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This Sunday is Gaudete Sunday, Rejoice Sunday. “Brothers and sisters,” St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus....May the God of peace make you perfectly holy and may you entirely, spirit, soul, and body, be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will also accomplish it.”
The Rose vestments worn at today’s Liturgy remind us that this is a time of great expectations. We have every reason to be full of joy. Rejoice, Christmas is almost here. Rejoice, not so much that we have found Christ, but rejoice that He has found us.
There are times that each of us feel lost. There are times that we feel alone. But we are not lost. He has found us. In one of his narratives, John Powell the famous writer, tells us of an incident where an young college student walked out his class when John was explaining how to encounter God. On his way out, the young man approached his teacher and told him that he was not interested in finding God. John Powell turned to him and told him, “But God will find you someday.” In a very disconcerting encounter this student met his teacher John Powell after few years in the same campus. A smiling but clearly emaciated figure approached him and introduced himself and said, “You were right Fr. John. God did find me. I now know Him, even though I have only little time more on this earth as I am with a rare form of cancer.”
When we become of God’s presence the crises we face become challenges, but not devastating events. A loved one becomes sick, or even dies. We become sick and receive the diagnosis that our condition is terminal. A marriage falls apart. A job is lost. A friend is lost. Whatever the crisis, we know that the final result will be union with God. Jesus is with us always, particularly in the worst of our times. Rejoice in the Lord.
Our late Holy Father, Pope St. John Paul II, told the youth of the world to be attune to the presence of Christ in their inmost desires. His words were meant for all of us: “It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness. He is waiting for you when nothing else ever satisfies you. He is the beauty to which you are so attracted. It is He who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise. It is He that urges you to shed the masks of a false life. It is He who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs up in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
The words of our first reading, from the third section of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah were read by Jesus Himself in the Synagogue of Nazareth in what we can call His first sermon. As Christian to the heart of our being, we also proclaim these words. We are anointed by God. We are baptized. And we are sent. We are sent to bring joy to the world. We are to tell the heart broken that God hears their cries. If their hearts are broken by events beyond their control, the loss of a job, the loss of a marriage, or any series of events that make them feel abandoned by the world, alone in society, they need to know that Jesus is the Mender of Broken Hearts. They do not have to spend the rest of their lives as victims of society. With Jesus they can be victors, not victims.Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.