Accept, Acknowledge and Announce
Gaudete Sunday - December 14, 2025
Isaiah 35: 1-6a, 10; James 5: 7-10; Matthew 11: 2-11
We reach the third Sunday of Advent, and we know the special significance of it. While the first Sunday invited us to 'stay awake for the Reign,' and the second Sunday called us to 'dare to behold the Reign,' the third Sunday deepens the call, and bids us to "Rejoice and Be the Reign"! It is a necessary growth process to shift from looking for the Reign out there, to Being the Reign, or growing to be the Reign. It takes a mighty commitment, but before that it requires that we joyfully accept the Reign and acknowledge its presence; thus our life shall become a joyful proclamation of the Reign that we behold and that we are!
To Accept the Reign is to see the signs and attribute them to the Lord's doing. It requires optimisn and hope to look at what is around and accept it as our context... while we see what dominates is a negativity, lamentation, blame game, self centredness and dissipation. The Lord declares - happy is the one who is not scandalised to accept me as the Lord and Saviour - that is where the Reign begins. To look around and pick up from the numerous possibilities, the possibility that is inspired by faith, that is, those which are inspired by presence of God and our rapport with God.
To Acknowledge the Reign is to accept that the Reign has come, and to see the Reign already at work. The Reign is not a finished reality that would come into our world! That would be a faulty idea, when it comes to the mind of Jesus - the Reign is amidst you; the Reign is you. That is what Jesus would say. Get up, pick up your mat and walk; your faith has made you whole; go, show yourself to the priests... these were his statements, where he underlines the 'already and not yet' that his revelation stood for. The Reign is already here, and that which is not yet fully here, because I need to grow into it. The call and the challenge is therefore to become the Reign, to be the Reign. But how do we do it?
By our transforming love for the other... making the voiceless speak, making the weak strong, making the faint hearted pick up courage, making the insensitive feel the other, making the indifferent warm up their hearts... in short, by filling this world with the joy of love, the amoris laetitia! Filling this world with joy, would require that I possess that joy and that is why the prophet today cries out: rejoice! Paul in his letter to the Philipians would resound it: again I say, rejoice! Rejoice always, without ceasing because the Lord is with us and he come once again to be with us. We are people of the Reign and the Reign cannot be made present here on earth, except through us. When we are filled with that joy and we grow to be the Reign, we become the proclamations of the Reign.
To Announce the Reign - that was the mission of Christ, and that is the mission that Christ has left us too. To announce is not merely by words, we know. It is the announcement through the very persons we are, our ideals, our priorities, our values, our life, our choices, our entire being. Hence the call to BE the Reign... of course, it is a process, a process of growth, a process of self-transformation, a process of bulding up humanity, a process of spreading love and the joy of loving! The world stands in need of this love today, in need of genuine love that centres on the other, the others, the Other - that is the key to understand the Reign!
As pilgrims of hope, reccognizant that as pilgrims our hope is the Reign, we are invited to accept and acknowledge the Reign, becoming the Reign ourselves and announcing it to the world with joy and with love!