THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT – 16^th /17^th DECEMBER 2023

Dear Parishioners,

This third weekend of advent is Gaudete Sunday, the priests will wear pink and we will light the pink candle on our advent wreath.  Gaudete in Latin means rejoice.  So, in the middle of the Advent call to repentance and to prepare, we are invited by the church to rejoice.   We rejoice because the Lord is near and because at the centre of it all He is always our greatest reason to rejoice and the ultimate source of our joy. 

As we move deeper into winter, and the trees are bare, and the darkness of the night seems to come very quickly in the evenings, and when we look at the plight of the world around us with extreme poverty on our doorstep, the terrible tragedy of war and the messy state of politics, when we hear about so many people living in loneliness and suffering in pain and illness, it feels like we are in darkness, like we are living in a wilderness.  Yet, in the middle of all this the church invites us to Gaudete, to rejoice because the Lord is near and because He is the answer.

John the Baptist in the gospel reading of today echoes this message too.  From his own wilderness he cries out for us to make a straight way for the Lord because He is coming. With all of John’s being, from the apparent “weirdness” of his attire to his action of baptising and his words he points people towards Jesus.

We too are invited to live our lives and our whole being in the same way pointing towards Jesus.  John, in the gospel, points out that “There stands among you, unknown to you, the one who is coming after me and I am not fit to undo His sandal straps”.  It is a statement which is just as true today.  Even though Jesus is coming into the world, even though Jesus is present in the world, in the midst of all the Christmas busyness, Christmas parties, preparations and festivities Jesus can sometimes seem unknown.

But, we do not lose hope and we rejoice that Jesus is coming because like John we too can point to Him.  Through our lives, in who we are and because we know Him and His love and joy we take Him into the world. The Gospel tells us that all this took place in “Bethany on the far side of the Jordan where John was working baptising and speaking about Jesus”.  It took place in a concrete place, where John was working and through the way he lived his life.  We too are invited to do the same here in London, in West green, North of the River Thames in our workplaces, with our friends, in our families, in our Christmas festivities to take Jesus and to point to Him and to show that the reason that we Have hope and joy in the midst of the wilderness and darkness and suffering is because of Jesus who is our hope and our joy.

Ann Marie, FMVD