As it is a preparation period for the coming of the incarnated Christ in human birth of Jesus, with heightened alertness and diligent care, Advent is like an expectant mother going through the last leg of the third trimester of pregnancy, preparing to give birth to her child in her womb. If you are a mother, having been pregnant and given birth your child, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, or if you are an expectant mother, getting ready to go through labor and give birth to your child, or, if you are a husband, who has supported your wife during her pregnancy and delivery of your child, like Joseph, or a husband, who is currently helping your third-trimester pregnant wife, this makes better sense out of the season of Advent for Christmas.
Now we have come to the Third Week of Advent on the
Third Sunday of Advent, sensing the imminence of Christ’s coming –coming out of
Mary’s womb to nestle comfortably in our clean and warm hearts, not in a manger
any more, our hearts grow in joyful hope and our soul certainly rejoices over
the prospect of Christ’s coming in our hearts.
The Blessed Virgin Mary has been pregnant with the
incarnated Christ for almost 9 full months since the day of the Annunciation. The
Third Sunday of Advent reflects that she can give birth to the incarnated
Christ at any time from this point on for the rest of Advent.
Perhaps, she is feeling her Son in her womb moving, as
he is getting ready to come out of her body. Doesn’t it give her and her
husband, Joseph, increasing anticipatory joy to have a child to raise? Mothers
who have gone through pregnancy and child birth and expectant mothers who are
currently in the late third trimester can better relate their experience to
this expectant joy of “Gaudete Sunday”.
Because of this anticipatory joy, the Third Sunday of Advent (Dominica Tertia Adventus) is also known as Gaudete Sunday (Dominica Gaudete), which means “Sunday to rejoice”. In fact, the word, “gaudete” is taken from the introit of Third Sunday of Advent Mass:
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 modesty be known to all men: for the Lord is nigh. Be nothing
solicitous; but in everything by prayer let your requests be made known to God.
Lord, thou hast blessed thy land; thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob. (Philippians 4:4-6; Psalm 85:1-2)
This introit echoes the Second Reading (1 Thessalonians
5:16-24).
Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In
all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ
Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances. Test
everything; retain what is good. Refrain from every kind of evil. May the God
of peace himself make you perfectly holy and may you entirely, spirit, soul,
and body, be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
one who calls you is faithful, and he will also accomplish it.
These above words of Paul to the Thessalonians describe
how we are to live throughout Advent Season, especially from Third Sunday on.
In order to make sure that we rejoice always, pray unceasingly, and give thanks
to God in all circumstances, we must keep the flame the Holy Spirit in us,
because we are strengthened by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 3:16), as the Holy
Spirit is power (Acts 1:8). Because the Holy Spirit is the giver of life (John
6:63), quenching the Holy Spirit will make us lifeless.
The Holy Spirit is a powerful weapon to fight against
devil (Ephesians 6:17). Therefore, as we quench the Holy Spirit, we become more
susceptible to lose joy out of life, as Satan continue to attack us, trying to
rob joy out of life and eventually destroy life. This is why Paul urges the
Thessalonians, and us, to test everything to keep every evil and not to detest
the words of prophets. This way, we can keep our hearts clean and peaceful,
making and keeping ourselves fit to welcome Christ in our hearts. In other words, our Advent joy in imminent
anticipation of the arrival of the incarnated Christ to us is only possible as
we repent and make us clean and humble (Matthew 3:2). This is how we prepare
the straight highway of the incarnated Christ’s coming (Matthew 3:3; Isaiah
40:3).. If not, the spiritual “Mr. Glinch”, sent by Satan, in evil spirits,
will stealthily come to us and steal away our Advent joy and make us incapable
of rejoicing.
But, with the Holy Spirit empowering us to fend of
every evil, we can keep “Mr. Glinch” off and rejoice and pray and give thanks
to God all the time, no matter how our life’s situation may be. As long as we
do not quench the Holy Spirit, our joy, prayer, and thanksgiving to God, are
not affected by circumstances. Then, in hopeful anticipation of the coming of
Christ, we can express our joy, prayer, and gratefulness, as written in the
Book of Isaiah for the year of jubilee, rejoicing over the coming of a fresh
new start, granted by God, with gratitude:
I
will rejoice heartily in the Lord, my being exults in my God; for He has
clothed me with garments of salvation, and wrapped me with in a robe of
justice, like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem, as a bride adorns herself
with her jewels (Isaiah 61:10).
The kind of anticipatory joy reflected in the above
words from the Trito Isaiah is echoed by this canticle of Mary, known as the Magnificat:
My
soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
For He has looked upon His handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all
ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is
His name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear Him. He has shown
might with His arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown
down the rulers from their thrones but lifted the lowly. The hungry He has
filled with good things; the rich He has sent away empty. He has helped Israel
His servant, remembering His mercy, according to His promise to our fathers, to
Abraham and to his descendants forever (Luke 1:46-55).
Mary sang this when she visited her pregnant relative,
Elizabeth, while she was also pregnant. And she knew that the Son of God most
high was growing in her womb, reflecting what it means to carry the Son of God
in her womb.
In this regard, whether you have been pregnant with a
child or not, it is good to see yourself as pregnant with the Son of God, as
you vigilantly and carefully prepare the way of the coming of the incarnated
Christ. This way, you are an active agent to bring the incarnated Christ to
this world through your very being. Then, do you feel the kind of joy reflected
in Isaiah 61:10-11 and Luke 1:46-55? The joy you feel is even greater as you
recognize yourself to be a bearer of Christ in you so that you can rejoice over
the prospect of being clothed with salvation, robed with justice, as Christ’s
bride adorned with a royal diadem. And this is your reward for being
Christ-bearer, being pregnant with the incarnated Christ, putting yourself in
place of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In the above joyful canticle of Mary, the Magnificat, she reflects what the Son of
God in her womb will bring to Israel – and to the world through Israel:
His
mercy is from age to age to those who fear Him. He has shown might with His
arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers
from their thrones but lifted the lowly. The hungry He has filled with good
things; the rich He has sent away empty. He has helped Israel His servant,
remembering His mercy, according to His promise to our fathers, to Abraham and
to his descendants forever (Luke 1:50-55).
The unfolding mercy of God through Christ certainly is
a good reason to rejoice. And this is also reflected in Isaiah’s prophecy for
the coming of Christ (Messiah), the one anointed by God:
The
Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; He has sent
me to bring good news to the afflicted, to bind up the brokenhearted, to
proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners, to announce a year
of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God; To comfort all who
mourn; to place on those who mourn in Zion a diadem instead of ashes, to give
them oil of gladness instead of mourning, a glorious mantle instead of a faint
spirit (Isaiah 61:1-3; cf. Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 146:5-10;
147:1-20; cf. Leviticus 25:10-11).
From the above words in the Trito Isaiah for the year
of jubilee, Christ cited as he began his public ministry in his hometown,
Nazareth (Luke 4:18-19).
The First Reading (Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11) heralds a
new beginning with the coming of Christ in the year of jubilee, telling that God
is our joy because He brings us the glad tidings of salvation through Christ
(Messiah), the one anointed by God (vv. 1-2a), and takes us as His bride,
clothed with garments of salvation and wrapped in a robe of justice, so that
all the nations will praise (vv. 10-11). This points us to our eschatological
joy to be the bride of Christ and to enjoy the eternal nuptial union in New
Jerusalem of his Kingdom (Revelation 19:1-22:5).
The motif of coming of the salvific joy, brought by
the incarnated Christ, and the consummation of our redemption in his Kingdom,
is progressively reflected from Isaiah 59 to 66. For this mission, God comes to
us in Christ, incarnated in the human flesh of Jesus, conceived in and born of
Mary, to dwell among us (John 1:14, Luke 31, 35; 2:7), to save us from the
sphere of sin and to redeem us in his Kingdom, through his passion into death
(John 18:1-19:37), resurrection (John 20:1-29), and ascension (Luke 24:50-53;
Acts 1:6-11), to bring down the Holy Spirit on us (John 14:15-29; 16:7; Acts
1:8; 2:1-12) and to raise us from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:35-58) and judge,
upon his return, for eternal life, shepherding us into his Kingdom as his
bride. Before the consummation of this mission of Christ, Satan and his
servants will be completely destroyed (Revelation 20:11-15), as God had
prophesized in Eden (Genesis 3:15).
The joy being brought by Christ is everlasting as it
stands tests. It is not an illusionary joy that can be induced by carnal
pleasure. This salvific joy is not subject to impermanence, as it stands as the
words of Christ. That is why what we rejoice in our imminent anticipation of
the coming of the incarnated Christ has this eschatological implication.
Now, what does John the Baptist’s testimony of Christ,
described in the Gospel Reading (John1:6-8, 19-28) have to do with the joy of
imminent anticipation of the coming of the bearer of the glad tidings with an
eschatological implication?
John the Baptist’s testimony shows that John was
neither Christ (Messiah, whose coming was prophesized (Isaiah 9:6; Zechariah 9:9;
Micah 5:2), nor the returned Elijah (Malachi 3:23-24 (NABRE)/4:5-6(NRSV, NIV,
KJV) nor a prophet to emerge out of the Israelites (Deuteronomy 18:15-18). But
he humbly identified himself as:
I
am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the
Lord”, as the prophet Isaiah said (John 1:23; cf. Isaiah
40:3).
I
baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is
coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal
(John 1:26-27).
With these words, John the Baptist described himself
in relation to Christ. First, he came to prepare the way of Christ’s coming by
being the voice of one crying in the Judean wilderness by the Jordan River. He
prepared the way of the coming of Christ by baptizing people recognize the
nearness of Christ’s coming with water. Though he did this in service for
Christ, who was to come, John considered himself even less than Christ’s
servant, by saying that he was not even worthy to untie Christ’s sandal thong, not
only reflecting his humility but also emphasizing Christ’s greatness.
As described in the Gospel Reading (John1:6-8, 19-28),
John the Baptist was the forerunning messenger the good news of the imminent
appearance of the incarnated Christ (Malachi 3:1) to fulfill what was joyfully sung
by Mary (Luke 1:46-55) and written in Trito Isaiah (Isaiah 61:1-11).
In this regard, John the Baptist prepare what we
rejoice over and pray for and express our gratitude for.
On the Third Sunday of Advent, Dominica Gaudete,
not only that we rejoice over the imminence of Christ’s arrival in our hearts
but also joyfully reflect on what it would be like Mary in her late trimester
pregnancy with the Son of God Almighty and what he will bring to the world, as
the King and what it would be like to serve for the coming of the source and
the reason of this joy, like John the Baptist.
Soon and very soon, the incarnated Christ will be born
in our clean and warm heart, as we repent and purify ourselves as our
preparation. This will make us bearers of Christ (i.e. Galatians 2:20). In
fact, this is our call because we have been created in God’s image (Genesis
1:26-27). Because God is our joy (Isaiah 61:10), and Christ is our joy
(Philippians 4:4-5), we shall rejoice for being bearers of Christ, who is our
joy, either by being like Mary or by being his heralding forerunner, like John the
Baptist.
No comments:
Post a Comment