We talked about peace last week. This week we should look into the virtue of joy for this week is called the Sunday of Rejoicing. This Sunday, we light the third candle, the rose color one on the advent wreath. What is this Joy that the Church asks us to have? This joy comes from the knowledge that Christ is coming and he is already with us. This joy is the confidence that Jesus is with us. It doesn’t mean that our life is going to be full of happiness and merry. It means that even in the middle of adversities and miseries, we should be joyful. Happy the man or woman in prison who does not lose faith in Jesus. Happy the man or woman stuck between a rock and a hard place who does not lose faith in Jesus. Happy the one who does not lose faith in Jesus. “Are you the one who is to come, or have we got to wait for someone else?” John the Baptist’s hopes in Jesus seemed not to be fulfilled.
He was in prison because he preached the word of God, the truth about marriage and life-long fidelity to one’s spouse. We can easily understand his question, “Are you the one who is to come, or have we got to wait for someone else?” Like John, we too sometimes feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Through no fault of our own, we find ourselves in some difficulty or fix. And we wonder where Jesus is. And we too feel like sending messengers to him saying, “Are you the Messiah? Are you going to help me, or will you leave me helpless?” Jesus sent back the messengers to John the Baptist with this reply, ‘Go back and tell John what you hear and see; the blind see again, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead raised to life, and the Good News proclaimed to the poor; and happy is the man who does not lose faith in me.’ That is Jesus’ message to us also. Look around you and see the presence of God despite the difficulty you face.
There is a story about St. Theresa of Lisieux. In her room in the convent Carmel of Lisieux, there is something remarkable. On the back of the door of her room, scratched into the wood, she had written, “Jesus is my only love.” That is not written in exaltation, but near despair. She was thus crying out to her Beloved that even when she experienced nothing but absence, emptiness, darkness, she clung to the assurance of being loved and carried in his arms. That is faith at a heroic level – that is trust, clinging to God when everything in our experience would seem to contradict his very existence, or at least his love for us.” But it is the truth that will give us the joy that he is around us; he is in us and is above us and goes before us. These following phrases were written by a soldier who was imprisoned by the Nazis at World War II.
“I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in love, even when I feel it not. I believe in God even when he is silent.”