No! This blogger is not really way south of the border. One of the pictures that is embedded in my computer. But it seems to match the spirit of Gaudete Sunday.
In the gospel for today's Eucharistic liturgy you will hear or read "His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his bar, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." Words from John the Baptist.
These words should be a cause of the joy the Church wishes us to share as we draw closer to Christmas Day. The words are a reminder that this is a time of joy: in our times of worries and problems, we have a Savior who has come to bring us new life.
This is the joy of the Christmas season. All of us, no doubt, have issues in our lives, our own wheat and chaff, good and bad. Gaudete, while intended to be a "day of relief" during the days when Advent, like Lent, was a time of severe penances and fastings, was establish to afford people a "break." It has become a day reminding us again of the joy that should be at the base of our hearts ... a joy brought by the Child Jesus at his birth.
The responsorial psalm reminds us that "God indeed is my savior." And, truly, we can be confident and unafraid. As the Psalmist wrote: "Cry out with joy and gladness for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel."
