To­mor­row is the Third Sun­day of Ad­vent, re­ferred to as Gaudete Sun­day (from the Latin word for “re­joice”). The tra­di­tion­al themes for the four Sun­days in Ad­vent are Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. These themes fa­cil­i­tate re­flec­tion and spir­i­tu­al prepa­ra­tion as we wait in joy­ful an­tic­i­pa­tion for both the birth of Christ, and the an­tic­i­pa­tion of Christ’s sec­ond com­ing.

Pope Fran­cis has re­mind­ed us that Ad­vent is a time of hope, vig­i­lance and con­ver­sion, and that “God is present in his­to­ry and walks be­side us to bring us to full­ness in Je­sus, of­fer­ing courage amidst life’s chal­lenges.” It is a time for hon­est self-re­flec­tion, re­pen­tance, in­te­ri­or re­new­al, and a com­mit­ment to be an am­bas­sador for your faith.

On Gaudete Sun­day, a rose-coloured can­dle (the “Shep­herd’s Can­dle”) is lit to sym­bol­ise the joy an­nounced by the an­gels at Je­sus’ birth. The theme this week is “Joy.” We are re­joic­ing be­cause we know that Je­sus is the rea­son for the sea­son.

“Joy” is a su­per­nat­ur­al gift and a fruit of the Holy Spir­it (Gala­tians 5:22). John 15:11 re­minds us that the full­ness of joy comes to those who con­tin­ue in the love of Christ and obey Him. Ad­vent is a time for us to re­mem­ber that true joy comes when we live as wit­ness­es, em­body­ing our be­liefs through thoughts, words and ac­tions.

In a world full of self­ish­ness, we are sup­posed to bring joy to oth­ers, not on­ly by reach­ing out to as­sist the poor, the vul­ner­a­ble, and the mar­gin­alised, but by com­mit­ting to take ac­tion to en­sure that we build a just, in­clu­sive so­ci­ety/world that caters for their needs al­so. Pope Pius XI stat­ed in Di­vi­ni Re­demp­toris (1937): “Char­i­ty will nev­er be true char­i­ty un­less it takes jus­tice in­to ac­count ... Let no one at­tempt with small gifts of char­i­ty to ex­empt them­selves from the great du­ties im­posed by jus­tice.”

While we meet the im­me­di­ate needs of oth­ers to­day, we must work for long-term sys­temic changes that will cre­ate a more just to­mor­row – for all. This in­cludes chang­ing sys­tems, struc­tures, in­sti­tu­tions and pub­lic poli­cies that are at the root cause of in­jus­tices such as pover­ty and so­cial ex­clu­sion.

Pope Leo XIV re­flect­ed re­cent­ly on the im­por­tance of ac­tive wait­ing dur­ing the Ad­vent Sea­son, “as we learn to hope and help bring the King­dom of God clos­er through our good ac­tions. In his cat­e­ch­esis, the Pope said Ad­vent teach­es us to pay at­ten­tion to the signs of the times, since it takes prepa­ra­tion and ef­fort to recog­nise Je­sus in our world and dai­ly lives.

“Our wait­ing for the ful­fil­ment of cre­ation and its re­demp­tion is not pas­sive,” he said, not­ing that God al­ways seeks to in­volve us in His work.

“God in­volves us in His sto­ry, in His dreams,” he said.

“To hope, then, is to par­tic­i­pate.”

He re­called the Ju­bilee theme—“Pil­grims of Hope”—and said that mot­to will not lose mean­ing when the Ju­bilee ends at Christ­mas. Rather, it calls us to jour­ney in hope through­out our lives and wait, not with our hands in our pock­ets but by ac­tive­ly tak­ing part.

“Chris­tians, said the Pope, must “read the signs of the times,” which are the signs of God in his­tor­i­cal cir­cum­stances, ac­cord­ing to the Sec­ond Vat­i­can Coun­cil.

“God is not out­side the world, out­side this life: we have learned from the first com­ing of Je­sus, God-with-us, to seek Him in the re­al­i­ties of life,” he said.

“To seek Him with in­tel­li­gence, with the heart and with our sleeves rolled up!”

Lay Catholics are es­pe­cial­ly called to em­brace this mis­sion, since the In­car­nate God comes to meet us in dai­ly life and the prob­lems and beau­ties of this world...Pope Leo XIV in­vit­ed Catholics to ask our­selves if we are en­gag­ing our tal­ents joy­ful­ly in ser­vice of oth­ers and the King­dom of God. “To hope is to par­tic­i­pate: this is a gift that God gives us,” he said (Vat­i­can News).

As we jour­ney through Ad­vent, we must not un­der­es­ti­mate the pow­er of prayer in our ef­forts to trans­form the world to re­flect Gospel val­ues. In prayer, we un­cov­er the depths of God’s call to seek jus­tice and pur­sue peace. How­ev­er, pro­mot­ing so­cial jus­tice re­quires more than prayer. As the late Car­di­nal Hume, with whom I worked for more than 10 years, said: “The deep­en­ing of the spir­i­tu­al life must go hand in hand with prac­ti­cal con­cern for our neigh­bour, and thus with so­cial ac­tion.”

Dur­ing Ad­vent, let’s give thanks for God’s gift of the in­car­na­tion; for His bless­ings, mer­cy, and love. Hap­py Ad­vent!