“Are you the one who is to come? Or are we to wait for another?” This question, posed to Jesus in today’s Gospel, is our question too. As we reach the middle of the Advent season, as we begin counting down the days till Christmas, we are invited to reflect on a vital question: “What … or who are we waiting for?” How should be waiting? Today’s liturgy invites us to cultivate two key Advent attitudes: patience and joy.

The early Christians expected Jesus to return soon – within their lifetime, in fact. But it didn’t seem to be turning out that way. The apostle James proposes the image of a farmer, patiently awaiting the harvest: trusting in the forces of nature to accomplish their work at the right time. This does not mean the farmer’s work is over! The farmer continues to work diligently each day, but knowing that the results are in God’s hands, not his. In the same way, James suggests, we too must be patient and engaged: “Strengthen your hearts, for the Lord is near!”

In the Gospel, we see Jesus sending a message to his imprisoned cousin, John the Baptist. John was a true prophet, formed by the Scriptures. He trusted that when the Messiah would come, the prophecy of Isaiah would be realized: the blind would see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead be raised, the poor lifted up, the weak strengthened, the fearful given courage. As John languished in prison, his life hanging from a thread, his faith began to waver: had his mission been in vain? Jesus reassures John that it had not: his courage and patient endurance had borne fruit. John would go to a martyr’s death, but knowing that joy was on the way.

The first major teaching document of Pope Francis is his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: “The Joy of the Gospel”. Dedicated to theme of the proclamation of the Gospel in today’s world, he provides the church with an exciting program for realizing the so-called “new evangelization”: not a painful task, but a “joy ever new, a joy to be shared.” As a diocese, we have studied it carefully, and through such recent initiatives as the Parish Vitality Conference and the Forum for the New Evangelization, we are seeking to put its many recommendations into practice. Pope Francis reminds us:

Some Christians’ lives seem like Lent without Easter. I realize that joy is not expressed the same way at all times in life, especially at moments of great difficulty. Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light, born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.

So let us make our own the words of the Entrance antiphon which gives this 3rd Sunday of Advent its name, “Gaudete”: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say to you, rejoice! The Lord is very near.” May we await the Lord’s coming with patience and with joy.