One thing is clear from our Readings and that is that the Lord God
is engaged in a mighty work. God’s work dominates everything and occupies
centre stage. It is all his doing. It is all the unfolding of
God’s great plan.
And what is the response of God’s
people to this plan? The Entrance Antiphon puts it neatly: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.
The prophet Isaiah
caught a glimpse of God’s plan in his visions and burst out: I exult for joy in the Lord, my soul
rejoices in my God.
And when her cousin Elizabeth acknowledged
the plan of God in Mary: Blessed is the fruit
of your womb… Mary
exclaimed: My soul glorifies the Lord, my
spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour.
This joy God intends for us also. In fact,
his whole purpose was to make us happy, with the true happiness which heaven
alone can give. And our hearts, too, should exult for joy. We too should
rejoice in God our Saviour. And I guess this is why today is called Laetare
Sunday – Rejoice Sunday!
But let’s be honest with ourselves. Let
each one of us ask himself or herself, “Do I feel this joy? Am I exulting, am I
rejoicing?”
For those of us who can muster an honest
answer which may be no, I don’t feel
this joy that you are describing, in fact, I hate to say it but I’m rather
unmoved, let’s go back to the Word of God.
It is by, so to speak, diving into the word, like we dive into
a swimming pool, that we find ourselves being moved. As we understand more and more, so we feel
more and more, and so we come to praise God more and more for what he has done,
and for what he is doing for us right at this minute. Of course, if we dive in
and then quickly get out before we have a chance to get really we, well, then, nothing
much will change.
Isaiah, in the First Reading, tells us
more. He tells us that God has given the
spirit of the Lord, that he has anointed,
and that he has sent. These are all
actions of God – giving, anointing, and sending – and all done to a mysterious
person who is sent to bring good news, bind up broken hearts, proclaim liberty,
and set free those in prison.
There are some clues as to who this person is. He has the spirit
of the Lord: the heavens were opened, and the Spirit descended upon him like a dove,
and the voice of the Father thundered: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am
well pleased.
Moreover, he is anointed, a Hebrew word meaning, Messiah
or Chosen One.
And do you remember when Jesus read this
very scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazara: The spirit of
the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring
the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new
sight, to set the downtrodden free... ? When he finished he sat down and said: This text is
being fulfilled today even as you listen. In other words, “I am the
one about whom Isaiah is speaking.
Isaiah is ecstatic! He has
seen a prophetic vision of the Promised One. He exults for joy in the Lord, his soul rejoices in his God. He is
ecstatic not only because he has heard the promise but because he has tasted its
fulfilment. For he has clothed me in the garments of
salvation, he has wrapped me in the cloak of integrity… In other words, ‘He has healed me, he has
restored me, he has saved me!’
This is what
happened to us at Baptism and what happens to us each time we go to Confession.
He clothes us in the garments of salvation and wraps us in the cloak of
integrity.
What a wonderful God we have,
a God who sent his anointed one to put heaven back within reach for us poor
sinners.
If you are a poor sinner you
will understand, you will exult for joy in the Lord. If you are not, I guess
you will just be – baffled.
