3rd Sunday of advent. What is this joy?

It’s dark a lot and it’s cold.  
It can seem as if the country, if not the world is all loco.
People we know are hurting because of illnesses and depression.
People struggle in the cold because they have no decent shelter.
We can feel so much pressure to have that “Christmas Spirit” and so we do everything we think we have to.
And here we are...Gaudete Sunday, 3rd Sunday of Advent, celebrating Joy!
Our Readings call us to this!  To Rejoice!
How?  What is this Joy?
Consider what we prepare for, Christmas.
This is God being born as human.  
This is the Son of God being born as human.  
This is God’s desire that we know God is with us.
God is for us, always.  
There is nothing that we can do to lose God’s love and there is nothing we can do to make God love us more.
God loves us perfectly.
Joy comes when we accept this reality, and to let it sink into our minds and hearts.
Joy comes when in the midst hardships, chaos, when there is the pain in life,
it is NOT God who is out to get us and punish us…
Rather God guides us through it all...to life.
Joy knows that those hardships et al are accidents, coincidences or the results of human stupidity and folly.
Joy gives us the freedom to mourn the loss of our loved ones, and to know that loss will not keep us from love.
Joy gives us the ability to respond to anger by helping us to build bridges with one another and grow closer.
Joy frees us from our fears, and sees beyond them to the light.
Joy says I don’t have to have a TV Christmas…
Joy says there is really love in my life.
Joy is to come to Eucharist, and celebrate the sacrament, the living sign that God is with us always, and to go and live.
God is with us, this is Gospel Truth.  

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