Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Advent | December 13

Click here to read the Sunday readings from the USCCB website.

Today is an important day in Advent, it’s the day that we light the pink candle on the Advent Wreath.  Pink, rose, whatever you want to call it, when you have four candles, three purple and one other color, it is exciting to get to light that one for whatever reason.

It seems as a kid I would always be looking forward to lighting the pink candle, it kind of marks a halfway point until Christmas, on the downward slope at least to what most kids probably consider as the best day of the year.

The intent of the change in color is to signify a change in our attitude during the season. See, much like Lent, Advent takes on a penitential nature.  Last week our readings focused on repentance for the forgiveness of our sins, and we encourage going to reconciliation during Advent, just like Lent.

But, let’s be honest, that is difficult, to confront our sin.  That is heavy. It is good to do sometimes, but not all of the time, I mean, you don’t want to hear me preach on sin every week, and I don’t want to do that either.  So, similar to Lent, we take a weekend to celebrate, we are a joyful, hopeful people after all.

This Sunday has a special name, Gaudate Sunday, Gaudate means rejoice. We heard it mentioned in the first three readings today.  

So I have been reflecting on joy.  What does it mean to rejoice?

It is tempting to think that it is about happiness.  Yes that is important, but happiness is a feeling that is fleeting.  To rejoice, or to have joy, I believe is deeper than a feeling. It is deeper because it exists even as feelings come and go.

And I believe it is all about love.  We rejoice in love.  To know we are loved is to have joy in our lives.  Any kind of unconditional love will fill us with joy, at this time of year it's easy to associate that with the love of a family.  

But specifically to know we are loved by God, unconditionally, that is the greatest love. 

See Jesus showed his unconditional love for us on the cross. 

The night before he was to suffer and die for our sins, He spent time in prayer seeing the ways we would sin against Him, seeing how many people would not return that love for Him, but He loves us so much that He still went through all that pain, loving us unconditionally, opening the gates of heaven for us, which is why we rejoice always, through all of our ups and downs, all of our feelings.

In the first reading we heard, “I rejoice heartily in the LORD, in my God is the joy of my soul.”

The joy of my soul, see, that is deeper than just a feeling, you know?

And then we hear in the second reading, “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks...”

“Rejoice always”?  Come on, we don’t always feel like that.  “In all circumstances give thanks”? Life hits us with lots of circumstances that we do not feel thankful for!

But the key is in the middle of those two directive sentences… “Pray without ceasing.”

“Pray without ceasing.” And what is prayer besides a conversation between us and God?  

I think about a couple falling in love… they talk and talk and talk, they can’t get enough of each other, they talk without ceasing.  But that is love, love desires to communicate with the other.

So we need to talk it out with God, in all circumstances we are giving thanks because we know He still loves us. He loves us even though we don’t always get what we want.  He loves us even when we fall into sin. He loves us in every circumstance.

We know he loves us because of how much he suffered to free us from our sins, but today we aren’t focusing on our sins as much as we are focusing on how much he loves us and wants to be with us forever.

That is a cause for us to rejoice.  He is always going to be there for us.  Take great confidence in God’s love for you.  

I’d like to leave you with a quote from Fr. Pedro Arupe, a Jesuit Priest, which I think gets to the heart of this. Fr. Arupe was giving a conference, talking about loving God, and someone was struggling with the practicality of loving God.

He responded:

 

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, 

Than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.

It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,

what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends,

what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart,

and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”