Gaudete! rejoice! The comforting message on the 3rd Sunday of Advent

JMJ

Even though we are living in a great crisis, there is still cause to rejoice!

P^3

We Christians must rejoice, we even have all kinds of reasons to be joyful: this is the Church's comforting message on the third Sunday of Advent.

Until now, it has always been believed that joy and cheerfulness were the lot of people without piety, bad subjects who do all kinds of tricks. But that all Christians, young or old, poor or rich, sick or well, must be joyful people, that is what many people did not know, and those who knew lived it as if they did not know it. Today the Church tells us this expressly and it cannot be repeated enough. From the door of the sanctuary, she announces to us: "Rejoice in the Lord. I tell you again, rejoice.
But, holy Church our mother, don't you see the misery of those thousands of unfortunate people who don't have a piece of bread? don't you see the misery of souls that gives such great worries? don't you see the persecution of Christians in so many countries? can we then rejoice?

The Church answers us: My dear children, I see all this, I know all the miseries better than you do. My maternal heart feels all the suffering that is inflicted on my children and that my children are preparing for me. Yet I have the right to rejoice and I call you to joy. Why? Because you are the children of God, because Jesus Christ is your brother, because heaven is your homeland. How long does earthly life last? It passes like a bad dream. Because, in heaven, we will be rich, happy, beautiful, healthy and that this heavenly life will last forever.

Ah ! Holy Mother Church, are we tempted to say, earthly life is very painful and it lasts so long and heaven is so far away. Who knows?..... Here we are caught and the Church can answer us: Do you know, my children, why you cannot achieve the true joy of Christianity? it is because you do not have a strong, deep, full and living faith. Believing is risky, I'll give you that. The dove of eternal life is placed on the roof of heaven, the sparrow of poor earthly life is in your hand. Faith consists in letting this sparrow escape from your hand to find the dove on the roof. Only the living Christianity, the one who is conscious of divine life, who has enough faith to abandon earthly well-being and exchange it for eternal life, can achieve a true and authentic state of joy. It is to this Christian joy and faith that our Mother the Church calls us today: Rejoice without ceasing, I tell you once again: Rejoice.

Source : Pius Parsch, Le guide de l'année liturgique, tome 1 / La Porte Latine du 13 décembre 2019

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