As promised in the previous post, here is the Gaudete Sunday homily delivered by Rev. Richard Kramer of the Archdiocese of Washington. I think you'll find it edifying. --RC2
The Rev. Rick Kramer
Advent III, Year C
“Rejoice
in the Lord always.
I shall
say it again: rejoice!The Lord is near.”
This
third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday because ‘Gaudete,’ a Latin
word, means rejoice. It is the first
word in today’s, entrance antiphon or introit:
“Gaudete in Domino semper.”—Rejoice in
the Lord always.
Like
Lent, Advent is liturgical season with a penitential character--when we prepare
our hearts to celebrate both the Advent or coming of Christ into the world,
through our observance of Christmas, and our Christian hope that he will come
again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
We wear
the Rose colored vestments to indicate that on this day and in the midst of our
penitence, we pause to celebrate and rejoice that the Lord is near. Rose is a
lighter color, not yet white, and
certainly not pink, but lighter than violet. It is an indication that the
light that is coming into the world is, indeed, near.
And yet
on this ‘Rejoicing Sunday’ we are perplexed by the paradox that our joy is not
complete but that the exultation of our hearts has been turned into mourning.
Our hymn to gladdening light has been muted by dark clouds in the valley of
the shadow of death.
While
we hear the Word proclaimed, “the Lord is near,” our faith is confronted with
the question:
“Where
was God on Friday?”
Now
this is not a new question. Ever since
the first time God promised to be with his people, in times of persecution and
when confronted with senseless evil, believers have been asked, “Where now is
thy God?”
Our
first and most appropriate response is perhaps: silent grief.
The
media, however, rather than silence or grief would have us all relive the
horrific events moment by moment and in greater detail never telling the true
story of what happened. In addition, we
are besieged by a cacophony of opinions about gun control, accessibility to violent
video games, the need for a greater security presence in schools and access to
mental health care. Regardless of how necessary
these reforms may be, they, in themselves, cannot ensure a good moral outcome
in our society.
But I
do not wish to linger in the company of these modern-day friends of Job.
Our
attention, rather, must turn to the fact that last Friday, we saw the darkness
of evil exhibited in a remarkably clear way: in the meaninglessness of death and
senseless violence, --And our hearts are
grieved.
Admittedly,
the painful truth of our faith, however, is that we cannot account for God’s
silence. Simultaneously, we cannot
simply interpret God’s silence as either absence (that he was not there) or
complicity (that this evil serves some greater good).
The God
through whom the creation of the world was accomplished endowed us with freedom
to be agents, protagonists like him. That he has permitted our use of freedom
for evil purposes, however, does, not, in the least, diminish his goodness, nor
the fact that we are still created in his image from and for love.
Rather,
that he might deliver us from our captivity to sin and death, he loved the
world so much that he sent his only Son into the world that, through him, the
world might be saved.
Notice
how he accomplished this: by entering, himself, as a child, the Son of God and
Son of Mary, into the silent meaninglessness of death and exceeding and
overcoming evil through his resurrection, return to the Father, and outpouring
of the Holy Spirit.
This
great mystery, the scandal of our faith -that God could die- has made clear to
those with faith that we are living in a fractured world. We were made to radiate the light of God’s
goodness and love but we have silenced God and our
world has splintered into shards of piercing darkness.
We have
a need that we cannot attain on our own.
In the
midst of this silent wilderness, we hear the voice of John the Baptist, crying
out in today’s Gospel, the Good News, that Jesus comes into the world like one
gathering the harvest. This is an image
that affirms the reality that the world is fractured -that there are forces of
good and evil at work in the world-we hear that when he comes some of what has
happened in the world will be damned and like chaff thrown into the unquenchable
fire, but the good wheat he will gather into the barn.
So what
becomes of this wheat?
The
early Church Fathers saw in this Gospel imagery a depiction of the Eucharist.
The purpose of wheat is to be ground into flour and made into bread. This is the bread taken by Christ, blessed,
broken, and given to his disciples as his body.
At the same time, the disciples are like scattered grains of wheat to be
gathered into the body of Christ as the Church.
This is what we mean by communion.
Through
this Eucharistic meal we are nourished with his body and blood: the offering of
himself, as a pure, holy and spotless victim.
Through this meal we come to share the divine life of Christ as his body
the Church. In this communion with him, the
shards and pieces of our lives are gathered into one in him to shine through
the darkness; we are the light of the world.
The
conflict between good and evil has not ended.
The latest eruption of darkness in these last days has jarred us awake
to this reality. Please, we need no more evidence of this.
But
because of Jesus, because he came down from heaven and became man; Because the
cross redefines and transforms the terms of the conflict between good and evil,
by standing at the center of our world and history; Because of Christ’s victory
over sin and death which is given to us in this bread of life and cup of
salvation, we discover in God’s silence, not absence, but Hope.
Hope
which surpasses all our day in and day out hopes in our own personal struggles, Hope that confirms our right-headed
suspicion that there must be something good and holy in the world, Hope that
fulfills our lives and what we desire most—to find the truth and meaning of
life’s mystery, Hope which is presence, Emmanuel, God with us.
Because
Jesus, who has passed through death and is raised, leads us along the path to
eternal life—Because Jesus is with us—we have the courage to embrace godly and
reverent silence in the face of gratuitous evil and grieve.
And we
rejoice in hope, the Lord is near!
In Nomine…
