3rd Advent: Rejoice in God's love

(I am not preaching this weekend, the Deacon's are, but here is a homily nonetheless!)


REJOICE!  St. Paul admonishes us to REJOICE, giving the name to this 3rd Sunday of Advent.  Why REJOICE?  What is there to rejoice in?

John the Baptist performed a baptism in which people publicly would announce they were going to change their lives and how they acted.  This is not a bad thing.  It becomes an act of will based on the persons desire to make changes.

Jesus did something different; it was something more substantial, going to the core of our very being.  Jesus opens to us the Way of the Spirit, the Way of God's divine love which induces a change in us and how we choose to live.

God's love, the person of the Holy Spirit, when truly accepted for what it is induces that change.

Think a moment about electric stoves:  they have that coil which only heats us when an electric change is introduced and induces the atoms to vibrate and create the heat.

God is love.  That divine love sees the good within everyone, every person without any condition.  God sees beyond the superficial, God sees beyond the "Accidents" of life, even beyond our mistakes.   God sees the very core of our being, as God's own children.  God pours that love into that core and from it we radiate our very lives.

Why is this cause to REJOICE?  

This is a positive; we believe in the beauty of humanity, we believe it the positivity of every human person and the worth and dignity of every human person.  We do not have to prove ourselves.  We do not have to earn this love, this dignity.  It is ours from the moment of conception to the moment of death, and even beyond death it remains.

Think of how much energy we waste trying to prove ourselves to God, to others, to ourselves.  Think of how much we can deny others their dignity; how we condition God's love:  how much we see in this supposed one nation under God we condition God's love love:  only if we are white, straight, male and rich.

How utterly sinful. We deny the very reality of God as Jesus reveals and we deny our own humanity.

Those enlivened by the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit live differently.  They live freely.  They speak out for the dignity of all persons, for themselves:  we have seen this in Black Lives Matter, in the Me Too movements, in the prolife movements, in the human rights movements; in our work for the poor.

Those enlivened by the Spirit are induced to forgive, to have mercy and compassion, to be generous, to be humble, to wait and discern.

Think of St. Archbishop Oscar Romero and his transformation; of Blessed Stan Rother; St. Paul himself.

We can rejoice as we have seen in our parish our youth find a safe place to grow and be healed in the Spirit.  We can rejoice as we have seen a spirit of welcome grow in our parish in which people have sought us out to be a part of.  We can rejoice as we have become more involved in the greater community around us; as we have learned to listen more to each other; as we have learned to become ever so more patient.

We can rejoice too, each week, in which we come to Mass and witness the power of the God's love, which induces a change in the bread and wine.  We consume that, not to change ourselves, but to allow God's grace to bring out what is already within us.

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