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December 12, 2021Rejoice, O Daughter Zion!
Today is popularly known as “Gaudete Sunday,” or the “Sunday of Rejoicing.” Today the words of the Prophet Zephaniah - “Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!” - remind us that our Advent waiting, and expectation are almost at an end. Throughout Advent, the readings and the Church’s liturgy have been forming our hearts and minds to watch, wait, and cultivate inner alertness. Of course, experience tells us that waiting can be difficult, and the interior alertness to which the Gospel calls us often exceeds the limits of our wounded and unsteady hearts. Knowing this firsthand, the last thing we may want to do is to yell “Rejoice!”
And yet this is precisely why the Church’s liturgy continually reminds and progressively reshapes us to master the art of Christian waiting, the graced art of faithful persistence in expectant hope. As flawed and striving human beings, we can and will experience stumbling blocks to our capacity to hope, and as sinners learning to be saints, we will frequently miss the mark. Nevertheless, as the Spirit forms us in the Mind of Christ, we learn to experience all things - even spiritual and moral failures - in light of Advent hope. In the silence of prayer and the Liturgy’s embrace we gradually come to experience Jesus’ vulnerable yet glorified humanity in the darkest places, and there touch the Face of God.
Advent reminds us that every day we await the full manifestation of the glory of God in Christ. Gaudete Sunday further reminds us that as we continue to receive the healing and restoration of that glory, it is in expectant hope that the Spirit sustains us as we are daily shaped into the living icons we are called to become, glorious images of the Risen One whose likeness has been engraved within us.
