The scripture passages and Gospel for today: Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Clear and unambiguous, great and heroic.

My brothers and sisters in Christ,

This day is the third Sunday in Advent. We draw ever closer to His coming. The anticipation grows and we want to cry out, —My soul rejoices in my God.—

The beauty of the first reading is its simultaneous anticipation and in our knowing its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

When we read or listen to these passages we know how they apply. There is however an important insight – these prophecies apply to us.

God has indeed anointed us. By our baptism and confirmation He sends us bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the LORD, and a day of vindication by our God.

The day of vindication has come and is coming. We will commemorate that magnificent day in two short weeks. Today, and on that day, we must renew our pledge to live lives worthy of God’s magnificent gift – the gift of eternal life with Him.

Isaiah tells us to rejoice heartily in the LORD, in our God who is the joy of our soul; for he has clothed us with a robe of salvation, and wrapped us in a mantle of justice.

The Lord GOD made justice and praise spring up before all the nations. He sent us His only Son, Jesus. Jesus purchased our salvation and left us with a mandate.

We go forward with that mandate and we, with Paul, rejoice always. We pray without ceasing. In all circumstances we give thanks, for this is the will of God for us in Christ Jesus. We do not quench the Spirit nor despise prophetic utterances. We test everything; retaining what is good. We refrain from every kind of evil.

Paul tells us that the one who calls us is faithful.

John knew this. He had no fear of the lawyers, scholars, and bureaucrats. He did not wilt in the face of the powerful, for his power, like yours and mine, comes from the One. It comes from God who is all in all our light and salvation, our Father and Lord.

Like John, we must go forth from this place. We must go forth for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through us. On our own we are not the light, but we must, by our presence here and by our lives out there, testify to the light. Testify to the truth of Jesus and to His one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

This must be our testimony in the face of our family, friends, and co-workers; the public, those who hate God and who especially hate Christianity. When they ask you: —Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us? What do you have to say for yourself?— You must say: —I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘make straight the way of the Lord.’ There is one who is returning, one you do not recognize,— who will as John proclaims, take up His winnowing fan to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn.