

Introit of Gaudete Sunday

Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete. Modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus: Dominus enim prope est. Nihil solliciti sitis: sed in omni oratione et obsecratione cum gratiarum actione petitiones vestræ innotescant apud Deum. Benedixisti Domine terram tuam: avertisti captivitatem Jacob.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. Lord, you have blessed your land; you have turned away the captivity of Jacob.

Reading

Phil 4:4-7

Brothers and sisters:
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Prayer

The Joy of My Lord
By St Anselm (1033-1109)

I beseech You, O my God,
that I may know You, love You,
and rejoice in You.
If in this life, I cannot do these things fully,
grant that I may, at the least,
progress in them, from day to day.
Advance in me the knowledge of You now,
that in the life to come, it may be complete.
Increase in me the love of You here,
that there, it may be made full.
O God of truth.
I pray, that I may obtain
that which You promise,
that my joy may be complete.
And in the meantime,
let my mind meditate on it,
let my soul hunger after it
and my whole being long for it,
till at last, I enter into the joy of my Lord,
Who is God, blessed forever.
Amen