The third Sunday of Advent is known as Gaudete Sunday, gaudete (pronounced GOW-deh-tay) (Latin for “rejoice”) being the first word of the introit of the day’s Mass, taken from Philippians 4:4–6 and Psalm 85:1:
Gaudete in Domino semper íterum díco, gaudéte: modéstia véstra nóta sit ómnibus homínibus: Dóminus prope est. Nihil sollíciti sítis: sed in ómni oratióne petitiónes véstrae innotéscant apud Déum. Benedixísti, Dómine, térram túam: avertísti captivitátem Jácob.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious over anything; but in all manner of prayer, let your requests be made known unto God. Lord, you have blessed your land; you have put an end to Jacob’s captivity.
It is customary for priests to swap out their purple vestments for pink today, and for those who use an Advent wreath to light not a purple candle but a pink one. Some churches favor a spare aesthetic in their sanctuaries for the first two weeks of Advent but break out the flowers for this the third. The approximate halfway point of the penitential Advent season, Gaudete Sunday is a special time to rejoice in the nearness of God’s coming as well as God’s presence with us here even now in the waiting, and to receive a foretaste of the bigger celebration to come on Christmas Day.
Here are ten songs for you to enjoy this Gaudete Sunday. If you’d rather listen to them as a YouTube playlist, click here.
1. “Songs of Joy” by Garrison Doles, written late 1990s, on A Songmaker’s Christmas, 2012: “Songs of joy we hopefully sing, expanding our spirits, the season to know . . .” So opens this song by the late singer-songwriter Garrison Doles (d. 2013) [previously]. In 2009 his wife, the artist Jan Richardson, created a video combining the song with five of the seven collages from her Advent Hours cycle (which can be purchased as reproductions). Read the lyrics and songwriter’s statement here.
2. “My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord” by O’Landa Draper and the Associates, on Live…A Celebration of Praise, 1994: A trailblazing gospel choir director, O’Landa Draper was one of the top gospel artists of the nineties. This song of his is based on the Magnificat, the praise song Mary sings in the company of her cousin Elizabeth following the conception of Christ (see Luke 1).
3. “El burrito de Belén” (The Little Donkey of Bethlehem) by Hugo Cesar Blanco, 1972, performed by the band Matute, 2020: This is a Venezuelan carol about a person riding their donkey, with hurried excitement, from the sabanero (savanna) to Bethlehem to see the newborn Christ. Read the lyrics and translation here.
4. “Ecce mundi gaudium” (Behold the Joy of the World), England, 13th century, arranged and performed by the Mediæval Bæbes on Worldes Blysse, 1998: Written in Latin, this thirteenth-century carol is about the Virgin giving birth to the Son, our joy—announced to the shepherds by an angel and to the magi by a star. Despite the upbeat tempo throughout, the last two verses are about Herod’s raging and the Massacre of the Innocents. The soloist is Katharine Blake, the founder and musical director of Mediæval Bæbes. Read the original lyrics here, clicking on individual lines for the English translation.
5. “Kya Din Khushi Ka Aaya” (क्या दिन खुशी का आया) (What a Happy Day), performed by Akshay Mathews, 2021: A Hindi Christmas carol from India. Read the lyrics here.
6. “Repeat the Sounding Joy,” a fragment from “Joy to the World” arranged by Craig Courtney, performed by the Capital University Chapel Choir, 2019: A super-fun, one-minute choral work.
7. “Now Let Us Sing,” traditional, adapt. John L. Bell, 1995, performed by Katarina Ridderstedt, 2015: Katarina Ridderstedt (née Lundberg) is a rhythm teacher, musician, cantor, and choir director from Gotland, Sweden, who records music under the name Musikat. This video of hers introduced me to a charming little quatrain whose origins I don’t know (it’s credited as “Traditional”), but this version comes from Scotland’s Iona Community [previously]: “Now let us sing with joy and mirth, / praising the one who gave us birth. / Let every voice rise and attend / to God whose love shall never end.”
(Update, 1/6/25: “Now let us sing” is of Scottish origin, first appearing during the Protestant Reformation in the congregational song collection The Gude and Godlie Ballatis; the earliest extant edition of this book is from 1567, but it is thought to have been originally published in 1540. The tune was originally a drinking tune. For his rendition, published in Come All You People: Shorter Songs for Worship, John L. Bell essentially rewrote the first stanza, retaining only the first line of the original.)
8. “Brother” by Jorge Ben Jor, on A Tábua de Esmeralda, 1974: Known by the stage name Jorge Ben or (since the 1980s) Jorge Ben Jor, Jorge Duílio Lima Menezes (b. 1939) is a Brazilian singer-songwriter and musician whose characteristic style fuses elements of samba, funk, rock, and bossa nova. In this song he enjoins us to prepare a joyful path for the coming Christ—who is both Lord and friend—with love, flowers, and music.
9. “Alleluia, He Is Coming (I Looked Up)” by Martha E. Butler, 1979: This song is sometimes used in church services for Palm Sunday or Easter, but I think it makes a fitting Advent song as well—especially with the newer last verse that is sometimes used, as in the first video below. “Alleluia, he [Christ] is coming! Alleluia, he is here,” the refrain proclaims. Read about the inspiration behind the song, in the words of the songwriter, here. Allow me to sneak in two different performances. The first is by Donna Rutledge, Becky Buller, and Todd Green of First Baptist Church of Manchester, Tennessee, from 2020; theirs is a lovely rendition with strong vocals and a poignant violin part, but I do prefer a brisker pace (listening to the video at a playback speed of 1.25 is perfect, in my estimation):
The second is by the South African group Worship House, from their 2016 album Project 5 (Live in Johannesburg):
10. “Joy Will Come” by Paul Zach: The refrain of this song by Paul Zach of Virginia is based on Psalm 30:5b: “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” I also hear echoes of Psalms 18 and 121 throughout. The song is a reminder that through the dark nights we experience, we have hope; we have a Savior who will not abandon us.
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