FISHY FRIDAYS: DEC. 15, 2017

We're almost at the Third Sunday of Advent, can you believe it? The anticipation is building for the great celebration of the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Marking the excitement, the Church calls this Guadete Sunday. For a brief explanation of what that means, here's an excerpt from a blog I love called Traditional Mass Propers in English:

Guadete means "Rejoice." Anticipated joy over our Savior's coming breaks through all our serious Advent preparation. Although it cannot be entirely repressed, our joy is yet restrained for two reasons: 1. Like John the Baptist, even the most fervent person feels a great unworthiness either to be a friend of Christ or to be His apostle. 2. Very often our joy is dulled by unnecessary anxiety. We let our peace of soul depend too much upon persons and events and circumstances, and too little upon God's infallible and tender care.INTROIT Philipp. 4:4-6 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice! Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety; but in every prayer let your petitions be made known to God.

We should rejoice and be glad. Guadete Sunday serves as a reminder of the imminence of our Lord's coming. Not surprisingly, as the Liturgical Calendar points us to Christ, so does the Church through the Gospel reading with St. John the Baptist (Old Rite):

At that time, when the Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to him, to ask him: "Who art thou?" And he confessed and did not deny: and he confessed: "I am not the Christ." And they asked him: "What then? Art thou Elias?" And he said: "I am not." "Art thou the prophet? And he answered: "No." They said therefore unto him: "Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself?" He said: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaias." And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him and said to him: "Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet?" John answered them, saying: "I baptize with water: but there hath stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not. The same is he that shall come after me, who is preferred before me: the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose." These things were done in Bethania, beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing (John 1:19-28)

There's your catechesis, here's your cooking. A great fishy sketch from an iconic cookery show starring the late Keith Floyd.

Floyd on Food (BBC)