THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT –   B – 2020    

The third Sunday of Advent is called “Gaudete Sunday” which means Sunday of Joy. In the midst of this time of    preparation for Christmas,  this Sunday is  an invitation to take a break in the journey, the faithful are invited to rejoice because the birth of the Savior is near and, the time of preparation almost over. As a visible sign of this invitation to rejoice the Church uses in the liturgy of this Sunday the pink color, which is brighter than the violet  the we use in the other three Sundays.      

FIRST READING: Is 61: 1-2. 10-11

Ø  Chapter 61  of Isaiah forms a unit which begins and ends mentioning the name of God whom he calls Yahweh Adonai  אֲדֹנָי   which means Lord my God.    

Ø  It has three parts:  

o   Verses  1-3a, the prophet speaks of  his vocation  

o   Verses 3b-9 are about the people  

o   Verses 10-11 declaration of the holy city’s joy .

  

Ø  The Reading for this Sunday is taken from the first and third parts   

o   The prophet says that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him, because he has anointed him   

o   He brings good tidings to the little ones: the poor and those with wounded hearts.   

o   He proclaims the year of grace in terms of the Jubilee   Lv 25,10-17

o   It is a year of liberation for some and of vengeance for others.   

o   Vengeance in the Old Testament has a different meaning from the meaning it has among us. For us it implies hardness of heart and cruelty, but for Israel it meant the vengeance from God which meant defending the rights of the poor and the restoration of injustice.   Without doubt it is experienced as punishment, suffering and deprivation for those who have more material goods that needed.  It is the original justice of God, the Creator. Creation is for all, and if I accumulate more than I need I take it from another human being who will than suffer want.   God comes to restore the original justice of creation,  justice which is always love.   

o   Verses 10 to 11 are words in the mouth of the holy city that rejoices at the presence of God who has adorned her, everything has bloomed in her.  As everything material has been embellished in her also God will make justice and praise flourish in her.   

o   Probably the prophet wants to encourage the dwellers of Jerusalem who are discouraged before the ruins in the city; that suffer because those who come back want to take back what they left, and those who remained in the city want to keep what they acquired.   

o   The season of Advent reminds us that we are in the Great Jubilee since the incarnation and coming among us of the Son of God.  He is the Great Jubilee, the Jubilee of pardon; in him justice and praise become real. And united to him in baptism we can be justice and praise too.   

 

 RESPONSORIAL: PSALM  Lk 1:46-48; 49-50; 53-54   

 

 R. My soul rejoices in my God.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked upon his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
R. My soul rejoices in my God.
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
R. My soul rejoices in my God.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy.
R. My soul rejoices in my God.

 

For the responsorial psalm we recite the Song of Mary, called also Magnificat for the word at the beginning of the song in the Latin version.   It means “to proclaim.”

« Mary belongs to the little ones, the poor, and the humble.  

« She rejoices because God has looked on her lowliness and has done great things, wonders in her.   

« She rejoices because the Mighty One has taken vengeance:

o   he protects the poor and restores justice filling the hungry with good things, and sending away empty the rich.  

o   And this because his mercy endures from one generation to the next.

o   The vengeance of God saves all, the humble and the arrogant. To the poor he gives plenty and takes away what the powerful have in excess because this helps them to look for the salvation that comes only  from God, who  offers it  to all.

  

SECOND READING  1 Thes 5:16-24

     Paul invites the community of Thessalonica to rejoice, praying unceasingly and giving thanks. 

     He invites them also not to harden their spirit, not to despise the teaching, to test everything and to keep what is good, rejecting what is bad.   

     Maybe the enthusiasm for the charisms had reached the community of Thessalonica.   

     What is new causes always difficulties, there are always frictions with the tradition and what is new, but Paul gives a good rule, to test everything, that means to listen and to discern. 

     To discern means to listen to the official teaching of the Church, in order to be able to distinguish what comes from God from what comes from the evil spirit in what we are discerning, even if sometimes it comes disguised as piety, spirituality and austerity.   

     This fragment ends wishing that the God of peace make us perfect, and assures us that the one who calls us, is God, he is faithful and thus He will make us perfect. Our task is to open up to his action, because He is the one working on us.     

GOSPEL  Jn 1:6-8; 19-28

ü  The Church puts again before our eyes  John the Baptist.  

ü  Verses 6 to 8 are inserted in the prologue of John’s Gospel, breaking the harmony of the prologue. 

ü  It is a commentary to clarify that in spite of how great his disciples see him, he is not the light, but the witness to the light, so that through his preaching men and women could believe in the true light, which is the Logos(Word) made flesh, Christ.    

ü  In verses  19 to 28 we read the testimony that John the Baptist gives about himself:  

o   He is not Elijah, the Judaism before and after the New Testament considers Elijah, not as the precursor of the Messiah, but of God himself. 

o   He is not the prophet they expected. The prophet is the one that brings salvation at the end of times.    

o   He is a voice that cries out in the desert “prepare the way.”  

o   He announces the presence of one greater than he. 

Let us end this reflection with the words of a prayer from the Brazilian Bishop Helder Camara: 

Make me, O God, a rainbow of goodness, hope and peace.   

Rainbow which may never announce false goodness, 

vain hopes, false peace. 

Rainbow, send by You to announce that your Fatherly love, the death of your Son and the wonderful action of the Spirit, O Lord, will never fail.    

 

CLARETIAN CORNER  

“From  our charism we are also invited to be aware as Christians, consecrated o lay persons, to follow Jesus’ lifestyle, and as the Apostles to work until death to teach the Holy Law of the Lord.    

Mission we have to fulfill with fidelity and responsibility within our different lifestyles, lived contemplatively in our daily life.   

Mission that we do not accomplish alone, Mary is our great sign,  guide in our pilgrimage and in our struggle against evil. In the reflection that the Church does about the dogma of the Mary Immaculate it helps us to understand her as the woman full of grace, the woman filled with God, evil had no place in her.     

The Spirit of the Lord has preserved and protected her with his shadow during her pilgrimage on earth. Exceptional gift that Our Lady received from God to achieve the dream of love He has for all of us, counting with the help of a woman: on her part Mary with her simplicity, and humility allows God to mold and fashion  her in complete availability.    

This attitude leads her to beget, conceive, care, defend, accompany the life of Jesus in his first years; afterwards we find her as a missionary disciple who listens to the word and puts it into practice, and at the end she encourages and accompanies the first community of the disciples in the midst of the chaos caused by  the death of Jesus.” (Claretian Missionary Sisters. Novena for the Immaculate Conception, day 9)   

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Claretian Missionary Sisters, Novena for the Immaculate Conception 2020, day 9.

Comentario al Antiguo Testamento II.(Commentary to the Old Testament) Casa de la Biblia 1995.

Comentario al Nuevo Testamento. (Commentary to the New Testament) Casa de la Biblia 1997.

RAVASI, Gianfranco.    Segun las Escrituras: double commentay to the  Sunday’s readings.   San Pablo 2005. 

SCHÖKEL Luis Alonso. La Biblia de Nuestro Pueblo, adaptation of the texto & commentaries:   International Team.