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While the world grasps for reasons for joy, Christians have the
only reason: God, who
is Love.
Phil. 4:4,5 Gaudete in Domino semper, iterum dico, Gaudete!
Rejoice in the Lord
always; I say again, rejoice!Dominus enim prope est. For the
Lord is near!
The nearness of the Lord to us, as Christians, is the source of
our joy.
As Christmas approaches, people start to glitter with delight,
even acting a little
giddy at times and this can appear to be a type of joy. But we
also see them more
frustrated than normal, exploding in anger, etc., even sad and
this is a sign that
much of this joy is not what it appears. For joy can only be
founded on this:
knowing we are loved, particularly by God.
Deus Caritas Est 10: The Prophets, particularly Hosea and
Ezekiel, described
God's passion for his people using boldly erotic images. God's
relationship withIsrael is described using the metaphors of
betrothal and marriage; idolatry is thus
adultery...The history of the love-relationship between God and
Israel consists, at the
deepest level, in the fact that he gives her the Torah, thereby
opening Israel's eyes to
man's true nature and showing her the path leading to true
humanism[... :] through a
life of fidelity to the one God, man comes to experience himself
as loved by God, and
discovers joy in truth and in righteousnessa joy in God which
becomes his
essential happiness: Whom do I have in heaven but you? And there
is nothing upon
earth that I desire besides you ... for me it is good to be near
God (Ps 73 [72]:25,
28).
Thus, if we are apart from God, we will feel sorrow. So St.
Josemaria Escriva says:
662 You are unhappy? Think: there must be an obstacle between
God and me. You
will seldom be wrong.
Deus Caritas Estpar. 17: Contact with the visible manifestations
of God's love can
awaken within us a feeling of joy born of the experience of
being loved.
The greatest visible manifestation of God's love, and thus the
greatest source of
our joy as Christians, is Jesus Christ!
That is why we sang today not a psalm, but a new testament
canticle: Mary's
Magnificat, wherein she glorifies God and rejoices in Him. The
Lord has drawn near
and has filled her with joy, as well as her cousin Elizabeth and
John the Baptist, who
lept in her womb.
8/2/2019 Homily 12 11
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As it was for Mary, Christian joy should be the source of
evangelization: 661 A
Long face, a rough manner, a ridiculous appearance, an
unfriendly attitude. Is that
how you hope to inspire others to follow Christ?
No, this certainly is not convincing. Joy is what surprised the
young atheist C.S.
Lewis into giving Christianity another look, and the same will
work for those in our
world today. Today, as we bear the Lord in our bodies from this
altar and into theworld, let us like the Blessed Mother bring that
calm yet strong joy that gives a
witness and an invitation to those who are far from God.
ForGod, whose love for us is the source of our joy, also loves
them, and our joy
drives us on to share the good that Vat. II declared in Gaudium
et Spes, meaning Joy
and hopepar. 45: ForGod's Word...is the goal of human history,
the focal point of
the longings of history and of civilization, the center of the
human race, the joy of
every heart and the answer to all its yearnings.(25) He it is
Whom the Father raisedfrom the dead, lifted on high and stationed
at His right hand, making Him judge of
the living and the dead. Enlivened and united in His Spirit, we
journey toward the
consummation of human history, one which fully accords with the
counsel of God's
love: "To renew all things in Christ, both those in the heavens
and those on the
earth" (Eph. 11:10)
While the world grasps for reasons for joy, Christians have the
only reason: God, who
is Love.
