Rejoicing and hope. This is the message of the readings this Gaudete Sunday. God will bring joy to His people. In the gospel reading, Jesus quotes the prophecy of Isaiah which we hear in the first reading. The disciples of John the Baptist come to ask Him if He is the Messiah. He responds \u201cGo and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them\u201d (Mt 11:4-5). Jesus is carrying out His mission of healing broken humanity. But this healing goes deeper than mere physical illnesses. Jesus came to heal the human soul, broken because of sin. And He does this ultimately through His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. This is our cause for rejoicing, that our God has come to ransom His people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there is an element of hope because this rejoicing is not yet ours. The second reading speaks of being patient in suffering as the prophets were. The prophets point towards the future rejoicing that God brings to His people. This is the hope of the prophets, the promise of salvation. John the Baptist is the example presented to us in the readings. John is sent to prepare the way of the Lord. He is to announce the hope of salvation and rejoicing to God\u2019s people with patient endurance. He is not a reed that bends in the wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Notice that Jesus chooses to come after John has prepared the way for Him. In the same way, each of us, the \u201cleast in the kingdom of heaven,\u201d (Mt 11:11) is called to prepare the way of the Lord. We are called to bear witness to the hope we have of salvation through the patient endurance of the sufferings of this life. In this way, we will show our hope of rejoicing with God forever in our heavenly homeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Daniel Phillips<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 St. Joseph Seminary, Edmonton, Alberta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fot. Matt Briney\/Unsplash.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 3rd Sunday of Advent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-strona-glowna-najnowsze","category-strona-glowna-slider"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n