Dear Brothers and Sisters,
On this Gaudete Sunday the Lord tells us to rejoice. Gaudete is Latin for rejoice or exult because the time of waiting for the Lord is almost over. All of the readings today have this flavor or joy. Jesus Christ is coming closer to our lives. It is a beautiful Sunday because the Church tells you that the Lord is closer to you, closer to meeting you. Let us rejoice because our time of waiting is almost over. He is telling us: I will be born soon, and I want to come into your life; I want to be born in you. This is Christmas. The culture has lost the meaning of Christmas. We think that Christmas is about shopping or about singing carols or the Christmas Eve dinner with seven or nine kinds of fish. There are all good things, but they miss the mark of the true meaning. The essential meaning of Christmas is that Christ wants to come into your life and become one with you. To be born in you is not a childish phrase. He truly wants to be born in the heart of each and every one of us. He wants to enter that heart of ours that is a manger. He wants to come with us so that we can be full of joy, so that we can be cheerful. He always brings a good news and is going to make of you a new person.
St. Paul says rejoice always because he knows we are not always cheerful; we are not always happy. We are happy when things go our way, when our projects are fulfilled, when our will is done, then we are happy. This is why he says rejoice always. How are you at home? I imagine there are many sad faces, and that sorrow comes from trusting in our idols. They always make us sad. The one who is coming is not an idol; he is the one who gives you true life. This is the spirit of Christmas. The One Who is Coming makes you truly happy. Finally, there is someone who will make you happy, to help you to love and who will give you heaven; he will give you eternal life.
He gives you the power to be able to live chastity, to give up pornography, to be faithful to your spouse, to not gossip, to not grumble, to not believe you are better than others. St. Paul says refrain from every kind of evil and the God of peace will make you holy, in spirit, soul and body, and be blameless for the coming of the Lord. It might seem that St. Paul is being demanding that we have to be good. This word ‘have to be’ for us Christians is a bad word. We don’t have to do anything. The Lord will do it all. He will do the work and give you the ability to do what you want to do. He will give you the desire to convert, to change your heart, and he will make it happen. All of this comes from the Lord. This is why the Lord invites us to rest and to rejoice because he will do it.
Look and see how St. Paul ends this reading: the one who calls you is faithful, and he will accomplish it; he will do it. How wonderful this is. For so many people faith is to listen to demands but this is not so. It is like someone saying you have to make two million dollars this year, but don’t worry I will give it to you. How wonderful! The Lord will make us holy, brothers and sisters, and that is why he is coming to make us holy so that we can love because to be holy means to love. The one who loves is happier than the one who does not love. The one who does not love is not happy because he is frustrated.
The Good News today is that John the Baptist exhorts us and says there is one coming that you do not recognize whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie. You don’t know him; you heard of him, maybe, but many do not know him. Perhaps, many have never met him. Don’t worry, the Lord is coming and you will see him. Where will you see him? The Scriptures say that he will come in the midst of the clouds. The clouds are our problems. The clouds block the sun that is Christ. In the midst of these clouds comes the Lord dressed in majesty and girded with power. He comes to our life with power to free us from whatever enslaves us, to free us from whatever frustrates us and therefore saddens us. That is why St. Paul says: rejoice always!
This is why the priest can wear rose colored vestments today; it is one of two days that he can do it. It represents a little bit of joy as a change from the purple which is a bit more penitential. The rose color is more cheerful so be cheerful because it is an outward sign of what we want to have inside of us. It is the Lord who gives us this joy in my life. Once again, we hear a voice in the wilderness, in the desert that we are in that is so often a disaster; this is when he comes to us and baptizes us to make us new men and women. He sees our dryness and sufferings, our rottenness and sadness and that is why he approaches us out of love.
He comes to bring us together and in a special way to be present on this altar. He is present in the Word of God we have heard, in the preaching, in that depression, which is the Jordan, the lowest point of the earth. He is present in the voice that cries out: convert, make straight the way of the Lord. It is amazing when someone exhorts us to convert because it is not a demand but rather a chance to be loved. Jesus tells us one thing: you can love because I have loved you so rejoice! I have loved you and one day you will be able to love like me!