Rejoice! Today is Gaudete Sunday – which means Rejoice Sunday!
It’s called Rejoice Sunday because the word is repeated many times today. We hear it in the opening Antiphon at Mass from Paul’s letter to the Philippians:
: “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near.”
Rejoice is also at the heart of today’s first reading from Isaiah.
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor,
to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
It continues:
I rejoice heartily in the LORD,
in my God is the joy of my soul;
for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation
and wrapped me in a mantle of justice,
Today we are being offered this message as a gift. If we sit with it for a minute and ponder the words, it can be dizzying. We are invited to rejoice in a God who wants to be the “joy of our souls” and who has clothed us in salvation and wrapped us with a cloak of justice. What an amazing image to think that we have a God who loves us so deeply that he enfolds us in the very salvation we need.
This message is so heartwarming because we are the heartbroken God has come to heal. We are the poor who are receiving the glad tidings and we are the captives being offered liberty.
In a recent gospel from Luke, Jesus proclaims this message in the synagogue, acknowledging that he is the one who has been sent to heal, anoint and wrap in a cloak of love and justice.
So, why aren’t we rejoicing? We have this message of joy and hope from God, but we can be distracted by our own sense of isolation. Many things get in the way of our really receiving this good news, including our own sense unworthiness - who are we to receive that kind of love? But if we can really, really hear what Jesus is saying and wrap ourselves in that loving freedom, then the words of Isaiah, echoed by Jesus, give us a new sense of our own mission - the mission we have as baptized Christians. Now it is our job to not only accept that healing and love but to bring glad tidings to the poor, heal the brokenhearted and proclaim liberty to captives.
How can we bring glad tidings when we know our own lives are a mess and those around us are suffering so greatly? Pope Francis has said that the real joy of a Christian comes not from what our lives are right now - but from what Jesus promised to us.
Be courageous in suffering, he said, and remember that after that suffering, the Lord will come. When the hardships are over, joy will come, after the dark comes the sun. Pope Francis concluded by praying that God “give us all this joy in hope.”
In the letter to the Thessalonians we hear, “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks.”
John’s gospel for today writes of John the Baptist telling the Pharisees, “there is one among you whom you do not recognize,
the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”
This is the Third Sunday in Advent and a day to rejoice as we recognize Jesus in our presence, and feel him healing us in our most unlovable places; encouraging us to offering hope to the downtrodden, and holding us close, wrapped in a cloak of his gentle love.
Maureen McCann Waldron
The most important part of my life is my family – Jim my husband of 47 years and our two children. Our daughter Katy, a banker here in Omaha, and her husband John, have three wonderful children: Charlotte, Daniel and Elizabeth Grace. Our son Jack and his wife, Ellie, have added to our joy with their sons, Peter and Joseph.
I think family life is an incredible way to find God, even in (or maybe I should say, especially in) the most frustrating or mundane moments.
I am a native of the East Coast after graduating in 1971 from Archbishop John Carroll High School in suburban Philadelphia. I graduated from Creighton University in 1975 with a degree in Journalism and spent most of the next 20 years in corporate public relations in Omaha. I returned to Creighton in the 1990s and completed a master’s degree in Christian Spirituality in 1998.
As our children were growing up, my favorite times were always family dinners at home when the four of us would talk about our days. But now that our kids are gone from home, my husband and I have rediscovered how nice it is to have a quiet dinner together. I also have a special place in my heart for family vacations when the kids were little and four of us were away from home together. It’s a joy to be with my growing family.
Writing a Daily Reflection is always a graced moment, because only with God’s help could I ever write one. I know my own life is hectic, disjointed and imperfect and I know most of us have lives like that. I usually write from that point of view and I always seem to find some sentence, some word in the readings that speaks right to me, in all of my imperfection. I hope that whatever I write is in some way supportive of others.
It’s an incredibly humbling experience to hear from someone who was touched by something I wrote. Whether the note is from someone across campus or across the world, it makes me realize how connected we are all in our longing to grow closer to God.
