What brings you joy?
Ultimately, if you think about it, the answer is always
God.
Our readings for this Gaudete
Sunday all focus on joy, developing the Mass’s opening call to Rejoice! because God is working in us to
bring good news to all. The prophet
Isaiah, for example, rejoices because God has wrapped him in a mantle of justice, allowing him to bring
glad tidings to the poor and to announce a year of favor from our God. In place of a psalm, we hear a canticle from Luke, Mary’s
Magnificat. My spirit rejoices in God my Savior, she proclaims: during her
visit with Elizabeth, Mary shares the marvelous news of what God is doing in
her at that very moment, as she opens her heart to allow God’s work to take
place. The mother of Jesus gives voice to her own glad tidings, and Elizabeth participates
in her joy.
The ultimate joy, of course, is Jesus, the light to which John the Baptist came to testify in John's Gospel, a light that will show the way to salvation,
revealing all things, but most importantly, revealing God’s love and loving
action in our lives. And so Paul can
tell the Thessalonians, Rejoice always! –
by means of prayer and praise, opening themselves to the work of God that
will fill them with holiness and peace. May we, too, rejoice, rejoice always, for God is about to be
revealed – born – in each and every one of us again quite soon, so that we can continue to share his love, and his light, with the world. What better reason could there possibly be to
be filled with joy?
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
Image source: Wordle
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