We’ve now come to the third Sunday of Advent, a special Sunday, known traditionally as “Gaudete Sunday” from the Latin word “rejoice”: it’s a day focused on the joy of our hope. The last two weeks of prayers and readings have focused on vigilance, keeping watch, and “rushing” toward salvation with our prayers and our good works. We’ve now added the image of eager and unrestrained joy, an almost childlike wonder about a long-desired thing. Saint Paul tells us to “rejoice always, in all circumstances to give thanks.” This is the will of God, he tells us. And he tells us why God desires this habit of joy for us: so that we will be holy, entirely blameless in spirit, soul, and body, ready for the coming of Christ. Joy gives us holiness, and holiness gives us joy. This is a profound thing. True joy, Christ teaches us, is friendship with God, living our lives as much as we can according to his perfect plan for us, being the fullness of who God created us to be, by worshiping him as we should and by living our lives morally, virtuously, and thoughtfully. Our Lord wants each of us to recognize: true joy and peace can only come to me by internalizing deeply my most fundamental identity: I am a child of God. When I forget that or ignore that, I feel lost and empty and I need to distract myself with all kinds of noise: too much TV, wasted hours on the internet, overeating, overdrinking, all manner of sins: I try to satisfy myself with these things. They cannot satisfy. They can only distract. I trade my joy for a moment of pleasure. I sometimes fall in love with the things that I should simply use. I sometimes use the people that I should simply love. There’s no remedy for that in the wisdom of the world. If you and I are just random clumps of cells and there’s nothing meaningful to live for beyond what we can grasp at right now, then it’s every man for himself: maximize your comfort for as long as you can. But we’ve all been there in that way of life. We know it leaves us empty and unfulfilled. The only cure is the simple but earth-shaking truth that should define our whole lives: I am a child of God. And that’s our anchor. With that outlook, we can live joyfully in the world without contradiction. We can rejoice in the goodness of God’s creation: we can eat, drink, and be merry, without becoming slaves to our stomachs. We can enjoy good and healthy recreation, enriched by the artistry of music, books, movies, without becoming mindless zombies. We can use the internet and the social media as support for real human interaction rather than a substitute for it. We can be holy, happy, and peaceful people, preserved blameless for the coming of the Lord: if we remember who we are. Sons and daughters of God.
What a beautiful example we find in Our Lady. We can imagine her, in these days of Advent, radiant with joy at carrying the Son of God beneath her Immaculate Heart. We can also imagine the kind of peace which remained in Mary’s heart even amid her great sufferings, her serenity even amid the torture of watching her Son brought to his shameful end. She’s a powerful witness that Christian joy is profound, far deeper than the paltry surface-level happiness which the world provides, a Christian joy which can exist even in times of difficulty. Mary shows us that Christian joy is compatible with failure; Christian joy is compatible with pain and illness; Christian joy is even compatible with death. Our Lord has promised, “Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you,” unless we separate ourselves from its source. In times of unexpected hardship and crisis, a man without faith can only see meaninglessness and cruel fate. We, on the other hand, can rely on the firm foundation for our joy, which does not depend on circumstance. Things like professional success, good news, good health, peace and quiet, sufficient money to live comfortably and well: these are good things in themselves if they don’t become our gods. All of those things come and go, often through no talent or fault of our own. That’s why St. John the Baptist insisted upon something profound: there is only one God and I am not he. There is only one Savior. There is only one Christ. Only he can support us all our life long. And so we rejoice in Lord. Gaudete in Domino. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice. Amen. Alleluia. Come Lord Jesus, quickly come.