. . . everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. ~ Isaiah 35:10b

Today, the Third Sunday of Advent, is known as GAUDETE SUNDAY or Rejoice Sunday. Guadete in Latin means rejoice and is taken from the entrance antiphon at Mass:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near

which itself is drawn from Philippians 4:4-5. It is noteworthy that Advent—a season of anticipative waiting—and Lent—a season of repentance and baptismal promise—each have a celebration at the midway point in the season in which the theme or spirit is one of JOY, more accurately, rejoicing, being joy-ful, being glad. In Lent the Third Sunday is called LAETARE SUNDAY which also means Rejoice Sunday. In the Sunday liturgy the brief infusion of joy is seen in the violet (Advent) or purple (Lent) vestments, altar cloth, and banners being changed to the color rose.

Many commentators explain this momentary shift in mood as a sort of brief spiritual respite during each of these seasons, in essence saying, “We’re halfway or more than half way there. Be strong. Persevere.” The quasi-spiritual not so quasi-secular version of this during Lent is St. Patrick’s Day (which always falls during Lent as does my birthday, which is why I gave up giving up ice cream, cake, and green beer from the age of reason on).

But I think there is another explanation—a more profound and spiritual one—for why we are invited to celebrate, to be joyful, near the midpoint of each of these seasons of preparation. Oddly, I think borrowing the Taoist symbol of taijitu (yin-and-yang) gives us perhaps the best visual aid for understanding the counter-intuitive, if not counter-cultural wisdom behind the positioning of both Laetare and Gaudete Sunday in the middle of Lent and Advent respectively.

There is a conviction within the Christian tradition that, although challenging, speaks a sapient truth about the Christ-path and the reality of human living, one that is spiritually illuminating. That is, there is no moment, no hour, no day, no season of life or time that is so bleak or so horrific that there is not simultaneously some speck of light, some hidden but real flicker of life, some smidgeon of goodness or hope somewhere within it. But the opposite is true as well. The paschal mystery which is the pattern of our life and the paradox of our faith—the dying and rising of Christ—suggests that while we are on earth there is also no moment, no hour, no day, no season of life or time that is so effulgent, so saturated with life and love and radiance and joy that permits us to forget that somewhere down the block or around the corner or around the country or on the earth someone is suffering greatly or unjustly and cruelly and unable to see the light or feel the life that those who are rejoicing see and feel. They are too weak. Their hearts are wintry. They’re too emotionally and spiritually depleted to imagine that sorrow and sighing shall ever flee away. So we must lean into hope for them, hold life for them, even rejoice for them, until they can freely do it on their own with the grace of the Spirit.

There is a Christian legend that tries to point to this earthly reality with a narrative that reveals the wood of the cross on Golgatha and the wood of the crib in Bethlehem were cut from the one same tree connecting forever the joyful and sorrowful mysteries of life and living. Elsewhere on THE ALMOND TREE I have posted more than once one of my favorite quotes that expresses well this blessed tension that has greatly and tangibly influenced my own theology and the enacted spirituality that comes forth from it. It comes from Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The narrator Chief Bromden says of R. P. McMurphy—the Christ-figure in the story—”He never let the pain blot out the humor no more’n he let the humor blot out the pain.”

Unlike those who were awaiting the messiah in the first years of the Common Era in Palestine, we who live in 2021 have the advantage of knowing not only the story of yearning for Christ’s advent and the torture, murder, and burial of Jesus on Good Friday, but also the story of Christ’s birth into this world as the incarnation of Divine Love and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and his ascension into heaven. So we can connect not only Advent and Lent, Christmas and Easter, but also the spirit of Gaudete and Laetare Sunday. In the bleak midwinter whether seen and felt by people living in the darkness and wintry weather of the Northern Hemisphere or seen and felt by people all over the world who are suffering personal trauma, anguish, grief, or despair, Gaudete Sunday reminds us with a brief flicker of light and gladness and restrained joy of a truth captured not in an Advent carol—but an Easter one:

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Your touch can call us back to life again,
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been;
Love is come again like wheat arising green.1

In the wintry times of our lives, there is a mostly hidden hint of the greenness of Christ poking through the pain. Its corresponding expression during the season of Christmas joy is seen in the wisdom of the shapers of the Lectionary and liturgical calendar for being faithful to the flow of the biblical narrative. It is no accident that on the liturgical calendar, the day after Christmas is the Feast of St. Stephen who was stoned to death and considered the first Christian martyr. As if that wasn’t enough of a reminder that we should not let the humor and giddy gladness and joy of Christmas blot out completely the pain in the world where Christ is suffering still in the most vulnerable, we “celebrate” the Feast of the Slaughter of the Innocents on December 28 each year. How easy it is to forget amidst the legitimate cause for joy and hoopla, that soon after one child was born innumerable children were slaughtered.

Does this dampen the restrained joy of Advent and the full-blown joy of Christmas? Is talking of such things now being a killjoy? Or does tasting and savoring the joy of life and the life of joy actually make us yearn all the more for the second coming of the Prince of Peace when all shall be one, when all tears of all people shall be wiped away, and when all mourning on the earth shall cease and turn to dancing? This yearning for the second coming when “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,”2 is also an integral part of our Advent spirituality.

Contrary to what some might think, those who are suffering terribly or battling despair or dying do not want those of us who are not to stop rejoicing or hoping or living. No. They want four things from us: they want to know we are aware of them and care about them. They want to sense our solidarity with them in the form of deep sympathy, compassionate action, and work for justice. And they want us to be sacraments of gratefulness and joy and life and love when it is our unmerited pleasure to experience them. So now we wait, not passively or pretending, but with joyful hope that “love will come again.” And when at Christmas we celebrate the birthing forth of love into our world, we will re-joy and re-joy and re-joy and count our blessings and do our best to incarnate love and to eliminate suffering in the sphere of our influence. Then the light shall break forth like the dawn, forever.

1 Now the Green Blade Rises. TEXT: John M. C. Crum, 1872-1958, Oxford Book of Carols. TUNE: NOEL NOUVELET, acc. Marty Haugen, 1987.

2 Julian of Norwich.

For Advent Prayers click here.

Check out essays and reflections on Advent by going to the right hand column where it says TOPIC CATEGORIES. I have written much on Advent/Christmas. –>

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