Gaudete Sunday  The third Sunday of Advent, known by the name of Gaudete Sunday, which comes to us from the first word of the introit of the Mass that day, Rejoice!, is a call for all Catholics to celebrate this Sunday with a special kind of Joy or Rejoicing—a supernatural type of Joy—that leads us to understand and  live-out the happiness that God desires for all His children.

Originally in the Church, Advent was called St. Martin’s Lent, and was 40-days in length, beginning on November 11th, his feast day. This was well established in the early Church around the fifth century. By the ninth century the Advent Season had been shortened to four weeks, commencing with the last four Sundays before Christmas Day. With the shortened season, Gaudete Sunday may fall anytime between the 11th and 17th of December depending on the year.

The color of the day is Rose, used in both the vestments and the rose colored candle of the Advent Wreath, which as a color signifies rejoicing; and, if there are flowers in the sanctuary which normally are not permitted during Advent but may be had on Gaudete Sunday, they too should be rose colored or a shade thereof.  

Rejoice! And the kind of joy that Gaudete Sunday is all about is more a form of Christian joy that is focused in the Lord…to rejoice for all that He has given us, for all that He has done and will do for us, and a rejoicing for the ultimate happiness that God desires for us in eternity. Our great Catholic theologian,  St. Thomas Aquinas, described the difference between joy and happiness as follows: “Happiness is the  final end of man, eternal contemplation of God, which is an act of the intellect. Joy, however, is itself not a virtue, but is an effect of the virtue of charity (“love”), which full if its object is eternal and the greatest, i.e., God.” Thomas Aquinas also notes that Joy admits no sorrow for it is not an act of the sensitive  faculties, e.g., enjoying food is a natural joy for Thomas Aquinas, but supernatural joy which is spoken of on Gaudete Sunday and in the Gospels is an act of the intellectual appetite known as the will.

This supernatural joy then, is the understanding and the desire of the happiness to contemplate God for all eternity, and to know of God’s love and desire for us to be One with Him in heaven, by our free assent of the will—our will—to choose Him in this world and work or prepare for His Second Coming at the end of time; accomplished in-and-through our knowledge of His teachings and our Catholic actions— good works—in the world around us. Rejoice! Christ is near, both His birth on Christmas Day and also in His Second Coming. Rejoice! For Hope is Alive!

This Gaudete Sunday we shall here again from John the Baptist in the Gospel of Matthew. Like last weekend, it is a dramatic presentation with John now in prison and wondering if this Jesus is the One whom all are anticipating or is there another? This is a moment of uncertainty or doubt in the mind of the  greatest prophet. Yet he does not use doubt to run away, but rather uses doubt to investigate and grow the faith. This is when doubt can lead to faith because we do not use doubt as a “crutch,” but rather as a springboard to investigate and grow our relationship with Christ. So, perhaps this special Gaudete Sunday Joy is to recognize that God is so good, that His Love can use our doubt—doubt in God, doubt in our  bishops or priests, doubt in the teachings of the Church— for the purpose of drawing us ever-closer. If John the Baptist can have doubt, and still be the greatest prophet—perhaps my doubt too can become a good to deepen and broaden my faith. Let that Hope bring Joy alive in us all.