Third Sunday of Advent/B

Massimo Palombella

The present Sunday is called “Gaudete” from the first word of the Introitus, whose text (Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete. Dominus enim prope est) is taken from chapter 4 of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (Phil 4:4.5). Today the colour of the sacred vestments is pink (as on Lenten Sunday “Laetare”), to show us in a visual manner that Christmas is coming, that the Lord is near and that we are called to rejoice in it.

In today’s Gospel (Jn 1:6-8. 19-28) John the Baptist, responding to the Pharisees, says: “In the midst of you stands one whom you do not know”.

It may happen to us too that we do not really know the Lord, or sometimes that we do not recognise him at all. In fact, the knowledge of the Lord, the relationship with him, is something dynamic that grows, changes, deepens in relation to our maturing as persons.

The God I learnt to know as a child in catechism, the God I experienced as an adolescent in the youth groups of the parish or the oratory, the God with whom I related in the important choices of my life… Perhaps that God I can no longer find, perhaps that God today no longer says anything to my life, perhaps that God I no longer know.

Perhaps today I am placed in the happy opportunity to seek God, beyond the educational fools I have received and those I have created, that God who waits for me in my needs, in the truth I should tell myself and also realise.

That God who waits to relate to the person I am today, that God who waits for me, finally, in reality and not in a world invented to be apparently well.

To know God is, at the same time, to let myself be known by Him, it is to know and accept myself, it is to begin anew to taste ‘life in abundance’.

The Communion antiphon for today’s celebration is taken from the book of the Prophet Isaiah (Is 35:4) with the following text:
“Dicite: Pusillanimes confortamini, et nolite timere:
ecce Deus noster veniet, et salvabit nos.”

(Say: “Take courage, you who are fainthearted, and do not fear;
behold, our God will come and he will save us”).

The attached music, in Gregorian Chant, is taken from the Graduale Triplex published in Solesmes in 1979. The music track can be found on YouTube where there is no indication of interpretation.

A blessed Sunday and heartfelt greetings.