During the Christmas Season we celebrate in a major way the fact that God has entered into his own creation — God is with us. From Christmas Day when we celebrate the birth of Jesus as Emmanuel (“God with us”) to the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord when the voice of the Father is heard saying, “This is my beloved Son,” we celebrate that God has come into the world. But what has God come to do?
The third Sunday of Advent is a bit different. We light the pink candle on the Advent wreath. The sacred ministers at Mass wear rose colored vestments; a lightening of the penitential color of purple as we near the end of the season. We even have a special name for this Sunday: Gaudete, which is Latin for “rejoice!” But why do we call it that? Where does the name come from? We answer that question in this week’s video…
This Sunday we are introduced to St. John the Baptist, the voice crying out in the wilderness to “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” and to “prepare the way of the Lord.” People respond to his call by coming to him for baptism in the Jordan, acknowledging their sins.
College students often talk about post-college life as the “real world.” This isn’t because life in college is not real, but we know it is temporary. We should be spending out time in college, therefore, in ways that help to prepare us to enter that “real world” that lies beyond.
This coming Sunday, Dec. 1, is the Liturgical “New Year” for the Catholic Church. Every year, our liturgical cycle begins anew on the First Sunday of Advent.
