The Unshakeable Joy
Julián Carrón - The liturgy of the third week of Advent helps us understand the path each of us is walking. What dominates in this Sunday's readings?
“Rejoice, daughter of Zion, shout for joy, Israel, exult and acclaim with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem!” says the prophet Zephaniah. And St. Paul rejoices, “Always be glad in the Lord, I tell you: be glad.” So the sign that we are experiencing Advent is joy.
But what is the foundation of this joy that we should surprise more and more in ourselves as we spend this time until Christmas?
The foundation of this joy is that “The Lord your God in your midst is a mighty Savior.”
The people of Israel can rejoice in all circumstances if they recognize that the Lord is in their midst. If accepted, his presence is the source of happiness. It is not something the people of Israel make for themselves; it is all the work of someone who is in their midst.
So if they let him into their lives, as the prophet Zephaniah reiterates, “The Lord will rejoice over you, he will renew you with his love, he will exult over you with shouts of joy. He will fill them with the joy with which He Himself rejoices.
The joy of the Lord will pervade them and ‘renew them with His love’ to the point of rejoicing ‘for you with shouts of joy.’” If Zephaniah could exhort the people of Israel to experience this joy, imagine how much St. Paul could, who had seen the fulfillment of Zephaniah's promise in the event of Christ. From the encounter with Christ onward, St. Paul's person was invested by His presence, which he summarizes in this sentence, “For me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21).
What experience must St. Paul have had of Christ's presence, of His presence in our midst, so that he could say, “No longer do I live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20)? Christ reached the innermost depths of St. Paul, and it is from this experience of Christ's presence in him that springs the exhortation he makes to his friends, “Always be glad in the Lord, I tell you again: be glad,” that is, let Him enter you to the marrow, so that your joy overflows from every fiber of your being. We may ask: but is not this gladness, of which today's readings speak, constantly threatened by the historical circumstances that undermine it in every age?
Zephaniah and St. Paul know well the situation in which we live and challenge these threats with the certainty of that powerful presence at work among them. “Fear not, Zion, do not let your arms fall down!” says Zephaniah.
“Do not be distressed about anything,” whatever circumstances you have to go through, St. Paul insists, “but in every circumstance make your requests present to God with prayers, supplications and thanksgiving,” and you will be surprised at what He will do in your midst. “And the peace of Christ, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” We can rejoice in all circumstances because the peace that comes from God is not put at risk, not even by the unpredictability of the future, because, as St. Paul insists, “The Lord is near!”
The certainty with which St. Paul awaited Christ's glorious return was based entirely on present experience. We too can await Christ's return with certain hope because we experience His first coming in the present and recognize that the Lord is in our midst. His presence, if welcomed, is the source of joy, and if we allow it into our lives, as Zephaniah reiterates, everything changes. Indeed, says Péguy, “to hope one must have received great grace.”
That’s what the Gospel says “the people were waiting for.” Because of that action of God in the people, through presences like that of Zephaniah, “the people were waiting.”
Therefore, seeing John the Baptist, “they wondered in their hearts [we heard] if he was not the Christ.” John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water; he comes who is mightier than I, whose sandal laces I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you in Holy Spirit and fire.” How do we know that the Christ, the Messiah, “he who is stronger than I,” says John, promised by John the Baptist, has come?
Today’s readings tell us by the signs: the joy, the certainty, the victory over fear and pain. By these signs, we can see him among us. This is the great grace — of which Péguy speaks — that transforms the lives of those who receive him. We can see that it happened in Christ's first coming and continues to happen among us from the gladness that pervades all of today's Liturgy.
The Ambrosian Liturgy summed it all up in a beautiful phrase: “I will make my presence evident by the gladness of your faces.”
Julián Carrón (born 1950) is a Spanish Catholic priest and theologian who significantly shaped modern Catholic thought through his leadership of the Communion and Liberation movement from 2005 to 2021. After being ordained in 1975, he built an impressive academic career teaching theology at institutions including the Complutense University of Madrid and later the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. His most notable role came after moving to Milan in 2004 at the invitation of Luigi Giussani, whom he succeeded as the leader of Communion and Liberation following Giussani's death in 2005. Carrón combines scholarly work in theology and Biblical studies with practical religious leadership, having authored numerous works on Christian life and Gospel interpretation.
