The Ignorance of Darkness

In today’s Gospel John the Baptizer tells us “there is one among you whom you do not recognize.” One verse before the beginning of today’s readings we hear “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Or as the Douay Rheims translation reads, “And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

The darkness does not comprehend the light. The darkness cannot understand the light. The Light of the World walks among us and we do not recognize Him. How then was He able to make Himself known?

We owe much of our salvation to one of our own, a person wandering around with us in darkness. But unlike the rest of us, she saw the light and although she may not have understood it fully, she knew that it came to save us.

It was Mary’s “fiat” that allowed the light into our darkness. Through Mary’s obedience the Light made Himself known.

Today, the Third Sunday of Advent, is known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for “Rejoice!” For a brief moment during the season of Advent, we celebrate. We celebrate that we are halfway through this period of waiting with its’ penitential mood. We celebrate that we can see in the darkness a glimpse of the light that is to come. We celebrate Mary, our mother, who alone saw the light while the rest of us were blind, and brought it to us to banish our darkness.

Ave Maria
Gaudete Sunday