The Dominican nuns of Our Lady of Grace Monastery welcomed the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, the Order of Malta – Connecticut North East Area and the Fraternity of St. Dominic for Solemn Vespers for Gaudete Sunday.
Chaplains to the two Orders, Fr Peter J. Langevin and Fr Joe MacNeill sat in choir.
Fr Brian Mulchay, OP, presided and preached.
On this Third Sunday of Advent —Gaudete Sunday—, or the Sunday of the Forefathers (as it is called on the Byzantine liturgical calendar) we have some things to consider.
As friend drew my attention to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s reflection on Advent which really caused me to think about the state of my soul. Complacency (mediocrity) is an enemy to one’s preparation to receive the Newborn Lord at Christmas. Of course, Gaudete Sunday with its exhortation to rejoice is has its own strength to mind. Here’s what Bonhoeffer said: “The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manger. God comes. The Lord Jesus comes. Christmas comes. Christians rejoice!”
Right now I am feeling troubled of soul, poor and imperfect; sin has taken over and there is a need for reconciliation. Perhaps you are feeling something similar. The sacred Liturgy of the Latin Church for Gaudete Sunday teaches us something we need to bring to our discernment of things. Deep down in my being I know that I need to be humble in fact, and not merely as an abstraction. Deep down in my being I desire “to attain the joys of so great a salvation” known affectively “with solemn worship and glad rejoicing” through the beauty of living reality as it is and not as I want it to be. Deep down in my being I want “something greater.” I want to the Lord.
Moving through the Nativity Fast that is observed by the Byzantine Church preparing for the newborn Lord, we acknowledge and desire that what the martyrs experienced, “in their struggle,” we may “receive an incorruptible crown from you.” And that “With your strength, they brought down the tyrants and broke the cowardly valor of demons.”
I can tell you from experience that the struggle against the demons is difficult. What I also know is that only God’s grace and the companionship of others makes it possible to receive the gift of the incorruptible crown.
Bonhoeffer names the truth for us that ought not be missed in the season’s chaos —our looking forward to something greater to come: “Holy One himself … God in the child in the manger.”
May we know the substance of what the priest prays: “that with this divine sustenance [the Gospel proclaimed and preacher AND Eucharist] may cleanse us of our faults and prepare us for the coming feasts” (The Prayer after Communion).
May St. Benedict guide us.
We have arrived at Gaudete Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent. It’s a short time before the celebration of the Lord’s Nativity. In both forms of the sacred Liturgy we encounter the Lord’s cousin, Saint John the Baptist. The supreme lesson the Baptist teaches is that we are not Jesus, which seems obvious to say but in reality so many think they are the messiah and therefore do not live in humility. Here is an excerpt from a meditation by Saint Augustine on the Prophet Saint John the Baptist:
“What does to prepare the way mean, except to pray as you ought, to be humble-minded? Take an example of humility from John himself. He is thought to be the Christ, but he says he is not what people think. He does not use the mistake of others to feed his own pride. Suppose he had said: I am the Christ. How easily would he have been believed, since that was what people were thinking before he spoke! But he did not say it. He acknowledged who he was, distinguished himself from Christ, humbled himself.”
Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice; let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.
Gaudete Sunday is called such because of the first word in Latin of the antiphon that begins, Gaudete…Rejoice…. The full antiphon is noted above. It orients our prayer and Mass today! The presence of the Lord is acknowledged to be here, right now, in our midst. Catholics are a people full of joy today and everyday of our existence. The Presence of the Lord is always in our midst: in the Eucharist, sacred Scripture, in our hearts and in our community. Pope Benedict offers us a perspective on an aspect of this joy:
The root of man’s joy is the harmony he enjoys with himself. He lives in this affirmation. And only one who can accept himself can also accept the you, can accept the world. The reason why an individual cannot accept the you, cannot come to terms with him, is that he does not like his own I [the I is the whole self, one’s entire body, soul and mind] and, for that reason, cannot accept a you. Something strange happens here. We have seen that the inability to accept one’s I leads to the inability to accept a you. But how does one go about affirming, assenting to, one’s I?
The answer may perhaps be unexpected: We cannot do so by our own efforts alone.
Of ourselves, we cannot come to terms with ourselves. Our I becomes acceptable to us only if it has first become accept to another I. We can love ourselves only if we first been loved by someone else. The life a mother gives to her child is not just physical life; she gives total life when takes the child’s tears and turns them into smiles. It is only when life has been accepted and is perceived as accepted that it becomes also acceptable. Man is that strange creature that needs not just physical birth but also appreciation if he is to subsist… If an individual is to accept himself, someone must say to him: “It is good that you exist” -must say it, not with words, but with that act of the entire being that we call love.
For it is the way of love to will the other’s existence and, at the same time, to bring that existence forth again. The key to the I lies with the you; the way to the you leads through the I.
(Benedictus, 2006)
