Jerusalem Gaudi Gaudio Magno

Homily for the Third Sunday in Advent
Gaudete Sunday
Given at St. Patrick's Church
By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd

Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!
Sing joyfully, O Israel!
Rejoice in the Lord always.

Today the Church Celebrates Gaudete Sunday, the Sunday of Rejoicing because Advent is more than half over and we are closer to the celebration of the culmination of Human History on Christmas Day.

Today's readings are full of joyful exaltation but what is the cause of this great joy!

St. Peter in his first letter instructs the Church to always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. It is this hope that Peter talks about that gives rise to joy and the reason for our hope, for our joy, for this period of anxious preparation ts the birth of Jesus Christ.

At the center of our faith before all other mysteries is the mystery of the reality we celebrate at Christmas, that God became Man. As Catholic's we believe a lot of things that the world calls crazy:
We believe that a poor Virgin gave birth, to a king,

We believe in a king and savior who was born in a stable, was murdered by his own people, and died but lives today

We believe that the words of a priest can forgive sins, and change bread and wine into blood and flesh.

We believe in an allpowerful God who allows His week creatures to blapheme His name and destroy His masterpiece of creation

And yet really if you think about it, all these things don't seem so crazy when we realize the awesome contradiction of Christmas "THE WORD became FLESH" we read in John's Prologue. That's like saying that the constitution of the United States
became a person, except the Constitution only governs a small portion of human culture. The Word is God's master plan for creation and we believe that all that is stuffed into a limited human body. What's more, the Word doesn't just pretend to be flesh, Jesus isn't the big bad Word in sheeps clothing. The Word truly becomes Flesh. The unknowable, uncontainable, all-powerful, all-knowing, Lord God of Hosts, who created all things by uttering His Word limits himself and humbles himself so that he can be with us, so that he can dwell in our midst, and speak to us not out of a cloud of fire or through messenger spirits but face to face - mano a mano.

The incarnation is like the president of the United States, deciding that rather than give a press conference he was going to visit the home of every citizen of the United States just so that he could tells us he really does feel our pain. Only the president never created a tree or animal, a human, a planet, or a universe out of nothing. The cause for our joy is this reality, which is almost unimaginable! I sometimes think that it's the fantastic nature of Christian Gospel that shows it must be true. Think about all the other attempts man makes to search for God all the other religions of the World. They are all about submission to the will of God: man follows God's will, or else we get struck by lightening. No other religion preaches a God who cares about us more than a dog trainer cares about his dogs obeying. In contrast Christianity proclaims a God who seeks us out, desire to be close to us, because he loves us. A God's who's laws are given "that we may have life and have it more abundantly." A God who humbles himself to become one of us and then dies to show the depths of His love for us.

Emmanuel, as the Church approaches the end of Advent, we begin to pray for the Light of Christ, the Light of God with us, Emmanuel, because this is the reason for Christian hope! This is what every heart longs for!!! although we often don't know our own heart well enough to realize it! This is the reality that we celebrate at Christmas, and that during advent we prepare our hearts for, because the reality is that God did come to be with His people when the baby Jesus was born 2 millenia ago, but He is still waiting for His people to let this reality sink in and change the way they look at the world.

Christ is the Prince of Peace the source of our joy and when we realize that He is all our hearts want and need there is no reason to be greedy, or steal, or kill, or lust. When we realize that we are made to enjoy God, gazing at the Light, Truth, and Love that is the face of God, the Face of Jesus Christ--the whole world changes for us. And we are at peace, because we have attained our hearts deepest longing- Emanuel