Altar Front, Esker Church, for 3rd Sunday of Advent, 'Rejoice' Sunday.

Soul Food for Young Adult Communities: Dec.15th 2013. Third Sunday of Advent, Year A.

Click here or here for the Mass Readings for this Sunday. The Gospel is Matthew 11:2-11

Dear Friends.

Now, last Sunday the 8^thof December, we usually would have celebrated the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, but because it fell on a Sunday, the day of the Eucharist, the Sunday took precedence over the wonderful Feast Day. But this by no means diminished the centrality of Mary,

Pointing to her Son

but rather it illumined her even more. Mary always points to Christ, and never away from Him. So it was apt then that we honour her demand “do as He tells you”. Now, just to remind you,- because it is a simple mistake that many people make-  the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s own conception in the womb of her mother Ann. This was all part of God’s plan in bringing His Christ to us. Before Jesus came, someone was always preparing a spot for Him, a place only He could fill.

Pointing to Jesus, the 'Lamb'

In today’s Gospel we read of another character who points to Christ, and that is John the Baptist. We heard something about him last week, but today we learn that he is “even more than a prophet”, as Jesus tells us that John “is the man of whom Scripture says: I send my messenger ahead of you to prepare the way before you”. How important is this messenger? Well, very important. Can you recall the Annunciation? It was the moment in time the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and said ‘Yo Mary, will you like be like the mother of God’s only Son…like?’, and she in her humility responded “yes”. Then, what did she do? Did she brag to her friends that God had chosen her among all women? No. She went on a long trek over the hills to visit her cousin Elizabeth who, as the angel Gabriel promised was also pregnant. But, who was she pregnant with? I think we need to ask Zechariah. Oh, wait he can’t speak until Elizabeth gives birth. I will tell you anyways, her son is John. Jesus and John are related, they are cousins…like. There are some beautiful pictures which portray the infant John and the child Jesus playing together, watched over by Mary. Isn’t it

Mary and Elizabeth meet.

spectacular? I wonder what games they would have played as youngsters.

John was in the desert, pointing towards Jesus, and he admitted that he wasn’t even worthy to untie Jesus’ sandals, that the one coming was better than he. And this isn’t because Jesus always beat him at monopoly or scrabble, but because Jesus was someone great. Even before they were born, John was letting everyone know that Jesus was something else, was someone else,  because as soon as the voice of Mary was heard speaking to Elizabeth, John leaped in the womb and so began his mission. He was eager.

I was thinking, wouldn’t it be great if we could all reflect something of Jesus? How wonderful the world would be if we could all be little Christs roaming around and doing good. But we can, no matter how idealistic it may sound. We all have the ability to point to Jesus, to bring others to Him. As I said last week, my wilderness is Dublin, but even here I have the potential to bring Christ to others. And that is what we must do. Regardless of our surroundings, we must always point to Jesus. As the first reading tells us “let the wilderness and the arid land rejoice, the desert be glad and blossom”. The American poet Sylvia Plath in her poem ‘Black Rook in Rainy Weather” alludes to a something like this, a moment being “tricked” into radiance. That is just it. Every moment has the potential to radiate God, because He is in that moment.

Every morning as I walk to the bus, I always look at the sky. I probably look mad, but anyways. At that hour what I see is mesmerising. I see the stars, the sun, and the moon. I see clouds rolling over the dark blue tapestry becoming light. It is a wonderful sight to behold. It is all pointing towards someone, God. I stand in awe, and I am filled with such wonder. All this before 8am.

Today, Sunday the 15^th of December is traditionally known as Gaudate Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent, and ‘Gaudete’ means ‘Rejoice’. So regardless of what is going on, rejoice. Jesus is on His way: John in his prison wasn’t quite sure, so he sent messengers to Jesus  asking ‘Are you the one who is to come?’  Jesus’s answer to them was to go back and tell the imprisoned (soon to be beheaded!) John,-  “the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are brought back to life and good news is reaching the poor”. So come on, let’s all REJOICE!!! Like John the Baptist in the womb, leap with joy, you who hear the voice of Mary and who now hear with joy the words of Christ today. REJOICE…!

God bless

Sarah.

To read ‘Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities’ for this Sunday, click here.

Esker Church, for Third Sunday of Advent, 'Gaudete !' Sunday, -'Rejoice !'

Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities: Dec.15th 2013: 3rd Sunday of Advent, Year A.

Malachy 3:1 “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty. (quoted in today’s Gospel, Matthew 11:2-11.

A Reflection:

A DISCOURAGED WORLD MEETS THE LIGHT!

Newgrange Dawn

The days are short and getting shorter, the nights are long and getting longer. At least for the moment. But come the end of this week and we will have reached the turn of the year, the longest night of the year, the shortest day of the year, on Saturday 21^st December. Our Irish ancestors, over 5000 years ago, watched for this, too, and the burial mound at Newgrange testifies to this,- they watched for the rising of the sun on this morning of December 21^st, when the light flooded into the darkest and deepest chamber. A bit like our hearts and our societies at times, when all there seems to be around us is darkness, weariness, discouragement, violence,  sadness. And then that day comes when there is the turning of the year, and light floods our hearts, our communities, right to our depths. ‘It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness‘.

And in the face of that, how about this? The first Reading this third Sunday, this ‘Rejoice’ Sunday, speaks to all of us who have  ‘weary hands…trembling knees… faint hearts’. Isn’t this what the approaching celebration of the coming of the Christ into our world and into our lives, is all about? Hear the words deeply:

Strengthen all weary hands, steady all trembling knees, and say to all faint hearts ‘Courage! Do not be afraid. Look, your God is coming.’ ‘

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongues of the dumb sing for joy, for those whom the Lord has ransomed shall return….everlasting joy shall be on their faces…sorrow and lament will be ended.”

“They shall see the glory of the Lord, the splendour of our God.”

Our Lord,- yours and mine and all of ours- is on the way towards us, to flood the chambers of our hearts and communities with his glory, his presence, his own joy, his light. Our faces will be radiant when we gaze at the human child, the Son of the Most High, lying there for the world and for us in the feeding trough of the animals, and wrapped in the swaddling clothes of our welcome.

And then, in our blindnesses we will see, in our lameness we will begin to walk again, in our diseases we will be cleansed, our deafness will be taken away, and our deadness will waken up to a whole new aliveness, as we hear glad tidings of great joy announced to each of our hearts and communities.

‘Rejoice in the Lord, always! Again, I say, Rejoice! The Lord is near!’

Everlasting joy shall be on our faces!

Fr. Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.  seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com

To see ‘Soul Food for Young Adult Communities’ for this Sunday, click here.

‘Come dance with me!’was  a famous 1959 album by Frank Sinatra.

'Come dancing!'

And we’re all familiar with ‘Strictly Come Dancing‘, the competition on BBC where amateurs and professionals link up, for dancing!  And here today we have a prophet we scarcely ever hear of, called Zephaniah, telling us how God is ‘dancing with joy over us! Zephaniah lived about 640 BC, at a period when Judah had been under the heel of the great Assyrian Empire, and there was a lot of disorder and lots of false gods and corruption. There were beginning to be faint hopes of recovery and of religious reform. Sounds familiar, with our banks and Troika and the beginning of the Year of Faith? And here we have today this wonderful song from the end of Zeph’s book, about our God dancing with joy over us, and then Paul telling us to rejoice in the Lord always!

There’s a whiff of something,- or is it Some One?- in the air. Something is happening, Some One is coming, What must we do? What is being promised to us?

Can we hear these words of Zephaniah ringing like the Christmas bells in our ears and hearts? ‘Shout for joy… shout aloud… rejoice, exult with all your heart…The Lord is in your midst…have no fear… do not let your hands fall limp…He will exult with joy over you, he will renew you by his love; he will dance with shouts of joy for you…’  No wonder we can hear ‘Come, dance with me!’ from our God, this day, in December, 2012

And then Paul, to the small community of new disciples in the city that was left behind when the Roman army withdrew, and the stragglers and the hangers-on, and the poor were left behind in an abandoned city: ‘Rejoice!’ he says to them. ‘Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say Rejoice!’ ‘I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord!’  In other words ‘Lift up your hearts! We have lifted them up to the Lord! Let us give thanks to the Lord our God! It is right and just!’

Why are we rejoicing? Why is God dancing with joy? Because ‘Someone is coming’! Someone whose sandals we would not even be worthy to untie. Someone who will come and steep us to our core with the Holy Spirit and the fire that was and is in his own heart,- a Spirit of joy and consolation and zest for living and for loving, someone who wants us to be on fire too.

‘What must we do?’ is asked three times, by different people in different walks of life. And John tells them to act justly, to live rightly, as they await the One Who is to Come,-  Jesus, the Carpenter, from Nazareth.  Examine our lives to see if we are ready to receive the Master, and to have in us the Master’s Spirit, the Spirit of the Father.

On this ‘Rejoice’ Sunday or, in Latin, ‘Gaudete‘ Sunday, (where we light the rose-coloured candle on the Advent Wreathe) we are waiting for, and preparing to receive in a new way, the Risen Lord who is our very own flesh and blood and also Son of the Father,- the one who was born in a stable, grew up in a village,  preached in the countryside, and was killed outside the walls of a great city; the One who is risen and lives in our streets.

And if we welcome him again, as if for the very first time, then ‘the Father will dance’, surely!

Come, Lord Jesus! Maranatha!

Have a great week! Nine days to go!

Seamus.

Comments to:  seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie

LETTER TO SINEAD AND MARK, two young adults:

Dear Sinead and Mark,

Advent. Adventure! Adventurous! Go for it! Go for the adventure of  following the

Where Jesus is Lord, everybody is somebody, and faith is an ADVENTure!

Master, wherever he leads you. Hang on for the journey of your life! Welcoming the Master, who was born in a tiny stable in Palestine, and now fills the world with his presence… that’s the ADVENTure! And today’s Gospel (St. Luke 3:10-18) is about that wonder-full promise by John the Baptiser, ‘He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire‘- nothing cool about that, nothing luke-warm,- following Jesus of Nazareth is hot stiff! And when you do, you will be steeped in the very Spirit of Jesus that filled his heart and set him ‘on fire’ with love for every human being.

The Master is coming!

The readings offered us today are full of joy, rejoicing, dancing, and full of expectation,- He’s coming! He’s coming! ‘What must we do?‘ (3 times!)

There’s a beautiful hymn,  fairly recent, and it picks up on today’s first reading from someone we rarely hear of,- a prophet called Zephaniah, some several hundred years before Jesus. He is telling us to ‘shout for joy, shout aloud, rejoice, exult with all your heart…the Lord is in your midst, have no fear, do not let your hands fall limp…He will exult with joy over you, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for you...‘ Wow.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Paul tells his new disciples in Philippi ‘I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord’ Another translation is: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say Rejoice!’ And that’s why the Church calls this third Sunday of Advent ‘Rejoice Sunday’ or in Latin, ‘Gaudete Sunday’,- and instead of the dark purple candle on the Advent Wreathe, we have a light, rose-coloured candle, for this Rejoice Sunday.

Can I give you the words of that hymn, about your heavenly Father dancing with joy over you! Think about it. Your heavenly Father is crazy with love for you, and his feet are jumping up and down with delight. Enjoy the words, and then enjoy the love it sings about. You might find it on You Tube, and sing along with it.

God bless. Nine days to go! Nine days to prepare a home for Jesus, your own flesh and blood.

Seamus.

Comments to: seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie

And the Father will dance over you in joy!

He will take delight in whom He loves.

Is that a choir I hear, singing the praises of God?

No, the Lord God Himself is exulting o’er you in song!

And He will joy over you in song;

And He will joy over you in song.

My soul will make its boast in God,

For He has answered all my cries,

His faithfulness in me

is as sure as the dawn

of a new day.

Awake my soul!

Awake, my soul, and sing!

Let my spirit rejoice,

Let my spirit rejoice,

Let my spirit rejoice in God!

Sing, O daugther of Zion, with all of your heart!

Cast away fear for you have been restored!

Put on the garment of praise

as on a festival day.

Join with the Father in glorious, jubilant song!

And He will joy over you in song;

And He will joy over you in song.

And the Father will dance over you in joy!

He will take delight in whom He loves.

Is that a choir I hear, singing the praises of God?

No, the Lord God Himself is exulting o’er you in song!

God rejoices over you,

God rejoices over you,

God rejoices over you in song!