Witnessing to Light and Joy, Third Sunday of Advent (B), December 17, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, New York
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 below: 

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 time frame the Church’s prayer today. We call the Third Sunday of Advent Gaudete Sunday from St. Paul’s words to the Philippians that we sang in the entrance antiphon at the beginning of 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 red and white, between passion and purity, and therefore is a fitting hue to symbolize the joy that is the fruit of mutual, holy, love, commitment and devotion. All of the readings of today’s 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, we may be able to receive the “good news of great joy” announced by the angels, so that 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. She exults, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” and then gives a long list of reasons of jubilation: “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, …  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 that John the Baptist was preparing everyone through a baptism of repentance to rejoice when at last the Lamb of God would become manifest 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 began to baptize, John’s disciples went to John 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.” The whole purpose of Advent, and in particular the goal of Gaudete Sunday, is to prepare for our joy to be brought to completion at the coming of Jesus the Bridegroom, at the sound of his voice.
• Today the Church marks the 87^th birthday of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, and as we pray for him, it is a good occasion for us to ponder the biggest priority of his papacy. He announced it in his programmatic inaugural apostolic exhortation, which he entitled, Evangelii Gaudium, or “The Joy of the Gospel.” In the first three short sentences of the exhortation, he tells us three important aspects of joy. “The joy of the Gospel,” he declares, “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 says, first, 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, in the context of the ongoing Eucharistic Revival, it’s essential that we take full advantage of the unbelievable gift of the encounter we have with Jesus in Holy Communion and in Eucharistic adoration. The second thing Pope Francis says that causes our Christian joy is that Jesus offers us the gift of salvation, which will set us free from sin, sorrow, emptiness and loneliness, if only we accept that offer. To receive that gift, however, means coming to encounter Jesus first in the Sacrament of Baptism and then, for sins committed after baptism, 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 here-and-now. Jesus is with us today, accompanying us each day of our life, but God-with-us wants us to be with him, so that he can 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 tremendously vivacious, whose joy overflows. A Christian who really encounters Jesus and seeks to follow him will be someone who lives joyfully. He or she will live with special fervor not only Gaudete Sunday, but Gaudete Monday, Gaudete Tuesday, and Gaudete semper. He or she will live be able to say about each day, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!” (Ps 118:24).
• But in order for us to have this joy from our encounter with Jesus, we have to meet a joyful Jesus. Pope Francis fittingly wrote the Joy of the Gospel, “There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter,” who live as if they always have “just come back from a funeral,” whose lives seem devoid of the joy Jesus came into this world to give us as a permanent reality. Sometimes when people meet us or attend Masses in particular parishes, rather than finding bursting with the joy flowing from Jesus’ brimming heart, meet the “frozen chosen,” or, worse, the depressing disciples, the apathetic apostles, or the fulminating faithful. Rather than giving testimony to the light, as John the Baptist said was his mission in today’s Gospel, such Christians give witness to darkness. Rather than sharing the good news, they risk making the good news seem like a fairy tale or a lie. That’s why it’s so crucial for us to have a proper image of a joyful Jesus. The reason why many of us do not live the faith overflowing with joy is because we’re not accustomed to looking at Jesus full of joy. We picture him as uber-serious, as perpetually upset with the state of the world, or even with angry eyes looking condemn us rather than save us. We don’t picture him smiling and contagiously lovingly us and others. We don’t see him with an infectious happiness that could get Peter, Andrew, James and John to leave their boats immediately, to entice Matthew from his tax tables without hesitation, to have vast crowds come to hang on his words for hours. When I was seven years old, Franco Zeffirelli’s epic six-hour television series, Jesus of Nazareth, was released. My parents let me stay up to watch it, which was a big deal for a first grader. It had many hall-of-fame actors and some great cinematography. Half of all American homes tuned in. But Robert Powell’s depiction of Jesus deeply confused me. He literally never blinked his eyes and seemed aloof and withdrawn. He lacked vivacity and happiness. He seemed far from the one who had said that entered the world so that we might life and have it to the full. I rejoiced that later we got much better depictions of Jesus, like Bruce Marchiano, who placed Jesus in the 1993 Visual Bible Film Series adaptation of the Gospel of Matthew, or Jim Caviezel in The Passion of the Christ, or more recently, Jonathan Roumie in the new multi-season television drama The Chosen. Marchiano, Caviezel and Roumie all show Jesus as full of joy, even though Jesus has to face much opposition, even though he will be betrayed by his friends, even though he will be unjustly railroaded, tortured and crucified.
• In an incredible 1975 apostolic exhortation, Gaudete in Domino, taking its name from the same phrase of St. Paul from which Gaudete Sunday comes, Pope St. Paul VI focused on Jesus’ joys. This exhortation has always moved me because in it, Paul VI gives a glimpse of how full of joy Jesus was. He wrote, Jesus “experienced our joys. He knew, appreciated, and celebrated a whole range of human joys, 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 noted that the “secret of the unfathomable joy that dwells in Jesus and that is special to Him” was the “inexpressible love by which He knows that He is loved by His Father.” Jesus’ joy came from his abiding in the love of the Father and Jesus came into the world so that we might have the same joy by experiencing that same divine love.
• This Gospel of Joy, about rejoicing always, about encountering Jesus and being transformed by his joy not just once-in-a-while but full-time, is important and challenging for every Catholic, but it’s particularly crucial for young Catholics. The time of college can be an emotional rollercoaster, going from highs to lows often within the same hour. Most young people are moody because their state, even their identity, can be tied to things that are fleeting and regularly changing, like the grades they get on exams, papers or courses, like others’ approval, or how many “likes” they get on a social media post, or whether a particular person reciprocates their interest, or even what the weather is. Rather than anchoring themselves to rock, they are victims of the waves, tides, and storms. That’s why it’s super important, first, for students to come to Jesus who wants to fill them with joy, a joy the world can’t give or rob, and for them to become true apostles of joy, guiding others to the same joyful Source, especially when sometimes others feel joy is so unattainable that they give into the temptation even to take their own life.
• But how can we find that joy, not just for a fleeting moment but more and more stably? How can we become profused by it in such a way that, without even trying, we share it with others? Cardinal Timothy Dolan, when he was my rector at the North American College in Rome during the late 1990s, gave us a tremendous rector’s conference on joy that I still remember almost three decades later. Most people readily recognize in him, both from a distance and up close, how joyful he is in living the faith. He shared with us the Christian’s open secret. To maintain and grow our joy, he said, we have to recognize and go to the fonts of joy and then be aware of the ways by which our joy is dissipated. He said we need to do four things and avoid four things. Let’s examine what this joyful disciple, now our Archbishop of New York, teaches us.
• The first source of joy, he says, is God himself. Joy is a gift from God, a fruit of the Holy Spirit, dwelling within us in sanctifying grace. God gives us his joy when he gives us himself. Second, joy comes from the conviction that God loves us, that he gave his Son to save us, that he walks at our side always interceding for us. That’s the joy that St. Paul VI said Jesus always had and wants to impart to us. Third, Cardinal Dolan stated, joy comes from a trust and hope in divine providence, that everything works out for the good for those who love God. This is what we see in the first disciples after the resurrection, when they were threatened by the same people who had crucified Jesus: Jesus’ resurrection gave them courage and joy even in the midst of persecution. If we have the same trust in God’s providence, then we will persevere in it even in the midst of our own sufferings and setbacks, not to mention the harassment and mockery we can sometimes experience as disciples. And fourth, the future Cardinal said, joy comes from prayer, that we can approach God with anything we need, that he listens to us as a loving Father and always gives himself in response. Among the causes of our joy is that we can ask God in prayer to increase our joy and make it complete. So four things, four habits, we need to grow in joy: remaining in the state of grace, pondering often how much God loves us, trusting that God cares for us and will provide in every circumstance, and the privilege and power of prayer.
• Cardinal Dolan also focused on the things that can banish joy from our hearts. While no one else can take our joy from us, these are the ways we can voluntarily squander it. The first thing is self-pity, when we begin to feel bad for ourselves, normally because something far less important than God didn’t go the way we hoped. The second is worrying, when we allow ourselves to be eaten alive by preoccupations, as if God isn’t greater or in charge. Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount not to worry even about what we are to eat, drink, wear or sleep, and if he’s saying not to worry about our most basic needs, he’s saying not to worry either about all of the other things we don’t need but simply desire. Third, we lose our joy when we place our happiness in anything or anyone else other than God, like acclaim, advancement, promotion, recognition, fame, prestige, power, the friendship or love of another creature or any other worldly things. Even when we attain what we’re seeking and experience pleasure as a result, that pleasure won’t last and sustain. Because pleasure and joy are different, as are contentment and happiness. As C.S. Lewis once astutely said in his classic 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.” And lastly, we squander our joy through complaining. Rather than focusing on the treasure we have in God, we focus on all the other things that we don’t have. We begin to complain about everything, like the Israelites did in the desert, even after God’s miraculous liberation, his separating the Red Sea in two, his miraculous feeding with manna from heaven each morning, quails each night, water from a rock, his giving a column of fire to illumine the night and so much more. Rather than counting our blessings, we forget them and just enumerate and covet what others have as if it’s more important than what we do. In short, to maintain our joy, as we focus on God’s indwelling, his personal love for us, his fatherly care, and his attentive listening to our prayers, we also need to battle against the self-pity, worrying, complaining and setting our hearts on earthly treasures that can never produce the joy for which our hearts have been made. Cardinal Dolan’s advice is essential for us to find in this world and forever the joy our hearts seek and to become true witnesses of joy to our roommates, fellow students, professors, family members and others we encounter, even and especially in the midst of exams and papers and final grades.
• 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 one could ever receive. In Holy Communion, we are receiving Joy-to-the-world-incarnate, 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, because 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!” Indeed! Gaudete semper!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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