Joy in the Presence of Christ: Embracing the Spirit of Christmas By Fr. Gerrity on December 15, 2024
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Traditional Catholic Priest Preaching video
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Joy in the Presence of Christ: Embracing the Spirit of Christmas

Summary of Headings

The Gift of Joy in Creation

One of the things I admire about the Carmelites so much is their spirit of joy. That's why it's an easy segue into the sermon of today, because that is the principle and foundation of this Sunday. Go day to rejoice in the Lord. Always and again I say rejoice because that is the essence of what Advent is supposed to be. Unfortunately, it's easy for us to lose sight of this because we're so caught up in so many aspects of our everyday life and because we do not understand or appreciate what it is that is offered to us and what God himself has given to us when we contemplate and consider the creation of all things. God has given us a preferred place among all creatures. Every creature that exists all around us, and with the exception of angels, do not have the extraordinary gift that is offered to us, that is given to us.

The Privilege of Being Human

And that is the spirit of joy that comes from the fact that we are loved by God and we are actually called to love Him back. No other creatures can say that, except the angels were elevated to a way that is unbelievable. And it's a privilege and one that we don't contemplate nearly enough. We could have been created rocks whose only end is to just sit there and erode and glorify God by being kicked around and spun around and dug up and thrown around and just sitting. That's their only glory that they can offer to God.

The Mystery and Humility of the Incarnation

We have no intention, no will, no desire, no passion, no intellect, no nothing. They just exist. And are batted around by every force around them. We could have been created. That we could have been created. An animal mosquito has 30 days of life to annoy heck out of everybody. We could have been created in any possible way, but God chose us to be humans and therefore we are called upon to be His adopted children. Which means that he loves us so much that he becomes one of us. That is the mystery of Christmas. We are so familiar with the story of Christmas, we don't contemplate the mystery behind it. Christ is coming because his he delights in being with us. He wants to be one of us because he loves us so much.

Christ’s Continued Presence and Sacrifice

And we need his help so badly that he is willing to humble himself in a saint, Paul says. Take upon himself the form of a slave to be one of us and to suffer as we suffer. And to take upon himself the consequences of all of our sins. Not just original sin, but each and every one of our personal sins, mortal and venial. He takes it all upon himself when he becomes flesh so that he can carry it to the cross and die upon the cross for us. What kind of love is this? To suffer such humiliation. And he doesn't stop there. But even after the crucifixion death, which is more than enough for any idea of how much God loves us. But rather he stays with us in the humblest of all forms, transforming himself into our food, becoming the Eucharist, taking the form of bread and wine to very simple, humble, inanimate objects. He takes that form upon himself so that he can become as passive as possible. And we can receive him. He humbles himself again and again out of the profound, immense and eternal love that he has for us.

Recognizing God's Love and Our Response

We do not contemplate this fact remotely enough. God loves me. Why? Because God is love. There is no other answer. It's not because we're so wonderful and we're so lovable and we're so just perfect. That's obvious. We let him down again and again. We have to go back to confession all the time. We have to do better each and every time. And we fail yet again and we mess up yet again. But the love of God is so extraordinary that it maintains us. It forgives us, it elevates us. It gives us chance after chance, opportunity after opportunity, grace after grace, sacrament after sacrament. Humiliation to our Lord Himself after humiliation.

Inspiring a Life of Consecration

And we don't even contemplate the honor and love that he shows us. We're so blind and so blasé about the whole thing. We like the manger scene. It's a cute little thing. We like the idea of Jesus as a baby. We like the idea of Christmas because there are gifts. We like the idea of all things. We do not understand the profound impact of what it means that Christ became human, out of love for us. And we don't understand the other side of that coin, which is he became man out of love for us so that we could love him. We could return that love for love. We could actually become participants directly and absolutely in the love of God himself. What an honor. What a privilege.

Philosopher's Insight into Divine Love

I always go back to this, but Aristotle himself, who was such an extraordinary philosopher, wasn't capable of understanding the idea that God could love us. He said, the shoe does not love the ant. He did not understand that because there was such an immense difference between the essence of what God is and the essence of what human beings are. He did not understand how it was even possible to talk about love, because that's between equals. Love is between equals, and we're not God's equal. So how is it possible that he loves us? Because He is love, because he is God, and because he created us to be loved and to love.

The Transformative Power of Love and Joy

Because he elevates us to be his equal through grace itself. He gives us his very life, his very essence, so that we can love him. When we contemplate the miracle of what this love means, when we contemplate the extraordinary grace and honor that it is. Our immediate reaction should be one of a deep, profound joy. These facts transform our entire lives. All of a sudden, the most mundane things transform themselves into light and easy and beautiful objects of praise and love to God.

Life as Consecrated Actions of Love

The mere fact that we are able to wake up means that God loves us and that it should be an act of love and return. The mere fact that we have to go to work or that we have that we have anything, is an act of love from God and one to be given back to Him with love. Why do we pray before we eat? I'll give you a hint. You're not blessing your food. I am. You're not. I actually can bless. You can't. The idea is not to bless the food. It is to consecrate the act of eating into an act of love.

The Role of Prayer and Sacrament in Daily Life

Why do you say your morning offering in in the dirt at the very beginning of the day to consecrate the day into one series of acts of love throughout the day? Why do we say prayers spaced out throughout the day? Like for us to breathe free or whatever else this is so that we can have the presence of God and consecrate every part of our day to Him all the time. Because each and every one of these parts of the day, each one of these actions of the day is an act of absolute, pure, perfect love of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, consecrated by His incarnation.

Embracing Trials as Expressions of Love

And it must be given back to him with as much love as we can possibly muster. Even the crosses and sufferings and illnesses and weaknesses that we have to put up with. All of these things must be given back with the same amount of love with which they are given to us. And yes, it is love. It is the love of God that gives some to us.

Examples of Saints’ Divine Love

Saint Teresa of Avila insisted that if it were possible, if it were possible to love God in hell, the sufferings of hell itself would be nothing if we could love God. Now that's an impossibility, but that's an extreme version of exactly how we should handle our entire lives. Whatever it is we have to put up with, whatever it is that we are dealing with, whatever it is that is dragging us down, whatever it may be, it should be suffused with the joy of the fact that we are loved by God and we can give Him something back out of love.

The Source of Divine Joy: Holy Ghost

The very first fruit of the Holy Ghost after charity is joy. You go down the long list of the 12 fruits of the Holy Ghost in the Catechism charity. Joy The fact of the presence of the Holy Ghost in our souls and in our lives is the source of absolute perfect, blissful joy. Because it is God himself who gives us love and does God himself whom we should love.

Consecrating Daily Actions to God's Love

Saint Catherine of Siena when she received an apparition of our of her place in heaven. From that moment, she started to die a little each day from the mere happiness, from the pure happiness and joy of being able to understand what it is to be loved by God. Even though she had received so many ecstasies, had constant dialogs with our Lord and everything else, she finally understood by vision and by sight. She understood the slightest tiniest particle of what it means to be loved by God, and therefore she could not have anything to do with this life anymore. She gave up eating entirely for the last three years of her life, except for the Eucharist.

Exemplars of Joy: Saints' Lives

She couldn't stomach anything else. And actually very Sassoli told the Pope when he asked her if he commanded her, which she eat because she was famous for not eating, and she answered, Of course I'd obey you. I would eat. But you can't. You can't command me to keep it down. So she had such detachment from this from this life. She was sleeping one hour a day, and even in her sleep, she would go into ecstasy. She would only go to communion and the host would actually pull the priest's hand to her. She was so beloved by God.

Saint Thomas Aquinas. After seeing the place that he had in heaven waiting for him, after having just a glimpse of what God is, stopped writing all His magnificent, beautiful theological texts. And the only thing He could drag himself out to write and to contemplate was a commentary on the book of the Canticle of Canticle, the great love Song of God to a soul in the Bible itself, because it's the only expression of love that he could possibly give anymore was to try to contemplate and understand and help others understand how much God loves a soul.

Understanding and Appreciating Divine Love

There are so many examples throughout the history of the Church of the immense love of God. And for us, it is so commonplace. And so commercialized. Speaking of Christmas. And it just so. Dead to us because we do not contemplate it or love it like we should. We do not appreciate it as we should.

Barriers to Joy and Love's Appreciation

We get so wound up and caught up in all the things, all the concerns and worries, all the problems and difficulties, all the fears, everything that is dragging us down. We let anger scare it away. We let anger chase the joy of the presence and love of God away. We let our fear crush it down. We let our occupations block it out. We let the darkness of the world cloud the light of God. We let so many of these things happen because we do not appreciate the glory and the beauty of our vocation to love God. What an honor and beautiful thing it is.

Emulating Saints in Joyful Living

But that also means that we must use that love to inspire us to consecrate our lives absolutely. In every little detail. Each tiny action becomes an act of heroic virtue through the love that we bear for God. Each and every tiny action, commonplace, mundane, every little thing becomes an act of absolute, perfect and infinite love. When it is joined to the fact that we appreciate that God loves us so much that this is what He gave us to do. It is an honor. It is a joy.

The Invincibility of True Joy

And if we appreciate that, if we can start to appreciate that there is no power in the world, the flesh and the devil that can take our joy away from us. When we talk about joy, we're not talking about walking around like idiots with smiles plastered on our faces. It's just the peace that abides in our soul and the joy of knowing that God loves us. And what I do is for the love of God. Every action, every thought, every word, every prayer, every suffering, every particle of our being is become a prayer of absolute sacrifice and love to God himself, inspired by and infused by Him and given to him perfectly.

Seeking Guidance from Saints

Let's turn to St John the Baptist, the great precursor, a man of extraordinary penance, a man who has proved himself over and over again to be a faithful servant of God and a messenger of pure joy. Turn to Saint Joseph, who, in his silence and his quiet, also gives us the spirit of the pure joy of the presence of God, absolute submission to his will. Let's turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who, above all people, through her sufferings and through her pain and through her situation that she found herself in, voluntarily accepted everything God did and God asked of her because she loved him so perfectly and so immensely.

Following Saints to Understand God's Love

Let's turn to them, learn from their example, and let us let ourselves be guided by the love that they have for God so that we may be able to understand and appreciate the honor and the beauty of the love of God so that we can respond love for love and consecrate our lives entirely to Him so that we can one day be eternally confirmed in the love of God in Heaven.

Summary

The sermon emphasizes God's profound love for humanity and the call to respond with joy and love in return. It starts by exploring the privileged position of humans among all creatures, highlighting the joy inherent in being loved by God and called to love Him back. The mystery of the Incarnation is presented as an unparalleled act of divine humility and love, encouraging reflection on Christ's continued presence through the Eucharist. By understanding God's immense love, each daily action can be transformed into a consecrated act of love, elevating mundane tasks to acts of worship and gratitude.

Furthermore, the sermon encourages emulation of the saints, such as St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, in appreciating and responding to God's love. It examines how saints like Teresa of Avila and Thomas Aquinas experienced profound joy and transformation through their understanding of divine love. By integrating love into every aspect of life, Christians can experience true joy—the steadfast peace from knowing God's love—while facing trials and the distractions of the world. This joy, rooted in the Holy Spirit, endures beyond suffering, secure in the understanding that nothing can separate us from God's love.