Rejoice

Rejoice? How can we rejoice? We are ending a year of tragic sequences, a year of calamities, Milenyo had wreaked hell, devastating life and property. Following close, Reming has been washing away so many lives, pitifully scattered on the never-ending grave of a shoreline. While we, even now, hear the cries of distress of so many thousands who are suffering, who mourn for murdered loved ones, who are sick and starving. How then can we become insensitive to all the grief which stalks the land? How rejoice?

The Word for the third Sunday of Advent also called Rose Sunday, gives the answer. The prophet Zephaniah puts in proper perspective the answer to our questioning: "Cry out with joy . . . rejoice . . . Sing joyfully with all your heart . . . for Yahweh your God . . . is with you . . . has revived his love." St. Paul the best spokesman in today’s joyous spirit, gives the answer while setting the tone" "Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again, rejoice . . . The Lord is near . . . " The Good News from St. John the Baptist proclaims: " . . . there is one to come who is mightier than I . . . I am not fit to loosen his sandal . . . He comes . . . to clear his threshing floor and gather the grain into his barn . . . " This implied nearness constitutes the focal point of today’s liturgy and is primary motive for joy. It is the nearness of the Kingdom of God. We rejoice because of God. We rejoice because the Kingdom of God is near.

What is the Kingdom of God here and now? It is the very life of God Himself given as gift to us. It is the most precious treasure we carry when we are said to be in the ‘state of grace’. It is the Kingdom of God within us, the Triune God Himself abiding in us, the solid basis to our rejoicing. The Kingdom of God is our highest good. To believe in strongest faith that it is so would make all the troubles of life incapable of dampening our joy. Only a person in the state of grace can experience true joy, and because the Kingdom of God is within him, he becomes a bearer of peace, radiating joy to everyone everywhere. It is our fundamental duty as Christians to preserve this heavenly gift for the world. Volcanoes may erupt, storms may sweep the land, if we have this very life of God, the Kingdom of God within us, we are saved; we do not pass away. It is that which makes of us ‘eternal man,’ godlike – the only passport we can carry with us hereafter to the eternal Kingdom.

While the deep violet of Advent vestments soften to a roseate lavender hue, symbolic of joy in sacrifice, we rejoice because we know this is the greatest hope we have in Christ, one of the most profound and most beautiful truths celebrated by the Church year. And this truth is a revelation of joy for all – young and old, rich and poor, sick and healthy, sinner and saint. We should all be happy in this thought, that the Father, in Christ through the Holy Spirit dwells in God’s children and that Christ reveals Himself anew every moment of our lives. Like little children, then, we await the Christ Child, and as we do, we reflect, hardly able to contain our happiness because ours is the priceless gift of the Kingdom of God.

3rd Sunday of Advent, Lk 3:10-18