Lectio the Liturgy: Sunday, December 14, 2025

Julie Storr shares a reflection on the Collect for the Third Sunday of Advent.

This week we Lectio the Liturgy with the Collect for the Third Sunday of Advent.

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.

Time to Rejoice

It’s time to rejoice! This week we celebrate Gaudete Sunday. This week in antiphon, the very first words of the Mass, the Church reminds us to “Rejoice in the Lord always. The Lord is near.” (Philippians 4:4-5) and the Collect this week is filled with the call to rejoice.

The verb in our petition is enable, which means when we ask God to do something, we also allow Him to accomplish His work. His work in us is to attain the joys of salvation and celebrate them.

We first ask for the joys of salvation. Imagine the thoughts and emotions of Mary, Joseph, Zacharias, Elizabeth, and all the others when the came to know that the Messiah would be born. Their salvation had come. God promised them a Savior and to be reunited with Him and how their Messiah Savior was on the way. No more waiting, their day in time was God’s fulness of time. These are the joys we ask to live in, too. Our salvation is here. There is no more separation between us and the Father.

We also ask that we celebrate these joys with solemn worship and glad rejoicing.

How would you define worship? I know people who have been to an ecumenical praise and worship service, have a wonderful experience and then attend Mass and think, “Is this all there is? Where is the excitement? Where is the feeling? Where is the music?”

It might help to know what worship is. Solemn worship can be defined as authentic and communal acts of giving God adoration, reverence, and the praise He alone deserves. Worship is about ordering our hearts and lives to God.

What many do not know is that the worship in the heart of the Catholic Mass is the same worship expressed in a worship service. It’s only the actions that are different.

The actions of praise and worship, hands raised, singing, dancing or movement, are bodily gestures of what is happening inside: our minds and hearts are focused on God. This is the worship we find when we participate in the liturgy and when we do, we enter a deep communion with Jesus. This is true worship.

Raising hands and movement are not wrong, it’s just that in the Mass, our movements include standing, sitting, and kneeling. We just need to remember that the way to be filled with the graces of the Mass is to worship.

We also ask God that we would celebrate with glad rejoicing.

We Are Part of the Same Light

As I was praying into rejoicing, what the Spirit showed me was how when we are with a group of people who are all filled with joy and worship, we are all part of the same light. When each member of the group goes out into the world around them, the light doesn’t dim, it still shines and it walks out into the dark. When you and I, filled with the light of God’s joy, walk into the dark, the light becomes a disruption to the dark.

Isn’t that what Jesus did? In Isaiah 9:2 we read that the people in darkness had seen a great light, and now that light is us.

Next, we need go to the beginning of the prayer and look at who we are, people faithfully awaiting.

Salvation is for each of us, but our salvation comes from being God’s people. Salvation comes from Christ alone, however, we need each other to encourage each other and to build one another up. It is how we become the Body of Christ.

It is important to remember that faithfully waiting is done from a position of receptivity. We know the joys that salvation brings to us because we have that joy both now now and not yet. All we have to do is be open and let Jesus do His work.

What do we need to do to attain or earn this most precious gift? Not much! Our only job is to say, “Yes, Lord. May it be done to me according to your will,” give Him thanks and live in anticipation of His work in and through us.

Lectio the Liturgy Sunday December 14, 2025