THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT
THE MESSIANIC AGE
This Sunday is marked by a note of joy. The joy has two causes: the proximate coming of the Lord in the Incarnation and his return at the end of time.
The readings emphasise the presence amongst us of the Messianic Age and the Kingdom. The theme of the reversal of the world’s ways is seen in the First Reading from Isaiah and the Gospel text from Matthew. It is the mission of each one of us to prepare the way for the Lord and to proclaim the Good News. Fulfilment of the this mission requires conversion. If one really is to be the instrument of Christ, one must be divested of self. The Church and her members have an obligation not to stand between humanity and the light but rather to bear witness to the light.
(Based on Adrien Nocent OSB, The Liturgical Year)
Advent III
O God, who see how your people
faithfully await the feast of the Lord’s nativity,
enable us, we pray,
to attain the joys of so great a salvation
and to celebrate them always
with solemn worship and glad rejoicing.
The collect of the third Sunday is the only Advent collect to use the “qui” construction which is the standard way of composing a collect-type prayer: God is called upon (“O God . . .”) and then some characteristic or action identified (using the qui clause, “who . . .”) which makes it clear that an aspect of God’s being or action (“who see how your people faithfully await . . .”) can assist us in the specific thing we pray for (“the joys of salvation” and “celebration” and “glad rejoicing”). This is followed by the fixed Trinitarian formula (as Christian believers in the God who is Three in One we pray to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit) and the people make the prayer their own by acclaiming “Amen”.
This collect was sourced for the new missal from the sixth century Ravenna Scroll. It presents us with the powerful image of God seeing his people, expectantly and constantly, keeping them in view, as they await the feast of the Lord’s nativity. God waits on us. We wait on the coming of the Lord on the feast day. This state of affairs, we pray, will lead us to the joys of salvation and the jubilation of the liturgical celebration.
The themes of joy (gaudia) and jubilation (laetitia) echo the introit of this Gaudete Sunday (“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.” and is presumably one of the reasons the compilers of the revised missal recovered this ancient collect and returned it to use in the liturgy.
Adrian Porter SJ