The Lord will rejoice over you with gladness.

Today is Gaudete Sunday. It means REJOICE, for the Lord is near. “God indeed is my savior; I am confident and unafraid. My strength and my courage is the LORD, and he has been my savior. With joy you will draw water at the fountain of salvation.”

These are the words from Isaiah from the Responsorial Psalm of today’s Mass. They are the words of one who waits for the Lord, confident in his strength and courage, because of his faith in the Lord. These words should describe us, as we wait in remembrance of our Lord’s birth.

We should rejoice, because Jesus, the Son of God, without losing His divinity, became fully human. He came to live as one of us, to save us from our sins and to give us eternal life. Because of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection, we can rejoice. We wait in faith for the day when we will see the Lord, face to face in our heavenly home.

However, John the Baptist tells us that it is not enough, just to wait in faith. If we have true faith, then we must put that faith into action. Through Baptism, we have the strength of Jesus to put our faith into action. Jesus calls us to act as sons and daughters of our heavenly Father. God calls us to love Him with our entire mind, our entire strength, our entire soul, and to love our neighbor as God loves us.

These are the two great commandments of love that Jesus gave us. When we love each other, when we help each other, our love for each other shows God our love for Him. That is why we rejoice in exciting anticipation for the remembrance of Jesus’ birth at Christmas. We wait rejoicing, because we know that the Son of God became one of us, sharing our human life, so that we could share in His divine life forever.

– Bp. Roy Campbell