3rd Sunday of Advent, Year A – Reflection (2025)
3rd Sunday of Advent Year A
Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10
Psalm 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10 (Isaiah 35:4)
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
December 14, 2025
Our season of Advent is a time of preparation. We prepare ourselves to celebrate the First Coming of Jesus at Christmas and we ask ourselves what we need to do to prepare ourselves for the Second Coming of Jesus.
If we realize we are not ready for the Second Coming, it can be depressing. Yet, we are not without hope. In this season of Advent our Catholic liturgical calendar seeks to remind us of our hope on this Third Sunday of Advent by celebrating it as Gaudete Sunday. Instead of violet vestments showing penitence, the vestments are rose for Gaudete Sunday.
“Gaudete” means “rejoice.” Through the prophet Isaiah the Lord calls us to rejoice. We are sinners but God gives us the opportunity to repent. To repent is to be sorry for our sins and to desire and make real effort to change for the better. The change may seem difficult but, remember, nothing is impossible for God.
To give us reason to rejoice, through Isaiah, the Lord says, “Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you.” The Lord wants to save us. Are you ready to let him save you?
Let him save you? Who would not let God save them? The idea of someone turning down being saved might seem ridiculous. Are you ready to change? Or do you say, “not yet Lord.” If you say you are not ready to change yet, you are saying no to letting God change you.
The Lord expresses his plan to heal the blind, deaf, lame, and the mute. We see this fulfilled in Jesus.
In what way do you need to be healed of blindness?
Do you answer this question by saying you are not blind? Are you sure? Do you see your sins for what they are? Do you see how your sins hurt others? Do you see how the world is sinning?
In what way do you need to be healed of deafness?
Do you answer this question by saying you can hear just fine? Are you sure? When you come to Mass you hear the Word of God read. Do you pay attention? Do you hear anything spoken that leads you to change something in your life to be in accord with our Father’s Will?
In what way are you lame?
By now you are probably catching on that I am not speaking of physical lameness. As we get older, we can have our aches and pains. When these pains are bad enough, they can keep us from doing physical activities.
In what way might we be spiritually lame? First, I think of slothfulness, one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Do we fail to engage in life spiritually? What effort do we put into our relationship with God? Sin can also make us spiritually lame. It can do so by separating us from God and it can make us lame by keeping ourselves from recognizing our sins for what they are.
In what way are you like a mute person?
The mute that Jesus healed physically were unable to talk. We might feel spiritually unable to talk about faith because we don’t know enough. Then learn more! Ask the Holy Spirit to give you knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Are you afraid to speak up for your faith? Then ask the Holy Spirit to give you courage! Ask the Holy Spirit when you are to speak up and for the right words to say.
When we do recognize our sins and the sins of the world, we might find ourselves in sorrow and mourning. This is real but we should not despair. Jesus comes to ransom us from our sins so that we might “enter Zion singing, crowned with everlasting joy.” God will set things right, if we let him. As Psalm 146 says, “The LORD God keeps faith forever…secures justice…gives food to the hungry…The Lord sets captives free.” He will set you free from your sins if you repent. Trust in him.
To do so, requires us to “be patient…until the coming of the Lord.” “Be patient…” It can sound so simple. For me, it is not as simple as I would like it to be. I want results now. I want to stop sinning now. I want the world to repent now. God is patient, giving us numerous chances to change. If we expect him to be patient with us, we need to be patient ourselves. How are we to be patient? Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (see Galatians 5:22-23). We need to ask the Holy Spirit to make our hearts firm in faith “because the coming of the Lord is at hand.”
We want it to be easy. It isn’t. We read in the Letter of James, “Take as an example of hardship and patience, brothers and sister, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.” Life was not easy for the prophets in the Old Testament. When they spoke in the name of the Lord, they were often persecuted and rejected. Even as Jesus was beginning John the Baptist came as a prophet, even “more than a prophet” to prepare the way of the Lord. What did speaking God’s Truth get him? He was beheaded (see Matthew 14:3-12). John the Baptist never gave up and neither should we. John the Baptist trusted in the Lord and did the Father’s Will.
We have been silent too long. To build God’s Kingdom, to do God’s Will, we need to repent and we need to speak God’s Truth. May the Lord give us the grace we need to faithfully prepare and await his coming.
Peace,
Fr. Jeff