3rd Sunday of Advent
Gaudete in Domino semper, iterum dico gaudete. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say: Rejoice.
At the approach of the now imminent festival of the Nativity, Holy Mother Church invites us to rejoice. Our motive: the Lord is near. No matter what trials we may be going through; no matter how heavy the cross, or how grave the crisis. The Lord is near, and when He comes, He will restore all things.
This joy, however, is qualified. It cannot exist properly without an accompanying spirit of prayer and expectation. If Christ is to come and restore all things, His coming is very much dependent on the measure of our longing for Him. But to want Him, to long for Him, demands that we are aware that we need Him. If we are not humble enough to realise our need for Him, then we will not be inclined to ask Him to come. This is one of the reasons why the trials of our lives are good for us, and it is also the reason Our Lord delays His coming so that we will long for Him even more. The Lord takes delight in seeing our fervour and love for Him increase as His coming approaches.
Let our preparation for Christmas then be marked by more fervent and frequent prayer. When we pray, it is not God that we change, but ourselves. By formulating our requests, even if only in our mind, we are already committing ourselves in some way to wanting what we are asking for, and we thus obtain the capacity to receive it from God. “Prayer for obtaining something from God,” writes St Thomas Aquinas, “is necessary for man on account of the very one who prays, that he may reflect on his shortcomings and may turn his mind to desiring fervently and piously what he hopes to gain by his petition. In this way he is rendered fit to receive the favour” (Compendium Theologiae, l. 2, c. 2.).
This is why the same St Thomas elsewhere affirms that prayer is an expression of our desire (Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 83, a. 14, obj. 2), it is the unfolding of our will to God (Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 21, a. 1, corpus), it is a certain unfolding of our desires (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, ch. 8). The action implied by the Latin word which he employs in all three of these expressions (explicare) is literally the action of unrolling or unfolding. Prayer unfolds our desires; it unrolls before God what we would like to see happen, it is the expression of what we want. By prayer, we make ourselves, as it were, to develop, to explain, all our desires, vividly conscious of our needs and our powerlessness to pull ourselves through on our own. In this way, the desire increases, goaded on, as it were, by the thought that God gives us what we ask for with faith and confidence.
In this way, it becomes clear that the one who prays does not remain passive. Under the influence of prevenient grace, he goes out to meet God and becomes thus an actor in his own sanctification. Since this prayer bursts forth, as it were, from the grace of God, it increases in us the desire to receive precisely what God wants to give us, and it thus takes on an infallible effectiveness. This goes for everything that regards the obtaining of eternal salvation. St Augustine had already spoken eloquently of this desire which increases by attentiveness and persevering prayer: “Their desire is delayed, in order that it may increase; it increases, in order that it may receive. For it is not any little thing that God will give to him who desires, nor does he need to be little exercised to be made fit to receive so great a good: not anything which He hath made will God give, but Himself who made all things. Exercise thyself to receive God: that which their shalt have for ever, desire thou for a long time…”. ( Commentary on Psalm 83, 3).
Following Augustine, Aquinas thinks that this is what Our Lord was alluding to when He said: “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (Jn 14:14). St Thomas asks: “How could he say, Whatever you ask I will do it, since we see that His faithful ask and do not receive? According to Augustine, we should consider here that He first says, in my name, and then adds, I will do it. The name of Christ is the name of salvation: You shall call His name Jesus, for he will save His people from their sins. (Mt 1:21) Therefore, one who asks for something pertaining to salvation asks in the name of Christ” (Lecture on the Gospel of John, ch. 14, 3).
And so my dear friends, as we await the new nativity of our Saviour, let us intensify our prayers for our salvation and that of those dear to us. The measure of the grace we receive will be the measure of our asking with fervent pleas, all the while fulfilling our duties of each day with true love and deep humility.
Let nothing disturb thee,
Let nothing affright thee,
All things are passing,
God alone abideth.
Patience gaineth all things,
He who hath God wanteth nothing,
Alone God sufficeth.
(St Teresa of Avila)
