Prayer and hospitality are the two pillars of Christian spirituality. In prayer with relate and communicate with God, while in hospitality we live out our prayer life in relationship to others. In modern times, the spiritual and prayerful life is a challenge to Christians. There is dryness in spiritual and prayer life. We are discouraged by so many unanswered prayers in our daily lives.
The Lenten season is a moment of grace given to us by God through his Church´s liturgical celebrations to overcome the temptations of life through the grace of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Our temptations are what we desire or what we try to renounce. Hence, we will constantly be confronted with temptations from within us and outside us. We need grace and mercy to overcome temptations that plague us daily.
The mission of Christ continues through our Christian vocation to witness to the Kingdom of God with humility and prayer. It is a mission where God calls the humble, the weak and the insignificant to shame the proud, strong and important.
Christ’s mission is the humble acceptance of the need for God in our lives. The admittance that we are naughty and God is all. The mission of God (Missio Dei) is the encouragement of God to us to be good on earth as followers of his Son Jesus Christ.
The readings of this Sunday present us with a clear picture of persistence and perseverance through faith in prayer and the final success that this achieves. Especially, amidst the hopelessness and the powerlessness of life’s situations around us.
The Lord`s prayer is not only just a prayer but the best model or structure on how to pray as a Christian. The Christian life is a spiritual life that has its source in perpetual prayer. That is, the Christian life is prayerful. The Bible enjoins us to pray unceasingly, 1 Thess. 5:16-18
Our Christian life is a call to us to be joyous and to let our joy be communicative to our brothers and sisters around us. This third Sunday of Advent is the celebration of joy. In the Holy Mass of today, the first four words of the Entrance Antiphon begins with Gaudete in Domino Semper, which means, Rejoice in the Lord always (Philippians 4:4).