Making Straight the Path to Joy, Third Sunday of Advent (B), December 17, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY
Third Sunday in Advent, Year B
December 17, 2023
Is 61:1-2.10-11, Lk 1:46-50.53-54, 1 Thess 5:16-24, Jn 1:6-8.19-28

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click here: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• “Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!” These familiar words from the refrain of the most famous Advent Hymn of all frame our prayer today. We call the Third Sunday of Advent Gaudete Sunday from St. Paul’s words to the Philippians that are the entrance antiphon for today’s Mass: Gaudete semper in Domino. Iterum dico: Gaudete! “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near” (Phil 4:4-5). Because the Lord is near, because the Lord is coming, because the Lord never ceases to come, we are called to rejoice always. The priest wears rose vestments and we light a rose rather than a purple candle on the Advent wreath to symbolize this joy: rose is a mix between the passion of red and the purity of white and symbolizes the joy that is the fruit of true love, commitment and devotion. And all of the readings of the Mass have us ponder the type of joy we’re supposed to have at the advent of the Lord in history, mystery and majesty, so that when Christmas comes, when the Lord approaches in the sacraments, and when he arrives at the end of time, we may be ready not just to sing but absolutely to burst with our Christian “joy to the world.”
• In the first reading, Isaiah exclaims, “I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul; for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation and wrapped me in a mantle of justice, like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem, like a bride bedecked with her jewels.” God has spoiled us with himself, enveloping us in his salvation and justice and adorning us with things far greater than diamonds. In the Blessed Virgin Mary’s famous Magnificat, which the liturgy has us sing as a canticle in place of the Psalm today, our spiritual mother sings of the joy that comes from God’s enveloping us in his salvation from the inside, exulting, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked upon his lowly servant, … [he] has done great things for me, … he has mercy on those who fear him in every generation, he has filled the hungry with good things, … he has come to the help of his servant, … for he has remembered his promise of mercy.” In the second reading, St. Paul describes that our reaction to these blessings of the Lord should be to “rejoice always, pray without ceasing and in all circumstances give thanks.” Finally in the Gospel we see what John the Baptist was doing to prepare people through a baptism of repentance to rejoice when at last the Lamb of God would come to take away our sins. John announced, “I baptize with water; but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.” Eventually when that “one among you” finally revealed himself and himself began to baptize, John’s disciples went to him and said, “Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing and everyone is coming to him.” John answered and said, “You yourselves can testify that I said [that] I am not the Messiah, but that I was sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom; the best man, who stands and listens to him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete.” Preparing for our joy to be brought to completion at the coming of Jesus the Bridegroom, at the sound of his voice, is the purpose of Advent and in a particular way the goal of Gaudete Sunday.
• Today the Church marks the 87^th birthday of the Holy Father, Pope Francis, and as we pray for him, it is a good occasion for us to ponder his thoughts on joy. Since the beginning of his papacy, he has been trying to help the whole Church to rejoice in the gift of our faith and share it with others. He began his programmatic apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel” with three powerful sentences: “The joy of the Gospel,” he wrote, “fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ, joy is constantly born anew.” Joy is born, he said, from the encounter with Jesus. There are many people who “bump into” Jesus but who don’t really encounter him because, to some degree, they’re afraid of what he might ask. Rather than fill them with life, they fear that he might take their life away. We need not to be afraid to encounter Jesus, but to let him meet us at the depth at which he desires. In a special way, as we prepare in ten days for the 350^th anniversary of Jesus’ revelations to St. Margaret Mary of the desire he has for us in the Blessed Sacrament, and in the context of the ongoing Eucharistic Revival, it’s essential that we take advantage of the “res mirabilis,” the mind-blowing reality of the encounter we have with him in Holy Communion and in Eucharistic adoration. The second thing Pope Francis says that causes our Christian joy is that Jesus offers us salvation, to set us free from sin, sorrow, emptiness and loneliness, if only we accept that offer. Receiving that gift means coming to encounter Jesus in his mercy in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. That’s where God’s greatest joy, as Pope Francis calls it, is poured into our hearts, since heaven rejoices more for one repentant sinner than 99 who never needed to repent. The third thing of which Pope Francis reminds us is that with Christ joy is constantly born anew. It’s something ever fresh. It’s never stale, or old, or “yesterday,” because the encounter with Jesus is always meant to be in the present. We’re not called to live off past encounters but recognize he’s with us today, accompanying us through life, because he wants to share with us each day the joy of the Gospel. A Christian who encounters Jesus meets him who has risen from the dead, who is very much alive, who is tremendously vivacious, whose joy overflows. A Christian who really encounters Jesus will be someone who lives joyfully. Pope Francis has particularly called religious to help the whole Church “wake up the world” with joy. “Where there are consecrated persons, there is joy,” he said during the Year of Consecrated Life. He calls religious “to know and show that God is able to fill our hearts to the brim with happiness; that we need not seek our happiness elsewhere; that the authentic fraternity found in our communities increases our joy; and that our total self-giving in service to the Church, to families and young people, to the elderly and the poor, brings us life-long personal fulfillment.” How beautiful it is that joy is built into the spirit of the Missionaries of Charity as the fruit of loving trust and total surrender and the discipline of cheerfulness. MCs are supposed to live with special fervor not only Gaudete Sunday, but Gaudete Monday, Gaudete Tuesday, and Gaudete semper.
• One of the most helpful sources I’ve ever found to help us grow in living the Christian faith with joy is a beautiful apostolic exhortation from Saint Paul VI written in 1975 entitled Gaudete in Domino, “Rejoice in the Lord,” taken from the same phrase of St. Paul from which Gaudete Sunday gets its name. St. Paul VI asked, “Is it not normal that joy should dwell in us, when our hearts contemplate or rediscover, in faith, the fundamental and simple reasons for joy?” And what are those fundamental and simple reasons? Paul VI gives them: “God has so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son; through His Spirit, God’s presence does not cease to enfold us with His tenderness and to fill us with His life; and we are journeying towards the blessed transfiguration of our life in the path of the resurrection of Jesus. Yes, it would be very strange if this Good News, which evokes the alleluia of the Church, did not give us the look of those who are saved. The joy of being Christian, of being united with the Church, of being ‘in Christ,’ and in the state of grace with God, is truly able to fill the human heart.” This is the joy of John the Baptist, who could serenely say that he was not the Messiah, Elijah or the Prophet foretold by Moses, but that he was the voice of another whose straight path he was preparing, whose sandal strap he was unworthy to untie, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit whom Isaiah in today’s first reading said would be upon and anoint him to bring glad tidings, to bring joy, to the poor.
• But in order to appreciate those spiritual joys, we must first be able to appreciate the natural joys that God gives us. Paul VI wrote, “There is a need for a patient effort to teach people, or teach them once more, how to savor in a simple way the many human joys that the Creator places in our path: the elating joy of existence and of life; the joy of chaste and sanctified love; the peaceful joy of nature and silence; the sometimes austere joy of work well done; the joy and satisfaction of duty performed; the transparent joy of purity, service and sharing; the demanding joy of sacrifice. … Christian joy presupposes a person capable of natural joy. These natural joys were often used by Christ as a starting point when He proclaimed the kingdom of God.”
• Jesus was able to use those joys, Paul VI said, because he had shared them. In Jesus’ humanity, Paul VI wrote, Jesus “experienced our joys. He has manifestly known, appreciated, and celebrated a whole range of human joys, those simple daily joys within the reach of everyone. … He admires the birds of heaven, the lilies of the field. He immediately grasps God’s attitude towards creation at the dawn of history. He willingly extols the joy of the sower and the harvester, the joy of the man who finds a hidden treasure, the joy of the shepherd who recovers his sheep or of the woman who finds her lost coin, the joy of those invited to the feast, the joy of a marriage celebration, the joy of the father who embraces his son returning from a prodigal life, and the joy of the woman who has just brought her child into the world. For Jesus, these joys are real because for Him they are the signs of the spiritual joys of the kingdom of God: the joy of people who enter this kingdom return there or work there, the joy of the Father who welcomes them. … His happiness is above all to see the Word accepted, the possessed delivered, a sinful woman or a publican like Zacchaeus converted, a widow taking from her poverty and giving. He even exults with joy when He states that the little ones have the revelation of the kingdom that remains hidden from the wise and clever. Yes, because Christ was ‘a man like us in all things but sin,’ He accepted and experienced affective and spiritual joys, as a gift of God. And He did not rest until ‘to the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation…and to those in sorrow, joy,’” as we pray in the fourth Eucharistic prayer.
• But St. Paul VI wanted us to grasp that “secret of the unfathomable joy that dwells in Jesus and that is special to Him.” He says it is because of the “inexpressible love by which He knows that He is loved by His Father. When He is baptized on the banks of the Jordan, this love, which is present from the first moment of His Incarnation, is manifested: ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on you.’ This certitude is inseparable from the consciousness of Jesus. It is a presence that never leaves Him all alone. It is an intimate knowledge that fills Him. … In return, the Son gives the Father immeasurable love: ‘I love the Father…. I am doing exactly what the Father told me.’ He always does what is pleasing to His Father: it is His food and drink. His availability goes even to the gift of His human life.” Jesus’ joy came from his abiding in the love of the Father and Jesus wants to communicate to us that joy by helping us to know and experience that love. Paul VI says, “This joy of living in God’s love begins here below. It is the joy of the kingdom of God!”
• At the same time, however, Paul VI makes plain that this joy is not some spiritual cotton candy. This Christ-like joy, he said, “is granted on a steep road that requires a total confidence in the Father and in the Son, and a preference given to the kingdom. The message of Jesus promises above all joy [but it is a] demanding joy; Does it not begin with the beatitudes?” People today think joy comes from being rich but Jesus says it comes from spiritual poverty; the world says it comes from the laughter of comedians, but Jesus says it comes through mourning; the world says it comes from being popular and admired, but Jesus says real joy comes from being persecuted, reviled and hated on his account. That’s the path for us to “rejoice and be glad,” for our reward in heaven will be great. Christian joy is a demanding joy. We see this in Jesus’ own joy. “In a mysterious way,” St. Paul VI writes, “Christ Himself accepts death at the hands of the wicked and death on the cross, in order to eradicate from man’s heart the sins of self-sufficiency and to manifest to the Father a complete filial obedience. But the Father has not allowed death to keep Him in its power. The resurrection of Jesus is the seal placed by the Father on the value of His Son’s sacrifice: it is the proof of the Father’s fidelity.” And so Paul VI draws a conclusion: “The joy of the kingdom brought to realization can only spring from the simultaneous celebration of the death and resurrection of the Lord. This is the paradox of the Christian condition that sheds particular light on that of the human condition: neither trials nor sufferings have been eliminated from this world, but they take on a new meaning in the certainty of sharing in the redemption wrought by the Lord and of sharing in His glory. This is why the Christian, though subject to the difficulties of human life, is not reduced to groping for the way; nor does he see in death the end of his hopes. As in fact the prophet foretold: ‘The people that walked in darkness has seen a great light; on those who live in a land of deep shadow a light has shone.’ … The Easter Exultet sings of a mystery accomplished beyond the hopes of the prophets: in the joyful announcement of the resurrection, even man’s suffering finds itself transformed, while the fullness of joy springs from the victory of the Crucified, from His pierced heart and His glorified body. This victory enlightens the darker souls. … Here below this joy will always include to a certain extent the painful trial of a woman in labor and a certain apparent abandonment, like that of the orphan: tears and lamentation, while the world parades its gloating satisfaction. But the disciples’ sadness, which is according to God and not according to the world, will be promptly changed into a spiritual joy that no one will be able to take away from them.”
• While no one can rob us of true Christian joy, we can squander it. St. Paul VI takes up two ways that we do that are important for us to ponder. He says the first way is through seeking to find our joy in material things. “Technological society,” he noted with words that have only grown more prophetic in the last 48 years, “has succeeded in multiplying the opportunities for pleasure, but it has great difficulty in generating joy. For joy comes from another source. It is spiritual. Money, comfort, hygiene and material security are often not lacking; and yet boredom, depression and sadness unhappily remain the lot of many. These feelings sometimes go as far as anguish and despair, which apparent carefreeness, the frenzies of present good fortune and artificial paradises cannot assuage.” CS Lewis once wrote in Surprised by Joy, “I doubt whether anyone who has tasted [joy] would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world.” We can’t find joy through things. We can’t find joy through winning the lottery. We can’t find joy through Christmas gifts or by spending the rest of our life at Disney World. All of those pleasures have expiration dates whereas joy endures. The second way we squander or prevent joy, St. Paul VI said, is through secularism, through living as if God didn’t exist, through abiding in spiritual worldliness rather than with God. When this happens to man, he says, “the meaning of life escapes him, … he is no longer sure of himself or of his transcendent calling and destiny. He desacralizes the universe and now he desacralizes humanity; he has at times cut the vital link that joined him to God.” We strip God from our worldview, we eliminate him from our daily life, we eliminate him from our understanding of what it means to be human, and when this happens we lose the essential foundation for true and lasting joy. That’s why Advent is so important. In Advent, we contemplate deeply the meaning of Jesus’ incarnation. We prepare for Emmanuel, God-with-us, God who comes to bring us joy, always and full-time. Religious men and women, in particular, are signs that God is real, present among us, so attractive that he is capable of drawing people to give up families of their own, lucrative careers, and even their own autonomy in order to give themselves wholly and entirely to God and his kingdom. They are able to witness that the path to true love, true wealth and true freedom comes through living the evangelical counsels and uniting ourselves to Jesus’ own chastity, poverty and obedience for and in the Kingdom. Meeting John at the Jordan as we do each Advent is an opportunity for each of us to ponder the meaning of our baptismal consecration, of our belonging to God, so that we may be in the midst of the world be like them signs that God exists, that he continues to save and forgive, to love, to walk beside us and lead us to our heavenly home. Wherever there are Christians, there’s supposed to be joy, because Christians are aware and witness that we are never alone, but Emmanuel, the source of our joy, is with us always.
• The greatest means of all to be filled with joy here on earth is the encounter we have with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. We call what we’re doing the “celebration” of the Mass because it’s supposed to be a truly joy-filled feast. It’s here that God comes to speak with us. It’s here that God comes to be with us. It’s here that he comes to hear our prayers. It’s here that he comes to feed us and sanctify us from the inside out. We pray at every Mass, “Blessed are those called to the Supper of the Lamb,” because we are the most blessed people on the planet, receiving today the greatest Gift we could ever receive. In Holy Communion, we are receiving Joy-to-the-world-in-the-Flesh, the one who came so that his joy might be in us and our joy may be brought to perfection. Today as we prepare to receive within us the same Jesus whom Mary carried within her womb for nine months, we are urged to make our own her words, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior,” for he is about to fill the spiritually hungry with the greatest nourishment of all! We repeat with Isaiah, “I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul,” as he is about to do far more than clothe us with the “robe of salvation,” and bedeck us like a bride with jewels, but instead he is about to clothe us with himself and give himself to us as the pearl of great price. God’s desire to enter into a Holy Communion with us is the most profound reason of all to act on St. Paul’s words in today’s second reading, to “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and in all circumstances give thanks!”

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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