Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent (C)

Today is the Third Sunday of our Advent season, which is known as Gaudate Sunday.  The word Gaudate means ‘Rejoice’ and it gives its name to this Third Sunday of Advent because it is the very first word spoken in the entrance antiphon of today’s Mass, and because the theme of rejoicing repeats itself in several of our readings.

In our first reading the prophet Zephaniah tells us: “Shout for joy and sing joyfully;” our responsorial Psalm admonishes us to “cry out with joy and gladness;” and in our second reading St. Paul encourages the faithful to “rejoice in the Lord always; I shall say it again: rejoice!” 

Normally on this Third Sunday of Advent we recognize just how close we are to our celebration of Christmas, and how near God is to us every day – and so we put the penitential color of purple aside for a week, and we allow the joyful, white brilliance of Christmas to seep in and make a beautiful rose.

But on this particular Third Sunday of Advent it is nearly impossible for us to think of rejoicing.  Our hearts and minds are too preoccupied by the horrifying news from Newtown, Connecticut. 

We are thinking of the littlest victims whose young lives were snuffed out, and those other children whose innocence was so abruptly taken from them.  We are praying for the parents whose arms and homes were so tragically empty last night, and those other parents who search for the words to explain this to their children and to comfort them.  

And together all of us are searching for answers.  How could this have happened?  Why did that troubled young man do such a horrible thing?  How can we keep it from ever happening again?  How could God have let this happen and where can He be found amidst these awful events?

At first glance, our readings – focused as they are on rejoicing – might not seem to offer many answers.  But I think if we take a closer look we might, in fact, find that just the opposite is true.  In our first reading Zephaniah tells the people, “fear not, do not be discouraged;” in the Psalm we are told to be “confident and unafraid;” and in our second reading St. Paul instructs us to “have no anxiety at all.”  

Friends, that’s because when Zephaniah, and the Psalmist, and St. Paul speak of rejoicing none of them are talking about a constant state of giddiness.  They are not encouraging us into a naïve blissfulness that willfully ignores the violence, loss, and grief, the struggles and hardships that we so often face, and certainly confront right now.

Rather, all of our readings today take such things as a given, and that is precisely why they begin by acknowledging our fear, doubt, and even our anger.  But they also refuse to leave us in such a place: they point a way forward, and they help answer at least one of the many questions that we always ask when tragedies like this occur.

Our readings tonight help us answer the troubling question, “Where is God in all of this?”  The prophet Zephaniah tells us, “the Lord your God is in your midst;” the Psalmist proclaims: “great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel;” and St. Paul assures us simply “the Lord is near.”

Friends, the lesson of this Advent and Christmas season is that our God is indeed very close to us – especially when we endure injustice and encounter the evil of violence and death.  These seasons point us to a God born in the flesh, born as a child so poor He is laid to rest not in a crib in a nursery, but in a manger in a stable … a child who is hunted by a mass murderer and exiled to a foreign country … a child, grown into a man, who is unjustly arrested and tried, brutally tortured and publicly executed … all in order to save us from our sins! 

And so, brothers and sisters, if we want to know where we can find God in events like yesterday we need look no further than the children who huddled in classrooms and closets fearful of a madman who sought their lives; we can find His presence in the teachers who shepherded their students to safety, and the principal who lived and died with such great devotion to education; and of course we can see God the Father, and Mary the Mother of God, in the faces of mothers and fathers who weep and mourn for their sons and daughters. 

Our God is Emmanuel – God with us!  He is so very near, so intimately close to us, that He has shared with us the suffering and death of human life – and He has conquered them!  That is why, even amidst such awful tragedy and loss, such grief, doubt, and fear, we cling desperately to a hope and a joy that the world cannot give, and therefore that the world cannot take away either:

We cling to Jesus Christ, our Savior, the fulfillment of all our longings, the answer to all our doubts, the source of all our healing and our glad tidings.  He is even now in our midst, and He will come again at the end of time to usher in the fullness of His kingdom.

Friends, tonight our hearts and minds are with our brothers and sisters in Connecticut, and with our own children and families.  Our hearts break and our minds reel trying to make sense of all that has happened.  But we pray, with the confidence that God is close to us, that “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”