Sunday, December 16, 2012

Gaudete in Domino Semper

The Collect for today does indeed explain our reason for anticipatory joy on this Third Sunday of Advent, being already so near the Feast of the Lord's Nativity:

"O God, who see how your people faithfully await the feast of the Lord’s Nativity, enable us, we pray, to attain the joys of so great a salvation, and to celebrate them always with solemn worship and glad rejoicing. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. – Amen."

As a child, the message of the lightened liturgical color - rose - for this Sunday came through loud and clear: Christmas is coming soon. It would be great if we adults could live our faith also with child-like immediacy and simplicity, truly rejoicing not only in the proximate Christmas season but in His nearness to us in our lives.  He rules and loves us: the Wonder Counselor, Mighty God,  Father Forever, Prince of Peace. As grown-ups we have all sorts of issues; we resist being consoled and enabled by the Good News of the Lord's birth to rejoice heartily. Maybe for that reason the Antiphon from Morning Prayer for Zachary's Canticle moved me particularly today. Although it is not Herod who detains us in prison against our will and on account of our witness to the Truth, we are often, with respect to the Lord, held bound and questioning:

"When John, in prison, heard of the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples with this question: Are you the One whose coming was foretold, or should we look for another?"

We, as adults, are far from child-like simplicity in many ways. Above all, we don't find ourselves living from feast to feast as the Church would have us live. Yes, we party; yes, we go from fete to fete. There has probably never been a time like now in Western Civilization where so much face-painting goes on at so many parties. Somehow, however, this new custom (not limited to children's birthday parties or carnival fairs but practiced also by grown-ups) sort of strikes me as slightly tragic, as not funny, but a distortion or distraction, like clown make-up, as a cover-up for an interior joy which is lacking. Our feasting is secular or in some fashion disconnected from the One in Whom we live, and move, and have our being.

We may not be in chains like John the Baptist, but in much the same way our life situation begs the same question, and rightly directed only to Jesus, Who doesn't seem to be standing there before us, if He is the One or if we should not be looking for another. Different from John the Baptist, who through his disciples outside of prison, asked directly and, upon receiving Christ's response, embraced His words there in prison with Advent joy, we may find it challenging despite our knowledge of the Faith to give ourselves in hope to "...solemn worship and glad rejoicing." If you will, we restrain ourselves from gladly following in the train of Him Who comes, of the Word made Flesh for our Salvation.

I suppose that it stems from our lack of commitment to Him, of failing to entrust ourselves to His power. It is a sin against hope. It is central to what we mean when we decry much of what goes on in society as non-culture or as a culture not life-giving but death-dealing. Beyond heartbreak, this would be the reason why, especially in times past, we shuddered at the very thought of someone so sad and confused that he or she would contemplate suicide. Gaudete in Domino semper! I say it again, rejoice!  St. Paul too rejoiced in his chains and in all he had to suffer for the sake of the Name. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

"O God, who see how your people faithfully await the feast of the Lord’s Nativity, enable us, we pray, to attain the joys of so great a salvation, and to celebrate them always with solemn worship and glad rejoicing. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. – Amen."


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