Rejoice! Exult! Be Glad!…for your God rejoices over you! The prophet Zephaniah extols us to “shout for joy”, to be glad and exult with all our hearts for our God has removed all our guilt and we have nothing to fear! The prophet boldly proclaims that our God is in our midst and that God rejoices over us and sings joyfully because of us!
This Sunday is known as “Gaudete Sunday” and we light the rose colored candle on the Advent wreath as a sign of our joy. And we are joyful because of the love our God has for us. In the Gospel we hear that when the people responded to John the Baptist’s call to repent, they asked “what should we do?” John’s response was “if you have two cloaks, share with the person who has none…and whoever has food should do likewise.”
So as we rejoice, repent and prepare we do so by turning our attention to the poor, the marginalized, the immigrant and refugee. In the midst of all of the vitriolic, hateful and racist language we are called to stand up and speak out and act on behalf of our sisters and brothers who are being maligned and victimized by supposed “Christians”! Our baptism, by water and the Holy Spirit, calls us to prioritize our lives around our discipleship of Jesus Christ. By keeping Christ at the center of our lives we find direction and are emboldened to become, more and more, manifestations of Christ’s presence in the midst of a wounded world to which we reach out, in love, to all those who are suffering and rejected or despised…we call them our sisters and brothers!
Let us rejoice, repent and prepare by living our discipleship by reaching out to “the lest ones”….speaking out and acting out on their behalf….and thus we will be ready for Christ’s coming. What will I do this week to rejoice, repent and prepare? With whom will is share an extra cloak, if I have one?
Advent Blessings,
Fr Tim
This Sunday is known as “Gaudete Sunday” and we light the rose colored candle on the Advent wreath as a sign of our joy. And we are joyful because of the love our God has for us. In the Gospel we hear that when the people responded to John the Baptist’s call to repent, they asked “what should we do?” John’s response was “if you have two cloaks, share with the person who has none…and whoever has food should do likewise.”
So as we rejoice, repent and prepare we do so by turning our attention to the poor, the marginalized, the immigrant and refugee. In the midst of all of the vitriolic, hateful and racist language we are called to stand up and speak out and act on behalf of our sisters and brothers who are being maligned and victimized by supposed “Christians”! Our baptism, by water and the Holy Spirit, calls us to prioritize our lives around our discipleship of Jesus Christ. By keeping Christ at the center of our lives we find direction and are emboldened to become, more and more, manifestations of Christ’s presence in the midst of a wounded world to which we reach out, in love, to all those who are suffering and rejected or despised…we call them our sisters and brothers!
Let us rejoice, repent and prepare by living our discipleship by reaching out to “the lest ones”….speaking out and acting out on their behalf….and thus we will be ready for Christ’s coming. What will I do this week to rejoice, repent and prepare? With whom will is share an extra cloak, if I have one?
Advent Blessings,
Fr Tim
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