Prominent in the scriptures for the
Third Sunday of Advent is the call to rejoice.
Indeed, it is a season for rejoicing as we prepare ourselves for the
joyous feast of Christmas and also for the many times that the Lord bestows his
joy on us and in countless ways.
This little anecdote may help illustrate
this truth. A mother of five young
children was baking Christmas cookies and her youngest son, we’ll call him Ben,
had pushed a chair over to the counter so he could help his mother. “I want to help, Mommy,” he said with great
eagerness. Mommy said, “But this is a
mommy job, Ben. Why don’t you play with
one of your toys?” “No, Mommy. I want to help.” Well, Mommy finally gave in and let little
Ben help her.
All of a sudden there was a whoosh, a
white cloud of flour, some of it landing in the mixing bowl, some on the floor
and some in Mommy’s hair. Ben laughed at
this, seeing Mommy with white hair. As
you can imagine, this frazzled mother became very impatient, but as she said,
miraculously she held it in. As she
looked into a mirror, she saw what made Ben laugh, and she too laughed at the
sight.
The Christmas cookies were finally all
made and decorated and later that afternoon as Ben fell asleep in her lap, she
had an opportunity to spend a little quiet time before the other children
arrived home from school. She couldn’t
help smiling herself as she looked at the very peaceful and beautiful child
asleep on her lap. Her thoughts took her
to the homily she heard the day before on the Third Sunday of Advent. The priest called it, ‘joy Sunday’. As the thoughts ran through her mind, she
could not help but think of the countless times her five children brought joy
into her life. Sometimes the joy
followed a moment of impatience, as the episode with Ben making cookies, but
joy always won out.
Not only on this Third Sunday of Advent,
but on many of the Advent Sundays and weekdays, we are given the abundance of
hopeful and joyful readings from the prophet Isaiah. He prophesies about our future, what this
world can become; he prophesies about the Messiah who comes as the great
peacemaker who makes promises to all who will accept the Messiah into their
lives.
Advent is truly one of the most
beautiful seasons of the year, awakening in us once again the spirit of
awareness that we are being called to make the journey once more, welcoming the
Lord into our lives, listening to such uplifting lessons, preparing ourselves
and walking with Him as our companion and our Savior.
No comments:
Post a Comment