José Leonardo,1635
Translation of the Epistle for the Third Sunday in Advent
Brethren, Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say, rejoice. Let your modesty be known to all men: The Lord is nigh. Be nothing solicitous: but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Continuation of the Holy Gospel According to Saint John
At that time the Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and levites to John, to ask him: Who art thou? And he confessed: I am not the Christ. And they asked him: What then? Art thou Elias? And he said: I am not. Art thou the Prophet? And he answered: No. They said therefore unto him: Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? He said: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the Prophet Isaias. And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said to him: Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the Prophet? John answered them, saying: I baptize with water: but there hath stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not. The same is He that shall come after me, who is preferred before me: the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose. These things were done in Bethania, beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
The Saving Words of the Gospel
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Transcription of Sermon
Gaudéte. Gaudéte, and that’s in order, by the way. Gaudéte is said in the imperative just like we have in Lent, lætáre. So, we’re told to rejoice, and it’s not a suggestion. It sounds a little odd, I suppose, if we think these are emotions. We’re not told to evoke any emotions, or to pretend we have them, or to summon any emotions whatsoever, because it has nothing to do with emotions. This gaudéte, this rejoicing in the Lord, is something much more profound.
And we have these two penitential seasons of Lent and Advent which are similar and different. Similar in that the penitential, at least they’re supposed to be, and different in the sense of the purpose. We have 40 days of Lent to prepare us for Easter, and that’s a type of penitence in reparation, and it’s meant to prepare our souls for the Paschal mystery. On the other hand, we have this penitential season, which is penance in preparation; preparation for the birth of Our Lord. You know, it used to be in the old Church, 40 days; just like Lent was 40 days. And it started after the Feast of St. Martin. And so, it was called Martin’s Fast, and a little different than the way it’s held now, where, you know, people have reindeers, and astronauts, and Santa on their lawns, and holiday parties. Well, no meat whatsoever, no fish whatsoever during Advent. You are allowed to have fish on Christmas Eve, and that’s why you see it in Middle Europe and in Eastern Europe; that’s a big thing. They would have carp, which for me is like Lent again anyway, to have carp on Christmas Eve. That was their big, big cause of rejoicing. Well, it makes Christmas all the more enticing, I suppose.
But you know, this rejoicing in the midst of a penitential season is not because we take a break from penance. So, it’s not that we were happy because we’re not doing penance. That’s not the idea. The idea is that because of penance, because of prayer that supposedly has been increased during this period, we should experience joy as a result of more prayer, as a result of more penance. Well, how is penance a cause of joy? Well, if we don’t understand that, perhaps we don’t understand penance.
The problem we can have is our contractual understanding of prayer and penance. ‘I’m so mad at God because I said my novena; I was asking for something, and I didn’t get it.’ Well, who’s God in this equation? You know, the idea is that we’re praying not to get things, or our will done, but we’re praying so that we do His will more perfectly. We pray so that we be configured with His will more perfectly. And that’s a real prayer. Let it be done unto me according to your Word. That’s a real prayer. And penance, you know, we can sometimes have something of a mechanistic, contractual understanding of penance. ‘I’m doing something in order to get something.’ In Latin, they call it do ut des, but that’s not the idea of penance. The idea of penance is to clear out the clutter in my heart so that if my heart emptied of self, emptied of these attachments, then is more apt to receive Christ.
When you read John of the Cross in his four books, you almost never see the word sin. And he’s not denying that sin is a reality, but he’s writing to people. He’s writing to people that are… their Carmelites, and so, sin ought not be part of the program. So, what he does talk a lot about, though, is attachment; those things that have a hold on my heart. Pay attention during your Adoration, during your Mass, during your meditation, what is the nature of your distraction? Often, they’re very revealing of where my attachments are. Those things that I give too much importance to.
I remember when I was a little boy, I would go to Mass and I was learning the bagpipes at the time. And all I could see were my dream set of bagpipes, the beautiful tartan kilt that I would get when I had enough money; all my shekels saved up to buy that. Well, what was going on there in Mass? It would happen every time I was in Mass; disordered attachments, disordered attachments. Pay attention because, in God’s mercy, He shows to us those things that are keeping us from Him. Those things that are kind of, so to say, cluttering our hearts, our minds, and not leaving space for Him. So, penance, then, means clearing space for Christ, getting rid of these things that are hindrances.
John the Cross, back to him, you know, he said, You can have a chain that holds a bird down from flying away, but you could also have a thread, and there a little thread, that is holding that same bird down. So, sometimes our attachments can be small things, they can be great things, but if it’s an attachment, and it’s not Christ, it’s an obstacle.
Now, this command to rejoice, since it is a command, and it’s not an emotion, what is it? Well, it’s regarding the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, and fruit is not a virtue, fruit is not an act. It’s the result of an act. And so, in this case, this joy… well, all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, they are effects of the divine indwelling. The Blessed Trinity dwelling in my soul then ought to… He comes with His gifts, and these gifts and the consequences. So, when I have God, who is charity, dwelling in my soul, we’re like that tabernacle. Each one of us, we’re like a tabernacle with legs, and we’ve got… we’ve got God Himself dwelling within us. That ought to be a cause of joy. That ought to make us reconsider the things that we spend our time and our attention on, and how we deal with others.
And so, this joy that the Church is commanding us to exercise, and yes, exercise, is this fruit of the Holy Spirit. It should already be there. ‘Yeah, but I’m not happy. I’ve got… I lost my job. I’m sick. I’ve lost a loved one.’ Okay, those are realities, and they can affect our joy, but extrinsic joy. They can, those things can… our extrinsic joy is mutable, and that’s why when Our Lady appeared in Loretto, France, she was weeping. Can you imagine Mother of God, the Queen of Angels, the Queen of Heaven crying? And those are real tears. She wasn’t playacting. So, is there sorrow in Heaven to an extent; to an extent of there is sin on earth, there’s sorrow in Heaven; but it’s extrinsic. The gift of the Holy Spirit, why?
Because Our Lord in His Sacred Humanity, Our Lady in her humanity, they have emotions. They’re not robots. They have emotions, that’s part of their human nature. But they’re ordered, they’re ordered emotions, not like us, where it’s all a jumble. The angels don’t have emotions. The Father doesn’t have emotions. The Holy Spirit doesn’t have emotions. Our Lord in His Sacred Humanity has emotions, but they’re perfectly ordered. Well, those tears that Our Lady of Loretto shed are emotional tears, okay? they don’t affect her intrinsic joy.
So, this is what the Church is talking about today. The intrinsic joy, which is immutable. Why? Because I’m in a state of grace. Why? Because what I think about, what I do, what I’m ordered towards is the Godhead, the Blessed Trinity. So, when He is the source of our joy, because of our state of grace, and He is the reason for the things I say, the things I do. I’m rightly ordered in that. And that does bring about a joy in the midst of sorrow, in the midst of grief, in the midst of infirmity, and all sorts of other crosses.
And so, we can have multiple things going on. Think of, for example, Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Everybody saw that beautiful smile of hers. I know two men in Austria who were atheists, militant atheists, who seeing her were converted and then became priests. Why? Because it was her smile, her joy that made them think, ‘What does she have that I don’t have?’ It was interesting. Two men, same town, totally independent of each other. What does she have that I don’t have because they’re also angry? Like all atheists are; angry. What does she have? Well, what nobody knew was that Mother Teresa was going through a dark night for the last 50 years of her life. She felt like she was rejected by God. She felt like she wasn’t going to Heaven. So, you read her diary, and she says in one passage, How long can I keep up this fake smile, this forced smile?, she said. Well, there were multiple levels of things going on in her soul. So, there’s this true presence of God in her soul, and therefore the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and a joy that is real but not felt. And then there’s everything that she was feeling, emotions, which are much more superficial. And then there’s her will, in a certain sense, her will, connecting to the fruits of the Holy Spirit and forcing a smile. So, that smile is then real. Why? Because it’s rooted not in our feelings. It’s rooted in our reality. It is much deeper than our feelings, which is the divine indwelling.
So, with that, the Church can, yes, give us an order, rejoice. And we can just say, Aye, aye, sir. And we rejoice because we’ve been told to. And we’ve got every reason to. Because God is love and God has come to dwell amongst His own, and He’s come to dwell in our hearts And He dwells in us, and as much as we’re in a state of grace. And what more reason do we need than that to rejoice?
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen.
~Fr. Ermatinger