Rejoice in the Lord always; indeed the Lord is near!
‘Rejoice!’ The word that begins the First Reading resounds in today’s liturgy. Isaiah wants to show us that it is in the wilderness – the place of loneliness and desolation, and every human need – where rejoicing is to be found. It is exactly here, in the wastelands (the home of John the Baptist), where God’s promise is to be discovered.
And what is God’s promise? That he will save us (First Reading, Psalm and Second Reading) and therefore we must not lose heart. Even though we may feel we are stuck in the wild places, God is at work here.
The Gospel shows salvation explained and opened out: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear and lepers are healed. Christ’s actions fulfil the words of the prophet Isaiah and, today, give us hope to face the difficulties of the world and of our day-to-day lives.
On this Gaudete (‘Rejoice’) Sunday, let’s give thanks for all that is good, and pray that we might also trust in the joyful hope of that which awaits us.
2020 is the tenth anniversary of Verbum Domini – Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation on ‘The Word of the Lord’ and the 1,600th anniversary of St Jerome’s death. These dates have inspired the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales to dedicate 2020 as a year of focus on the Bible and ‘The God Who Speaks’, starting on the First Sunday in Advent, 2019. We will be marking this initiative each week with an additional sheet, offering a short quotation from Scripture, together with a prayer.
CLICK HERE FOR THE GOD WHO SPEAKS
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