Waiting for the Lord

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Meditation for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, year A1

Third Sunday of Advent. Gaudete. Sunday of joy.

Until recently, Advent was a time of penance and sadness. Waiting for the Lord’s Christmas was associated with the expectation of His second coming, just like today. However, this expectation was dominated by the fear of the Judgment, which was understood as something terrible. The “doomsday” was said to be the day of horror, sudden changes, destruction, death. The fear of the Doomsday was about something much more dangerous: eternal punishment! Flames and torments from hell! Nobody really felt ready for such a court. Justice understood in a human way was considered the main attribute of God: the harsh justice of the law, so fear and trembling permeated every believer. Only hard repentance could appease God. Hence, numerous, often severe, penance practices were undertaken. Asceticism of all kinds, strict fasts. The liturgy emphasized a certain emptying (organ was not playing, there were no flowers on the altar) related to the penance of the whole Church so that it would be ready, cleansed for the coming of the Lord.

Therefore, during Advent, experienced in this way, after three weeks of mortification and fear, people looked forward to the third, finally joyful Sunday. Pink chasubles, instead of purple, penitential ones, altar decorated with flowers, organ music. As if only this Sunday reminds us that we are waiting for the birth of a Savior, and not a strict Judge.

Slowly but systematically, God changes our thinking, which is expressed both in the documents and activities of successive Popes, in the renewed liturgy, and in the transformation of our personal relationship with the Lord. For several decades, he has been reaching our awareness and beliefs that the most important attribute of God is mercy.

Pope Francis in an interview with Stefani Falasca, published in the Catholic journal Avenire, says: “God’s name is Mercy (…). The Church is a tool, it exists only to announce to people the merciful plan of God “(I quote from Tygodnik Powszechny No. 49,” I do not blur the doctrine “).

So how do you expect? And for what? If we are waiting for the Savior’s Birth and the second coming of the One who died out of love for us, if our sins are covered by God’s ardent mercy, if they are ALREADY forgiven by Christ’s death and resurrection – what to fear? Does it make sense to practice asceticism out of fear of punishment and in the hope of avoiding it? Shouldn’t these motives be replaced by joy? Should we not open our hearts rather than focus on mortifying our flesh? So does Gaudete Sunday no longer matter – because all Sundays are a joyful expectation?

If it were so, we wouldn’t be reading so many beautiful texts this Sunday that lift the heart in more and more intense joy …

“Let the desert and parched earth cheer up,

let the steppe rejoice and bloom! ” The prophet Isaiah exclaims.

And then:

“Give up weak hands,

strengthen your faint knees (…).

Here comes God’s retribution;

He himself comes to save you.

Then the eyes of the blind will see through

and deaf ears will open.

Then the lame man will jump out like a deer

and the tongue of the dumb will shout merrily.

And redeemed by the Lord will return.

They will come to Zion with joyful singing,

with eternal happiness on their faces.

They will have joy and happiness

the sadness and sighing will be gone. ”

Isaiah does not often sing such joyful hymns. His inspiration finds its almost literal echo in Jesus’ answer to the question of John’s disciples whether he is the Messiah:

“Jesus answered them:” Go and tell John what you hear and what you see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, the lepers get cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise, the poor are preached to the Gospel. ”

To the healings mentioned by Isaiah is added the resurrection of the dead and the proclamation of the Good News to the poor, in this order.

These words of Jesus, spoken at the very beginning of His activity, reveal to us all the richness that the Savior bestows on us, even before He did His work on the Cross. This action reveals not only the power of God, but most of all His enormous love. Our joy grows, our horizons widen, we are strengthened in waiting in the midst of reality as it is. And it is sometimes terrifying, or at least annoying. Our waiting for the Lord is impatient. “I cry to you in my longing, Lord, will you come this night?” Exclaimed the French singer Duvall fervently.

Sometimes tired of waiting – we watch and watch and nothing happens – we start to let go. Vigil weakens, hope dies, we begin to see evil, a beam in the eye of the other, anger arises in us, quarrels and divisions not only appear, but become almost insurmountable.

“Be patient, brothers, until the Lord comes,” he writes in a letter to his impatient brethren, but also to us, St. James the Apostle. “Do not complain, brethren, against one another, lest you be judged. Here is the judge at the door. Do not complain, do not argue, do not deepen the resentment among yourself, lest it turn into hatred.

What current warnings! How much they talk to us and about us!

“Blessed is he who does not doubt me,” we read in the Gospel.

And whoever does not hesitate, will open up to his brothers, will strive for agreement, for reconciliation. For how can one rejoice when he hates and sees enemies in his brothers? How can a pure heart rejoice at the coming of the Lord, without regard to the fact that the brothers are suffering on our doorstep, that they need our help? How can one break the wafer, knowing that one has not lifted a finger to ease the fate of those who suffer cold, hunger, disease, wandering, loss of loved ones? How can one sing a carol with a pure heart when the covering for the traveler is sacred and necessary by tradition, as long as it is empty?

The cry from today’s Psalm “Come, Lord to save us” and from the first Sunday of Advent “Let us joyfully meet” create the dynamics of our relationship with the Lord, which consists of waiting and running; hope-filled patience and joyful activity.

Third Sunday of Advent. Gaudete. The Lord is near. We await him, but let us remember that he also awaits us in the poor, the suffering, the homeless, the exiled and refugees. We need not only to sit and wait. You have to go out with joy! There is still time!