“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice. Indeed the Lord is near.” We hear this proclamation in our Entrance Antiphon today on the third Sunday of Advent, also known as Guadete Sunday, from the Latin word to rejoice. And the entrance antiphon actually comes from our 2nd reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Although there is a penitential characteristic to the season of Advent, which we have heard in the message from John the Baptist these past two weeks, to repent and to prepare the way of the Lord, since we are now at the half point of the Advent season, we are called to rejoice in our liturgy today, as the day of the birth of our Lord is near! We hear this invitation to rejoice in our first reading from the prophet Zephaniah: “Shout for joy….Sing joyfully….Be glad and exalt with all your heart.” Zephaniah tells us that the Lord, who is in our midst, will rejoice over us with gladness, he will sing joyfully because of you, as one sings at festivals and celebrations. Isn’t it wonderful to hear a message of joy and an invitation to rejoice in the midst of our Advent journey, especially in the midst of all the challenges and struggles we face in our daily reality?
So what is joy, especially in the context our Catholic faith? Pope Francis has spoken about joy at great lengths during his papacy, highlighted by his Apostolic exhortation The Joy of the Gospel, Evangelii Guadium. He starts out that document by stating that the joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. But what is this joy he is talking about? Pope Francis states that it is different than happiness, as he writes: “To be happy is good, yet joy is something more. It’s another thing, something that does not depend on external motivations, or on passing issues: It is more profound. It is a gift.” Yes, the joy of our faith is different that the happiness we experience in the things of this world. The joy of the Advent season is a gift from God.
Catholic spiritual writer Father Henri Nouwen sees the joy of our faith as rooted in God’s love: “Joy is essential to the spiritual life. Whatever we may think of or say about God, when we are not joyful, our thoughts and words cannot bear fruit. Jesus reveals to us God’s love so that his joy may become ours and that our joy may become complete. Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing—sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death—can take that love away.”
Like Pope Francis, Nouwen compares joy to the way we experience happiness in this world, as Nouwen goes on to say: “Joy is not the same as happiness. We can be unhappy about many things, but joy can still be there because it comes from the knowledge of God’s love for us. . . . Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us.” I love how Nouwen emphasizes the way that joy is a choice we make each day. Even the struggles of the pandemic and the challenges we have in attending Mass and practicing our faith - these cannot take away the love of God and the joy of our faith if we continue to make those choices each day.
Back on the feast of Christ the King before the beginning of Advent, we began the Year of the Eucharist in our Diocese. I see the joy of our faith intrinsically connected to the Eucharist. As the Eucharist is the spiritual food given to us by Christ, Pope Benedict XVI sees the Eucharist as the spring of Christian joy which nourishes us on our pilgrimage journey on earth. Pope Benedict states: “This Eucharistic food provides for the faithful of all ages a profound joy, which is at one with love and with peace, and which springs forth form one’s communion with God and with one’s brothers (and sisters)”. Yes, indeed, our joy is connect to God and to the body and blood of Christ we receive in the Eucharist, but it is also connected to the Body of Christ we form with our brothers and sisters.
When I was thinking of an example of the joy we have rooted in our faith and in the Eucharist, I immediately thought of our Mass last Tuesday at the state correctional institution here in Pearl. This was the first Mass we have had there since February 2020, which was almost two years ago. We were able to have Mass separately with both the men and the women. There is an inmate there who was so glad to see us - he had a big smile on his face the entire Mass. I know him very well - he always loves coming to our Masses out there. When he received the Eucharist for the first time in almost two years, he just broke down weeping. He was so full of joy to have received the Eucharist in such a long time, so full of emotion. Hopefully, we too share that Advent joy in appreciating the gift of the Eucharist we have in our lives, having been through the pandemic these past two years and struggling with different. Again, for those who are not back yet in-person, I want to encourage our parishioners to come back to Church and to receive the Eucharist, to be a part of our community. With our four weekend Masses, with our Saturday vigil Mass, with our four daily Masses, we go out of our way here at St Jude to offer many opportunities to come to Mass and to receive the Eucharist and to be one with the Lord with his holy Church.
This 3rd Sunday of Advent calls out to us in a special way today. It calls us to joy, it calls us to rejoice, in the midst of our preparations and our waiting. When you come to receive the Eucharist at Mass today, think of so many of the faithful who cannot receive the Eucharist on a regular basis due to health or being in remote rural area or due to being in prison. Let us rejoice of the presence of Christ that is with us today and let us rejoice as we await the coming of the Lord.
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