Advent Joy, Peace, and Hope: A Gaudete Sunday Reflection
Readings and Virtual Homily for December 14, 2025 Third Sunday of Advent; Venezuelan Joy
Readings for Mass this Sunday:
Isaiah 35:1-6, 10
Psalm 146:6-10
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
Dear Friends and Family,
The third Sunday of Advent is also known as Gaudete Sunday, meaning roughly, Sunday of Joy; the idea being that at this point we are more than halfway through Advent's period of waiting for the coming of Christ.
The readings for this week are correspondingly joyous. Isaiah speaks of the blind seeing, the deaf hearing and the lame leaping "like a stag" (vss. 5-6). The psalm employs similarly ebullient imagery, the prisoners set free, the blind given sight, and so on (vss. 7-8). The second reading contributes to this understanding in counseling patience; it is sometimes necessary, to truly experience joy, to be patient, to be faithful, to wait on the Lord (vss. 7-8).
The Gospel passage gives us Jesus' assurance that he is the one spoken of not just by John the Baptist but by the entire prophetic tradition. Jesus goes on to make a startling announcement, specifically that "least in the kingdom of heaven" is greater than John (vs. 11). This fact is itself cause for abounding joy, telling us, as it does, something about the glory that awaits us.
I've preached, both from the pulpit and in these written homilies, on the true meaning, the deep reality of joy. A fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) joy should not be thought of as an emotion. It might better be thought of as a habit, a matter of deliberate mindfulness and choice, even a virtue. Genuine joy is more than felt. It is practiced.
I remember my mother occasionally saying, of a difficult situation or a particular disappointment, "Well, in the end, Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and compared to that, nothing else matters." This assessment provides automatic perspective; whatever we are going through, whatever we find ourselves up against, Jesus has already conquered it, won the victory for us. We need only wait on the Lord. In that understanding there is not only joy, but peace.
Joy is inextricably linked with peace, as it is linked with hope. The peace of God, again, is beyond the emotions. "Not as the world gives peace..." Jesus tells us, does he give peace (John 14:27). Peace appears, along with joy, in Galatians as one of the fruits of the Spirit. As for hope, it is a theological virtue (1 Corinthians 13). It comes from eternity and has the power to lead us there. Joy, peace and hope are rightly described as states of mind, rather than feelings.
So how about the times when we feel no joy? When we are not at peace? When we feel hopeless? I have written in a couple of my books about my own three-year experience of what certainly felt like joylessness. It was closely connected to a deep loss of hope. It is hard to practice joy when you feel hopeless. It is hard to hope when you feel joyless. But the term "feel" is operative here. Again, joy and hope both are deeper than the emotions.
It is far too much to detail here, but for over three years toward the end of my preparation for priesthood, I felt no joy, and held only attenuated hopes. But throughout that dry and sad period, I had a deep and abiding peace. I knew that God was at work in my circumstances; I knew that, taking the long view, seeing the big picture, Jesus Christ was risen from the dead. Nothing else mattered, as Mom liked to say, compared to that. Life was good. Life was true. Life was worth living.
So you're not FEELING it? Buck up, boyfriend. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Compare anything to that. Just try to argue that ANYTHING matters, long-term, compared to that. Attend to what is coming at you, and attend to it faithfully. Leave the rest to God. That is how I dealt with my three joyless years.
In the end, my faith underwrote that time of waiting on the Lord, that time of accepting and dealing with deep, really almost shattering, loss. My faith was unshaken by the events I am deliberately not describing here; and in that faith lay the seeds of hope and joy. "Jesus Christ is risen from the dead; this, too, shall pass."
Just a few thoughts about joy, as gift, as habit, this Gaudete Sunday.
On the subject, I am remembering, this bright December afternoon, with the Hayward hills wintergreen beyond my windows, a "word" I heard from the Lord, almost twenty years ago. A word connected to, in fact incorporating, the concept of joy.
It was late night, Sunday, June 25, 2006, walking a broad but dimly lit Caracas sidewalk with seven of my young Venezuelans. This was the night I really connected with them, the night we have all ever since referred to as "el Domingo" (meaning "that Sunday"). We had left the restaurant where they all worked with the idea that they were going to walk me back to my hotel because, at going-on midnight, it was too late for me to be negotiating the busy city streets myself. I had assured the guys that I knew my way back to the hotel, was not drunk, nothing to worry about. They were having none of it. They had specifically asked me to wait until the restaurant closed, at 1130 that night, so that they could make sure I got safely back to the hotel.
My Venezuelans were then and are today hard to resist. I waited 'til they were all off shift. We stepped away from the curb and one of them turned to me and asked, "Tienes tiempo por una mas cerveza?" That is, "Do you have time for one more beer?"
I laughed. And we were off to the clubs, my Caraquenos and I. In the course of that life-changing evening, I received a word from the Lord.
The word was joy. Remember that I had only recently gone three years with zero personal experience of it. The full context takes more time to explain than I want to go into here, but the upshot of it all was this. I received from the Lord that vibrant, memorable evening an assurance that "I give you these young men of Caracas as your spiritual sons. They will be a joy to you like none you have known."
It is true, I had had more than one beer at that point in the evening. All the same, the message definitely seemed to have come from beyond me. I had not been thinking about anything more at the moment than what presented itself to my senses: these seven twenty-something Venezuelans, laughing and talking and guiding their newfound Yankee amigo to the next club...
I mention this moment both because it resonates with today's homiletic theme and because I have had the -- well, the joy -- of sending money to Caracas this week; a down-payment on my annual contribution to try to bring some real holiday cheer to the families of my Caraquenos. You would not believe what $100 American can do for a Venezuelan family. Really. You would not believe it.
I was last in Venezuela in January, 2011. But "my boys" (now men in their late thirties and well into their forties) and I remain in regular touch. I know what is going on with their grandparents, some of whom have died in the past few years. I know how their parents -- my age -- are doing. I know how they, their spouses and children are managing, given the extremely difficult social and economic reality that is life in Venezuela, for maybe eighty per cent of the country's population, today.
I remember second guessing the "word" from the Lord, Sunday, June 25, 2006 in the streets of nighttime Caracas. "Dude, you have had a few, and the night's energy itself might be described as intoxicating..." I also remember saying to myself, "No. You heard it."
I figured time would tell.
I would argue that time has told. Through the good times that lay directly ahead for the next five years, with repeated trips to Caracas, to the past decade and one-half, where I can visit only with my Caraquenos who have managed to escape the country, but through them am in regular contact with those who remain, "my Venezuelans" (there would eventually be seventeen of them) are a joy to me like none I have ever known.
The Lord promised me joy, that night almost twenty years ago, in Caracas. He has more than delivered.
That's a wrap! A joyful third week of Advent to you!
God bless.
Love,
Fr. Brawn