Third Sunday of Advent (14/12/2025): O God, who see how your people faithfully await the feast of the Lord’s Nativity, enable us, we pray, to attain the joys of so great a salvation and to celebrate them always with solemn worship and glad rejoicing. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

Commentary on the Mass Readings for the Third Sunday of Advent, Cycle A:
The First Reading is from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11. Isaiah’s words of consolation and promise are addressed in the first place to the exiles, but they were fully and truly realized only when Christ the Messiah came. Christ applied the first two verse of this text to himself when he first preached in the synagogue of Nazareth (Lk 4:18-19). This morning, let us thank God from our hearts for the “good tidings” of our redemption and exaltation, brought to us by Christ the Son of God and our loving Brother.

The Second Reading is from the First Book of the Thessalonians 5:16-24. Living a truly Christian life is not a merely human activity. God has a part in it; in fact, God has the principal part to play in it. What St. Paul told the Thessalonians, he tells us too: “God is faithful.” God will do his part, the greater part, of the work of our salvation. So it matters not how many opponents we have. It makes no difference how many machinations they invent to impede us on our journey. Our “God is faithful” and our God is with us, helping us every step of the way. Rejoice then, nay, exult in joy! Thank God from your heart for the gift of the true faith. Thank him for everything he sends in life. The rough, as well as the smooth, has a part in God’s plan for making us worthy of sharing his kingdom.

The Gospel is from the John 1:6-8, 19-28. Last Sunday we had St. Mark’s account of the Baptist’s activity at the Jordan as he prepared the people for the public mission of Jesus. John was the last of the great line of prophets and he was the greatest of them all. It was his privilege to point out to his audience the Son of God in human nature, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” and also to hear God’s voice from heaven proclaiming Christ to be his “beloved Son.” He was surely a man sent from God. Let us listen to the call of John the Baptist, and from our hearts repent of our sins. Let us prepare for Christmas, the anniversary of Christ’s human appearance on earth, by cleaning ourselves of all sinful attaches, but making a firm resolution to follow the Lamb through life.

Excerpted from The Sunday Readings by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan, O.F.M.

Advent Reflection: Stepping Out of the Night
What is Advent? Many answers can be given. We can grumble and say that it is nothing but a pretext for hectic activity and commercialism, prettified with sentimental clichés in which people stopped believing ages ago. In many cases this may be true, but it is not the whole picture.

We can also say that Advent is a time when a kindness that is otherwise almost entirely forgotten is mobilised; namely, the willingness to think of others and give them a token of kindness. Finally we can say that Advent is a time when old customs live again, for instance, in the singing of carols which takes place all over the country. In the melodies and the words of these carols, something of the simplicity, imagination and glad strength of the faith of our forefathers makes itself heard in our age, bringing consolation and encouraging us perhaps to have another go at that faith which could make people so glad in such hard times.

This latter kind of experience of Advent brings us quite close to what the Christian tradition has in mind with this season. It has expressed its view of Advent in the Bible texts which it took as the season’s signposts. I will mention just one of them, a few verses from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome. There he says, “… it is full time now for you to wake from sleep…the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ…” (Rom 13:11-14).

There are many people, of course, who urge us to get up and awake; “Germany, awake!” was the cry of those who, years ago, were bent on deluding the nation; and today too there are awakenings and uprisings that lead further into darkness instead of out of it. What does Paul mean? He puts very clearly what he means by “night” by speaking of “revelling and drunkenness, debauchery, licentiousness, quarrelling and jealousy.”

For Paul, nocturnal revelling with all that goes with it stands for the dark side of human nature, man’s being “asleep”. For him it becomes a symbol of the pagan world as such, submerged in material things, held fast in the darkness that prevails where there is no truth and which, despite all its decibels and hectic activity, is asleep, because it lives unaware of genuine reality, of the real human vocation.

Nocturnal orgies as the image of a world in ruin—are we not appalled to see how aptly Paul characterises our present times, which are returning to paganism? For us, “rising from sleep” means arising from conformity with the world and with the times and having the courage to believe and to shake off the dream that causes us to bypass our true vocation and our best possibilities. Perhaps the Advent hymns we hear every year may be lights to us, indicating our path, making us look up and recognise that there are greater promises than those of money, power and pleasure. Being awake for God and for other people—that is the kind of “waking” that Advent has in mind, the wakefulness which discovers the light and brightens the world.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Seek That Which is Above