3rd Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday)
December 12, 2015
4 PM Liturgy
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
Teilhard de Chardin was rather well known Jesuit
anthropologist, poet and mystic. I’m sure some of you have heard
of him. He was one of the discoverers of the controversial so-called
Piltdown man, supposedly one of our ape-like ancestors. He also
wrote the Phenomenon of Man and the lengthy poem, Mass on the
World. He was clearly one of our Jesuit Renaissance men.
It is as a mystic, however, that some of his most memorable
lines perdure. One such line is this, “Joy is the infallible sign of the
Presence of God.” Joy! I think of this line today because today is
Gaudete Sunday, that is a word that means, “Rejoice,” be joyful!
Every year on the third Sunday of Advent the church invites
us to a meditation on joy. That sometimes seems a curious thing to
ask of us. It’s curious mostly because joy is not an easy notion to
explain let alone experience with regularity.
“Too often people confuse joy with just good cheer, or with a
certain rallying of the spirit that we try to crank up when we go to a
party or let off steam on a Friday night” (Ron Rohlheiser). But is
this really the joy of which the church speaks today? Is this kind of
good cheer really joy? It can be, though often isn’t.
Real joy, the kind the church celebrates today, the kind Pope
Francis talks about in his exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy
of the Gospel is something that infuses us, stays with us, becomes a
part of us even on our worst bad hair days. Real joy is, as C.S. Lewis
once suggested, not something you can find; it has to find you.
“Real joy can never really be induced, cranked up, or made to
happen. It is something that has to find us precisely within our
ordinary, duty-bound, burdened, full of worries and pressured
lives “(Rohlheiser).
Have you ever had an experience like this one Ron Rohlheiser
details? “Imagine you walk to your car or the bus after a long day’s
work, tired, needing some rest. But, just as you reach your car or
the bus-stop, you fill with a sense of life and health; in some
inchoate way, all jumbled together, you feel your body, mind, soul,
gender, sexuality, history, place within a family, network of friends,
city, and country, and this feeling makes you spontaneously
exclaim: ‘God, it’s good to be alive!’ That’s joy!”
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Real joy is always the byproduct of something else. Think of
the famous Prayer of St Francis. Make me a channel of your
peace….” We can never attain joy, or peace or understanding,
forgiveness, or love by actively pursuing them. “We attain them by
giving them out. That’s the great paradox at the center of all
spirituality and one of the foundational truths within the universe
itself…Joy will come to us as we set about actively trying to create it
for others” (Rohlheiser).
If any of us would like to have an actual experience of the joy
that Zephaniah sings about today, or get a glimpse of what St. Paul
is onto when he says to us all, “Rejoice in the Lord always,” then
listen to Paul’s next line, “Your kindness should be shown to all.”
Be kind! Be generous! Do something gentle for another! And you
will come to know real joy. This Year of Mercy, says Pope Francis,
is to be a “Revolution in Tenderness.”
And finally, what is joy for John the Baptist? Sharing your two
coats with someone who has none. And whoever has food should
do the same. To the bankers among us, stop over charging people,
don’t falsely accuse others, don’t gossip, stop complaining, be
grateful for what you do have. These are all things, concrete
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things, to DO! Joy is not really a theological deep thought; joy is not
even a warm spiritual feeling; joy is a behavior, something you do!
And as for growing closer to God in this Advent season,
growing closer to God-with-us in Emmanuel, Christ himself,
remember the mystics always have a heads-up on most of us. Hear
Teilhard again: “Joy [real joy] is the infallible sign of the Presence
of God.” But it wouldn’t hurt to just smile for each other a little
more often. God is coming again. Reach out to touch him in the
least of our sisters and brothers. Peace!
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