Joy
Why do we light the rose-colored candle today? Why the rose-colored vestments?
The rose-colored Advent candle, vestments, and roses on the altar, a break from the violet colors, remind us on this third Sunday of Advent of the joy of the coming of our Lord, and we rejoice! Today our penitential exercises we have been practicing during this season are suspended on this third Sunday of Advent, this Gaudete Sunday. “Gaudete” is Latin for “Rejoice” and today we take time to rejoice; to find joy in the One who has and who is coming. Jesus is near!
The One we truly await, the One our soul longs to encounter, the One who completes us, who gives full meaning to our lives has come…is coming…and will come again.
So we rejoice!
“I rejoice heartily in the LORD, in my God is the joy of my soul…” Isaiah tells us. (Isaiah 61:10)
And St. Paul writes, “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.” (1Thes 5:16-17)
Despite any troubles we may be going through personally, and despite what is happening in our world today, we are still able to rejoice, how so? Because on this Sunday we come to understand that our joy and rejoicing is not to be confused with pleasure and happiness. Pleasure gives us feelings and emotions of happiness, but emotions come and go. Joy is a state of being. Joy is a state of peace that is unyielding; that can stay with us and within us; that’s what this Gaudete Sunday is about.
We pray as we walk towards that manger; to the One whose sandal straps we are not worthy to untie. We are drawn to Him, we are called by Him, we continue to walk towards Him. In this time called Advent, in this pilgrimage of faith we find ourselves on this time of year….this pilgrimage of walking together towards Christ with the same anticipation and wonder and joy that the shepherds in the field must have felt as they walked towards the manger in Bethlehem, and as the Magi must have felt as they traveled from the East to see the baby Jesus…we too feel that wonder, that anticipation, that joy. For at the end of the day we know, and we believe that we are still people of hope…we are still people of The Good News. And we rejoice!
With Hope, Peace, and Joy.
Deacon David