December 11, 2022: Third Sunday of Advent/Gaudete Sunday

Even as we are called to examine our lives and clear them out to be ready for the coming of Christ, we also rejoice in the reality that He is coming.

The reading from Isaiah speaks about the desert blooming in new life.

When St. John the Baptist, surely dealing with doubt while in prison, sends His disciples to inquire of Jesus if He really is the One to come, Jesus speaks about the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame leaping, the dead raised to new life, and the proclamation of Good News to the poor.

We rejoice in our efforts to welcome Christ into our hearts, because of how great it is that God is coming and is transforming us to live the Abundant Life.

So we open ourselves up to God and wait patiently for His work to come to full fruition in us, like the farmer waits for the crops.

We can bear patiently with the process, aware of the joyful end that is surely coming, by opening ourselves up to the signs of how God comes to be present to us now.

That's why we have this great opportunity on Gaudete Sunday to rejoice, with a joy that goes deep down and transcends our circumstances to make us more aware of God.

Gaudete Sunday brings back great memories of the amazing feast St. Teresa's would host for the college students the Sunday evening before semester final test week started.  I was gladdened by the feast, and also those community members who said they would be praying for me in the coming week.  There is great joy in that community.

And I rejoice further as I mark 9 years since I first started this blog on Gaudate Sunday 2013.