This is the so-called Gaudete Sunday, the Joyful Sunday because all the readings are inviting us to rejoice, to be always happy in the Lord!

How I like the role of John the Baptist! He is the announcer who, with humility of heart, knows very well that he is just the one to prepare the way for Someone greater than him, and to whom we do not recognize in our midst.

This gospel today is like a litany to John the Baptist:
– Sent by God
– Witness of the light
– The one to bring all to faith
– The voice that shouts in the wilderness: make straight the way of the Lord
– ‘Baptist’ (the one who baptizes others with water)
– Not worthy to untie His sandals (to the one who is coming)

Precisely, this is our call, because as John, we are sent by God to bring others to faith; that is our mission: to be the forerunners, the “Johns the Baptist”, for others to believe in the LIGHT… But I wonder sometimes if our attitude is fostering faith in others or is blocking it; if, really, we invite others with our attitude to take the path of faith towards Jesus, or on the contrary, we announce ourselves, to be recognized as the target of the sight of people around us.

Father Palau understood the Church as the unity of Christ-Church, Head and Body: “If you believe in me, never look at the Head separated from His Body, because if in the real world this separation would exist, there will be divorce between Christ and His bride, which is against the faith” (MR 4, 28). In our Palautian way, we are invited to believe in the Church, in the same way that the Gospel today, through the person of John, invites us to be the witnesses of the light, to bring all to faith.

Advent is the right season to look at ourselves and examine our mission. Maybe we don’t know or we forgot how to prepare the way for Him; so, let us ask God to prepare His way in us, to become forerunners for others, to make them feel the joy of the Lord.