What is Gaudete Sunday and How did it Come about?
The third Sunday of Advent, is called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin and means a command “To Rejoice”). The season of Advent originated as a fast of forty days in preparation for Christmas, commencing on the day after the feast of St. Martin (12 November), whence it was often called "St. Martin's Lent"-- a name by which it was known as early as the fifth century. In the ninth century, the duration of Advent was reduced to four weeks, the first allusion to the shortened season being in a letter of St. Nicholas I (858-867) to the Bulgarians, and by the twelfth century the fast had been replaced by simple abstinence. St. Gregory the Great was the first to draw up an Office for the Advent season, and the Gregorian Sacramentary is the earliest to provide Masses for the Sundays of Advent. In both Office and Mass, provision is made for five Sundays, but by the tenth century four was the usual number, though some churches of France observed five as late as the thirteenth century. There are now universally four Sundays of Advent in the Roman Catholic church.
Notwithstanding all these modifications, however, Advent still preserved most of the characteristics of a penitential season, which made it a kind of counterpart to Lent, the middle (or third) Sunday corresponding with Laetare or Mid-Lent Sunday. On it, as on Laetare Sunday, the organ and flowers, forbidden during the rest of the season, were, permitted to be used; rose-colored vestments were allowed instead of purple. All these distinguishing marks have continued in use, and are the present discipline of the Latin Church. Gaudete Sunday, therefore, makes a breaker like Laetare Sunday,( in Lent), , about midway through a season which is otherwise of a penitential character, and signifies the nearness of the Lord's coming.
The Church is no longer inviting the faithful to adore merely "The Lord who is to come", but calling upon them to worship and hail with joy "The Lord who is now nigh and close at hand In the opening antiphon , we are instructed to “Rejoice in the Lord always ; again, I say , rejoice. Indeed the Lord is near.” In the “The Second Reading, we are again incited to rejoicing, and the message bids us prepare to meet the coming Savior with prayers and supplication and thanksgiving, while in the Gospel, the words of St. John Baptist, warns us that the Lamb of God is even now in our midst, though we appear to know Him not. The spirit of the Mass liturgy all through Advent is one of expectation and preparation for the Christmas feast as well as for the second coming of Christ, and the penitential exercises suitable to that spirit are encouraged. But on Gaudete
Sunday this penitential mood is suspended, for a Sunday in order to symbolize that joy and gladness in the Promised Redemption which should never be absent from the heart of the faithful.
Let us then Rejoice and be glad as we prepare a place for the Lord within our hearts!
Fr. Mike
