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From the Pastor's Desk: December 13, 2020
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From the Pastor’s Desk: December 13, 2020
Gaudete in Domino semper! Rejoice in the Lord always! (Phil 4: 4)
The lighting of the third rose-colored candle of the Advent Wreath brings us closer to the celebration of the Feast of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. The theme for the Third Sunday of Advent is “joy” and comes from the words of St. Paul who tells us to rejoice: "Rejoice in the Lord always!" The liturgy of this Sunday echoes the words of the apostle to support its meaning and significance as we celebrate “Gaudete” Sunday. The word “gaudete” means, “rejoice” or “be happy”. Today, we are invited to reflect on the authentic happiness and joy of Christians. What is true happiness? It is being near Jesus. Unhappiness– is losing Him.
There is no greater time that I can remember that joy would be the last thing to describe life in the midst of our national and world affairs. The COVID-19 pandemic created an atmosphere of fear and chaos claiming the lives of so many people. Lockdowns, social distancing, and wearing face coverings added another element of distrust and suspicion among the people of God. In addition, so many people lost their jobs, so many deal with social unrest and many others are affected by political challenges. Our personal struggles related to unexpected heath issues and many, many other problems that we face daily. So, what is so joyful about it??? Why should we be joyful?
In truth, on our own we can easily perish in the deep and turbulent waters of these situations. But the idea for us Catholic-Christians is that we are never alone. We need each other and we do so in the sharing of the gift of our faith in the context of worshipping in community. It is in today’s liturgy that the Word of God meets us with an invitation to be joyful. First of all, we share in the joy of Israel who sings joyfully because God has repealed His condemnation. Furthermore, the divine presence of the Lord is in our midst with love and gladness and His power and salvation frees from all fears and renews the kingdom with its love. It is a protecting and safe presence. We rejoice because we possess the peace of God that goes beyond all understanding. This truth of the faith in God, the fruit of faith and baptism, is experienced in the liturgical celebration when we “tell God all our desires of every kind in prayer and petition full of gratitude.” Finally, we rejoice because John the Baptist, the forerunner, proclaims the Good News of Christ. In light of all this, we can say that Christianity is the religion of joy. It is joy in the Lord, as St. Paul reminds us. In short, they remind us of God’s faithfulness in fulfilling His promises, that the coming of Jesus is the essence of the Good News to hope and believe in. That God is the only source of joy and we are invited to participate to pass on that joy to others.
There is the joy of Advent that brings Jesus near to us. Therefore, happiness and joy should be essential to our Christian life. For us Catholics, joy is a state of the soul equated with happiness and it is also defined as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Joy, therefore, is not to be understood as something superficial or immature, but rather a decision supported by our behaviors and attitude to make Jesus the center of our lives. As we listen to the preaching of John the Baptist, we, too, need to respond to people in the way Jesus would. We, too, need to make His fire well up in our hearts so that our actions and deeds would conform our lives more perfectly to His. We, too, need to make ourselves authentic preachers of the same Good News Jesus preached. We need to make ourselves one with Him– the Way, the Truth and the Life. That is the direction to live a joyful life!!!!
It is with great joy that I share with you that our Annual St. Luke Festival which we celebrated last month generated a net income of about $50,000.00! In spite of so many limitations and challenges, this is a major success! In addition to the service of the larger Middleburg community, we were able to support our own budget conservative income in order to support the ministries of the church and outreach to the community. Once again, profound words of thanks and gratitude to everyone who made this success possible!
Have a blessed Third Week of Advent!
With prayers,
Fr. Andy
