Author: admin

What is special about the Third Sunday of Advent? For much of the Church’s history, this Sunday had a special name: “Gaudete” Sunday.

“Gaudete” means rejoice.

The traditions surrounding this Sunday go back as far as the fourth or fifth century, as does the season of Advent itself.

Advent, our preparation for Christmas, was originally a forty-day penitential season like Lent. In fact, since it used to begin on November 12 (just after the Memorial of St. Martin of Tours), it was called “St. Martin’s Lent.” “Gaudete Sunday” was the Advent counterpart to “Laetare Sunday,” which marks the mid-point in Lent.

On Gaudete Sunday, the season of Advent shifts its focus. For the first two weeks of Advent, the focus can be summed up in the phrase, “The Lord is coming.” But beginning with Gaudete Sunday, the summary might be, “The Lord is near.” This shift is marked by a lighter mood and a heightened sense of joyous anticipation.

Liturgically, the colours lighten as well. The priest usually wears rose-coloured vestments, a hue seen only on Gaudete Sunday and Laetare Sunday. On this day, we light the third candle of the Advent wreath, which is also rose-coloured, or if you prefer, pink.

But lighting candles in Advent is more than liturgical tradition—it’s an act of prophetic hope, as one powerful example demonstrates.

In South Africa, in the face of racial injustice, people of faith began to pray together and, as a sign of their hope that one day the evil of apartheid would be overcome, they lit candles and placed them in their windows so that their neighbours, the government, and the whole world would see their belief.

And their government did see. They passed a law making it illegal, a politically subversive act, to light a candle and put it in your window. It was seen as a crime, as serious as owning and flaunting a gun.

The irony of this wasn’t missed by the children. At the height of the struggle against apartheid, the children of Soweto had a joke: “Our government,” they said, “is afraid of lit candles!”

It had reason to be. Eventually those burning candles, and the prayer and hope behind them, changed the wind in South Africa. Morally shamed by its own people, the government conceded that apartheid was wrong and dismantled it without a war, defeated by hope, brought down by lit candles backed by prayer.

Hope had changed the wind.

During the season of Advent, Christians are asked to light candles as a sign of hope. Unfortunately, this practice, ritualized in the lighting of the candles in the advent wreath, has in recent years been seen too much simply as piety (not that piety doesn’t have its own virtues, especially the virtue of nurturing hope inside our children).

But lighting a candle in hope is not just a pious, religious act; it’s a political act, a subversive one, and a prophetic one, as dangerous as brandishing a firearm.

To light an advent candle is to say, in the face of all that suggests the contrary, that God is still alive, still Lord of this world, and, because of that, all will be well. This is true irrespective of the evening news.

Three persons stand tall throughout our Advent liturgies: the prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist, and Mary, the mother of Jesus.

In our Sunday Gospel, taken from St Matthew (3:1–12), we are presented with the image and metaphor of the wilderness.

The Gospel tells us that John the Baptist was in the wilderness when he received the word of God.

The “wilderness of John the Baptist” refers to the Judean Desert, a barren and arid region east of Jerusalem near the Jordan River and the Dead Sea.

After this encounter, John went forth proclaiming a baptism of repentance. John’s example can help us with our spiritual preparations for Christmas (cf. Matt. 3:1–12).

The “wilderness” is an image for being alone with God.

In the midst of the hectic weeks before Christmas, the Gospel challenges us to create our own wilderness experience, to find a way to be alone with God. In the quiet, we receive the word of God and experience the conversion of heart that makes us receptive to God’s love manifested in the Christ-child.

The practical difficulty, at times, is finding the time to experience that wilderness time.

I am reminded of an incident from my own life. I had been in ministry as a priest for some three years and discovered my daily prayer routine had slipped from daily to occasional. I spoke with an elderly priest in the community in which I was living. He had been ordained some fifty years.

I explained my predicament, looking for some gentle understanding and sympathy, of course. He looked at me kindly and said, “We never have any trouble finding time for those things that really matter to us!”

For me, I realise now, it was not so much a question of finding the time, but rekindling the desire. Once the desire was rekindled, the answer was very easy. For 48 years now, I have gone to bed half an hour earlier and wakened the following morning half an hour earlier.

We are approaching a time of year many describe as “the silly season.”

The term derives from the newspaper industry and extends beyond Christmas itself to include all of summer. It is regarded as the season when newspapers often publish trivial material because of a lack of important news.

This time of year, for many, is also a time of much busyness and movement.

The shops have extended trading hours, and shopping malls have music playing from “Silent Night” to “Jingle Bells.” Children are visiting Santa and putting in their requests. Individuals and families are planning travel and Christmas dinner, deciding where to put the tree and which religious service to attend this year.

Silly and busy are not synonyms, but they do seem to sit together over this time of year.

There is a book published with the title “A Child in Winter: Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany with Caryll Houselander” (2000).

At the beginning of the book, the editor, Thomas Hoffman, writes: “Standing at the threshold of another Advent, we hear the invitation of Christ: ‘Come away to a deserted place and rest awhile.’ And so we begin our season of growth and expectation – a time to secret ourselves with Mary, to join our hearts with hers, and to grow pregnant with God together. God invites us to a quiet place of reflection and bounty. This Advent, choose some time for silence. Make space within yourself to grow large with the abundance of God’s favor. Make this a time to fill your lungs deeply with God so that you can breathe Christ into the world.” (p. 8)

My imagination was captured by the phrase “grow pregnant with God together.”

Much attention is given, liturgically and in the hustle and bustle of parish life, to making ready for the celebration of Christmas.

I suggest we spend these four weeks of Advent journeying with Mary. Remember, without her Christmas wouldn’t happen.

Our religious images of Mary during her pregnancy so often offer us a demure, self-assured young woman.

What must it have been like for Mary to attempt to explain to her parents, her relations and friends what had happened, what was happening?

Then to engage with her mother and other women of the village in monitoring the signs of being pregnant: a missed period, swollen breasts, fatigue, nausea and irritation.

Recall or speak with a mother and become involved with the physicality of pregnancy.

The season we call Advent is indeed a very physical time.

Journey with Mary this Advent.