We started our Advent journey two weeks ago. We started this season of preparation, hope, and renewal for us as we prepare path for Christ’s entry into the world at Christmastime. The priest wears a rose colored vestment today and we light a rose colored candle on our Advent wreath today as we celebrate Guadete Sunday on this third Sunday of Advent. The word “Guadete” comes from the Latin word “rejoice” from today’s Entrance Antiphon – “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near.”
But what does it mean to rejoice? Do we rejoice because of the blessings and prosperity and successes that we have now in our lives on earth? Or do we rejoice due to a spiritual joy that comes from our faith?
Today, December 14, is the feast day of St John of the Cross. We don’t celebrate his memorial this year because it falls on a Sunday, but his life of faith is a testimony of what it means to rejoice as a disciple of Christ. John of the Cross was many things: a priest, a mystic, a reformer of the Carmelite order, a protégé of the great Saint Teresa of Avila, and one of the most celebrated poets and writers in the history of the Spanish language. He is one of only 35 men and women who have been named as Doctors of the Church for the significant contributions they have made to theology and spirituality. You would think that all this would mean that John had a lot of success and worldly pleasures in his lifetime. However, that is not his story. After the death of his father while he was young, John of the Cross grew up in extreme poverty. For much of the time his family was homeless and hungry. He became a young priest in the Carmelite order in the midst of the Protestant Reformation and Spanish Inquisition – quite a dramatic and tumultuous time in the history of the Church. Teresa of Avila asked him to help her reform the Carmelites. They both desired a return to their religious order's humble roots of prayer and simplicity. Feeling threatened by the reforms that he and Teresa advocated, his fellow Carmelite monks kidnapped him and threw him into a prison dungeon, where they beat him repeatedly each week. He was imprisoned for nine months until he escaped. Yet, in the midst of his imprisonment, in the midst of his isolation and sufferings, the light of his faith burned brightly. Out of his struggle and pain, he wrote beautiful poetry that spoke about the dark night of the soul. In the midst of all he went through, he was able to proclaim: “Where there is no love, put love -- and you will find love.” He devoted the rest of his life in explaining and sharing the love he felt in his relationship with God. John unfortunately died from being imprisoned on another occasion in a cold cell in the middle of winter. He was 49 years old. John of the Cross could have been bitter and cynical from the struggles and persecutions he endured during his lifetime. Instead, he rejoiced in his relationship with God. He became a compassionate mystic whose writings and thoughts still touch hearts more than 500 years after his death. That is what Advent is all about – in preparing a place for Jesus in our hearts with joy no matter what we are going through in life. John of the Cross is one of the Advent prophet who speaks to us today.
I love the symbolism of Mary that is with us today on this 3rd Sunday of Advent. Mary is not only the Mother of Jesus, but she is the first disciple and the first great missionary for our faith– a young woman who trusted in God and opened her life to his will. We know that Mary stood by her son his entire life – and remained a loyal believer even while he died on the cross. Today, we have Mary standing vigil with her son on our Advent journey, a couple of days right after we honored her as Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mary has an important role in our Advent story, an important part in the story of salvation. But Mary does not exalt herself – she remains the handmaid of the Lord. But as the handmaid of the Lord she finds great joy, great love, great compassion.
Paul told the Thessalonians to rejoice always and to give thanks in all circumstances – but he clarifies this by saying to also pray without ceasing. Paul’s rejoicing, then, was always in the Lord and always grounded in his faith. According to St John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople and an influential Early Church Father, “he who rejoices in the Lord cannot be deprived of the pleasure of anything that may happen. All things other than the Lord in which we rejoice are mutable and changeable and subject to variation.” According to John Chrsyostom, the person who respects and loves God as he ought, who places his trust in Him, gathers from the very source of pleasure, and has possession of the whole fountain of joy in his life.”
We are called to find joy in preparing a path during the Advent season. And we all know that we can have bad days and go through struggles or have things not go our way. This past week, there was a parishioner from New Albany in the hospital, and Father Albeen and I had a very busy week – it felt like we were traveling all over the place in every direction possible here in Northeast Mississippi. I had gone to the hospital on 4 different occasion to visit this patient, and finally got in after all those attempts. But, in the middle of the anointing I was giving the patient, the family and I realized that they had directed me to the wrong room in the ICU and that I was not anointing the patient I had asked to see. However, the man I was anointing was Serbian Orthodox, and I told his family and the nurses that I think the Holy Spirit directed me to visit him as well. It ended up that his son and daughter lived in Chicago near the neighborhood where I was born on the Northside of the city. I had a long talk with his children, and while we could have gotten upset in the mix up that had happened, we saw God’s hand in all of this. We rejoice and gave thanks. And I did finally track down the man Father Albeen had asked me to see.
John the Baptist was the voice crying on in the wilderness. That voice prepared a way for the Lord. John the Baptist. The prophet Isaiah. The Blessed Virgin Mary. St John of the Cross. We hear from different messengers bringing the message of the Good News that is to come. In the busyness of our lives – in the way we are pulled in so many different directions – let us make a path for the Lord in our lives. And let us do so rejoicing.
No comments:
Post a Comment