By Gary Topping–
The Third Sunday of Advent, which we have just passed, is known as Gaudete Sunday. “Gaudete” is a plural Latin imperative, which could properly be translated as “Rejoice, everybody”! It is the Sunday on which those of us who keep Advent wreaths light the rose-colored candle, and the clergy at Mass wear rose-colored vestments (if the parish has them). It is a time in which our rejoicing over the advent of our Lord at Christmas almost overflows its bounds. Like a small child filled with anticipation on Christmas Eve, though, we have to contain our joy for two more weeks: “Not yet; you have to wait for morning.”
The Bible is filled with stories and parables of joy and rejoicing. Take, for example, Jesus’ parable of the woman (Luke 15:8-10) who loses one of her ten silver coins and searches the house diligently with lamp and broom until she finds it, at which point she calls in her friends and neighbors in her ecstasy, saying “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost.” Jesus then adds the point he wished to make: “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
I choose this parable purposely, for I have a story to tell about repentance and joy which seems to me appropriate during this season of anticipation, penance and joy. Father Thomas J. Meersman, one of our most beloved priests in the Diocese of Salt Lake City, was rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine for a few years near the end of his life when I was a parishioner there. He told us once about an experience he would have occasionally when hearing confessions. As all Catholics know, the liturgy of the confessional asks us to tell the priest at the beginning of the sacrament how long it has been since our last confession. “Sometimes,” Fr. Meersman said, “someone will say, ‘It’s been ten years, twenty years, thirty years since my last confession.’ I always stop them there,” he said, “and tell them, ‘Wait! I’m going to let you continue in a moment, but right now I want to tell you that today there is rejoicing in Heaven.’”
I can add nothing to that but to repeat the Gaudete: “Rejoice, everybody”!
