Third Sunday of Advent

Twice each year, priests of the Roman Catholic Church are humiliated by our liturgical norms. On the fourth Sunday of Lent, called “Laetare”, and on the third Sunday of Advent, called “Gaudete,” (both words are imperatives, “Rejoice!”) we are given leave to relax a bit in our observance of the seasons of penitence and preparation, and are reminded that our true business as Christians is to rejoice in the goodness and promises of the Lord.  We do this by lightening our penitential purple vestments to pink, or “old Rose” as it’s technically called.  Which always makes me look like my grandmother’s sofa.

Yet this year, I will forgive the liturgists, because this color is also the color of the dawn; this year the third Sunday of Advent comes up against the feast of the Mother of the Americas, Our Lady of Guadalupe. She is the most beloved image of the Blessed Virgin in the western hemisphere, and one of the most beautiful Marian images in all the world. Wearing a dawn-colored dress adorned with flowers, wrapped in a regal peacock blue mantle spangled with stars, she is pictured as an expectant mother, awaiting, as we do, the birth of her son. She stands upon the crescent moon, and before the dazzling light of a new day: a woman clothed in the sun. Her face and hands the color of our earth, warm and brown. She smiles gently at us, as she smiled at Juan Diego four and a half centuries ago.

She is no mute image, La Morenita, this little dark one. The legends tell us that she spoke to Juan Diego, an indigenous catechumen, a man of no stature, no importance, and told him she was his mother, the mother of all his sisters and brother, that she would enfold him, enfold them, enfold us in the warm blue mantle she wears. In a moment of absolute desolation, as his culture was overwhelmed by the conquest and his people were dying of foreign diseases, she told Juan Diego not to fear. She promised to be with him, with them, with us, always. The legends tell us she left her image on his poncho as a sign of that promise.

Two thousand years before and more, the prophet Isaiah spoke a similar promise:

The desert and the parched land will exult;
the plains will rejoice and bloom.

They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to them,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.
Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!        

Such a beautiful promise, which still seems so far from fulfillment. Such a beautiful promise, sealed at Guadalupe with the gift of an image. Yet we know that the desert does not bloom for all, the plains do not rejoice everywhere. We find ourselves still waiting for that promised dawn, for the promised flowering of peace and justice. We are like those disciples of John who came to Jesus, not knowing what they were looking for.

Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God to them, as La Morenita, the little dark-faced one, proclaimed it to Juan Diego: a kingdom where the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and the poor have the good news preached to them. Mary and her Son proclaim a mysterious kingdom of already and not yet, here and yet to come. We acknowledge the kingdom, because if we open out eyes, we sometimes do see its flowers: flowers of mercy and compassion; we sometimes hear its music, though often choked out by the noise of the city, when we hear words of understanding and pardon; we sometimes dance in delight when, at least once in a while, we find ourselves walking on paths of righteousness; our hearts do expand in hope when we hear the good news proclaimed, and when we proclaim it with our own lives with acts of generosity and patience, when we discover that we have been a source of hope and new life for others in their trials and tears.

Already, not yet; here, and yet to come. This is the kingdom Mary awaited as she awaited the birth of her son, who was already alive within her body; this is the kingdom her generous “yes” to the invitation of God brought to birth. This is the kingdom proclaimed and sealed in the blood of Christ poured out for us on the cross, and radiant in his resurrection. This is the same kingdom we await here, seeing it beginning to bloom like unexpected roses in December, proclaimed by our incomplete and fragmentary actions, our imperfect words and deeds.

We pray for its coming every time we speak Jesus’ prayer, “Thy kingdom come!,” and we know that the kingdom will not come in its fullness until we left our fears behind, proclaiming with our deeds more than with our words the wonderful works of God, the splendor of glory of God revealed in Mary’s son, our brother Jesus. That proclamation spoke by the prophets, lived out in the life of Jesus and Mary, is ours now, ours to bring it to its fulfillment. And so we pray for courage to believe the promise we have heard, and strength and energy to work for its fulfillment.

“Tell them what you see and what you hear: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news preached to them.” Let’s get to work.

Fr. Tom Lucas, S.J.