Gospel Acclamation: Fourth Sunday of Advent

Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.

Our Gospel Acclamation today invites us to make the Blessed Virgin Mary's words our own. In her deep humility, Mary recognizes herself as God's handmaid, the one who stands beside the throne of a king waiting to fulfill his every request. Mary knows that God is the King of Kings, the Lord of the Universe, and she places herself before Him in willing service, freely accepting the request of the angel and becoming the mother of the Savior.

Mary's words of acceptance are a combination of permission and prayer. God never forces Himself upon anyone. He asks for Mary's free consent, and she gives it, praying that the angel's words may come to pass. Mary's heart is wide open, and she longs for God's will above all.

As we acclaim these words, we should reflect on whether, we, like Mary, stand ready and willing to serve God in all that He asks.

Gospel Acclamation: Third Sunday of Advent

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.

When Jesus gets up in His hometown synagogue to read a passage from the Scriptures, He chooses Isaiah 61:1-2a, which begins with the words of our acclamation today. Jesus applies these words to Himself in a very literal way. The Spirit of the Lord has fallen upon Him at His baptism when He symbolically accepted our sins as His own burden and when the Father's voice rang out announcing that Jesus is His beloved Son. Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit at that very moment and prepared to begin His public ministry.

What is that public ministry? Jesus Himself tells us. He will bring glad tidings to the poor. And we are all poor. We are weak and sinful, and we fall continually. We need God at every moment to sustain us. We do nothing on our own.

Yet Jesus brings us good news. God does indeed sustain us at every moment, and Jesus has come to save us from our sins, to open the gates of Heaven, and to fill us with His grace that we might have eternal life.

On another level, we can make this Gospel acclamation our own. At our baptism, we were filled with sanctifying grace, and the Holy Spirit came upon us. At our confirmation, we were anointed and filled with the Spirit in an even deeper way and prepared for our adult mission in the Church. We are called to bring glad tidings to the poor, the materially poor but also the spiritually poor. By our words and our actions, we are called to spread the Gospel and to proclaim Jesus Christ to the world.

Gospel Acclamation: Second Sunday of Advent

Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths: all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Are we putting up road blocks in our lives and in our hearts? Road blocks that attempt to keep God at bay? To keep Him out of certain places? We do this by our sins, by our lack of prayer, by our resistance to God's will, and by the stubbornness of our hearts.

During Advent we are called to prepare the way of the Lord and to make straight His paths. We are called to demolish the road blocks, the clear away the rubble, and to build a wide open road for God to come into our hearts and into our lives. We can do this by going to Confession, by increasing our prayer (and our attention in prayer), and by offering our lives, ourselves, and everything we have to God.

We can also take down road blocks by reaching out in love to others. This helps us do our part in making the second half of this acclamation come true. We are to show the salvation to God to all those we meet, by our words, our actions, and especially our love.