3rd Sunday in Advent Year A

Third Sunday in Advent – Gaudete (Rejoice) Sunday

This weekend we celebrate, yes celebrate, what was traditionally known as Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday in Advent; the day when we made a deliberate intent to recognise what Christmas is all about, the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. We celebrate in spite of all the dreadful things that have happened this past year: the closing of the church during Lent and Easter; the additional closing of the doors last month; the many deaths and illnesses and so many people forced to live alone, isolated from their loved ones.

Yes – in spite of all of this, we still and must take the time to celebrate this weekend. We must listen to Paul when he writes to the Thessalonians and to us and says,

·         Be happy at all times

·         pray constantly

·         give thanks to God

·         never try to suppress the Spirit or treat the gift of prophecy with contempt

·         think before you do anything

·         hold on to what is good

·         avoid every form of evil

May the God of peace make you perfect and holy and may you all be kept safe and blameless – spirit body and soul for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God has called you and he will not fail you

Wow – what a list of things we are being told to do and to not do. How can we ever hope to meet them all? How can we ever achieve all of these things? I mean – the very first one is impossible on its own – don’t you think? Be happy at all times – who is St Paul kidding? It takes most of us most of our lives and most of our efforts and concentration to be happy some of the time, never mind all or even most of the time.

Is he being real? Is he being focused on us as humans, with all of our frailties?

I thought back to the start of this year when I was talking to a young child who was preparing for her First Sacraments and we were looking at the idea of God loving us and we/us loving God in return. How could we show that what we were doing was in love of God; was a reflection of His love for us. And the thing that helped bring this into focus and clarity was the story of St Teresa – The Little Flower.

Here it is.

Her message was not of doing huge and magnificent things; of achieving glorious and wondrous things; of surpassing everyone and anyone else in what we did – in how well we did them or in how often we did them.

No – her aim; her only aim was to identify the smallest of things – the littlest of achievements – and to celebrate them full, deliberately and wholeheartedly. She set out to identify and to recognise each and every challenge that she faced countless times each day and to aim to overcome them and offer that victory to God as a sign of her love for Him as a reflection of His love for her.

And when we apply that to today’s reading, I think it gives it a different focus, a different target and a much more realistic aim for our prayers and actions.

Be happy that what we are focusing on is what God wants for and from us.

Be happy that we are recognising all of the challenges that make up our day and that we are taking note of them and celebrating them as we offer them up to God.

Be happy that we know that what God wants from each of us is just this – to live our lives in full awareness of His love for us and that we seek every opportunity to reflect His love back to Him in how we face up to each challenge and in how we celebrate each victory.

Remember – Teresa didn’t have degrees or huge achievements. She offered each day – filled with every manner of small difficulty and challenge – back to God, knowing that she had tried her best to overcome each and every one of them and that the end result of every day fairly reflected her love for Him.

Think hard about your average day. Think about the many challenges you face – from getting out of bed, to dealing with no hot water, to dealing with the traffic and the ill-mannered drivers on the road and the list goes on from there. Think now about your average day in these troubled times, how many of the usual problems have gone and how they have been replaced with other issues, concerns, troubles.

I know that it is easy to say that we are missing the point of the wider picture; that of the poor state of humanity; the many people who are dealt with unfairly; the countries run unjustly, Covid – but – BUT

If we aim to improve our lives and the lives of those immediately around us – then possibly – possibly – the impact of our lives on theirs will have a rippling effect and possibly we will be able to have a positive and Godly effect on the wider communities and countries.

We lost our own Teresa these past days, who was in so many ways an example to us all in celebration, in welcome, in invitation, in inclusion, in happiness. May she rest in peace and may we follow her example and that of St Teresa who wanted to be God’s little flower, bringing joy and happiness to everyone. What a great example for us as we approach Christmas.

Gaudete! Rejoice! Celebrate! Be happy!