The Sunday takes its traditional name from the first word of its entrance antiphon, Gaudete in Domino semper — "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. The Lord is near." The text is Saint Paul's to the Philippians, and it gives the whole day its character: Advent's penitential restraint is briefly lifted so that the Church can look at how close the Lord's coming is. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal permits rose-colored vestments, where it is the practice, on this Sunday and on Laetare Sunday in Lent. Rose is violet lightened, a color that says the fast is not over but the end is in sight. Where an Advent wreath is used, the rose candle is lit on this day. Advent itself has two movements, and Gaudete Sunday stands near the hinge: until December 16 the season looks toward the Lord's coming in glory at the end of time, and from December 17, when the O Antiphons begin at Vespers, it prepares directly for the Nativity. The Gospel of the Third Sunday concerns John the Baptist in each of the three years of the Lectionary cycle — his answer to those sent from Jerusalem, his preaching of repentance and its practical demands, or the question he sends from prison and the Lord's reply that the blind see and the poor have the good news preached to them. The Sunday belongs to the first class in the Table of Liturgical Days, so no feast or solemnity of the calendar may replace it.

Liturgical season

Advent

liturgical_season