Peace A Gift and a Task

This 3rd week of Advent begins with Gaudete Sunday.. This is the week of the rose-colored candle on the Advent wreath. Gaudete means rejoice, and rejoice means to feel or show great joy, We are getting closer and closer to the celebration of the birth of our Savior, truly a cause of great joy. When the angel first appeared to the shepherds in fields outside of Bethlehem, the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” As we light the rose colored candle this week, let us remember not to be afraid, because we have the good new to rejoice about! As the old introit goes: Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico Gaudete… that is: Rejoice in the Lord always I say again Rejoice!

The majority of the details about the nativity all come from the Gospel of Luke, but before St Luke tells us anything about Jesus, he tells us about John The Baptist. In a way, I often think of John the Baptist as the patron of Advent...

Adorable Heart of Jesus, glowing with love for us and inflamed with zeal for our salvation. O Heart that understands the misery to which our sins have brought us, infinitely rich in mercy to heal the wounds of our souls, behold me humbly kneeling before You to express the sorrow that fills my heart for the coldness and indifference with which I have so long returned the numberless benefits which You have bestowed upon me.

With a deep sense of the outrages that have been heaped upon You by my sins and the sins of others, I wish to make reparation to Your most Sacred Majesty. It was our sins that filled Your Heart with bitterness; it was the weight of our guilt that pressed down Your face to the earth in the Garden of Olives and caused you to die in agony on the Cross. But now, repentant and sorrowful, I implore Your forgiveness.

Adorable Heart of Jesus, Source of true consolation and ever merciful to the penitent sinner, impart to our hearts the spirit of penance that we may be sincerely sorry for our sins. Pardon them, O Lord, in Your mercy, and let all who have sinned against You in the Sacrament of Your love be converted and return to You. Deliver us from our sins. And in order to repair the sins of ingratitude by which we have grieved Your most tender and loving Heart, may we love and honor You in the most adorable Sacrament of the Altar, where You are present to hear and grant our petitions and to be the food and life of our souls.

Merciful Jesus, be our Mediator with Your heavenly Father, whom we have so grievously offended. Help us to amend our ways. As Your Sacred Heart is our refuge and our hope when we have sinned, so let it be the strength and support of our repentance, and nothing in life or death shall ever separate us from You. Amen.