Make Space for Joy

This was the first weekend of my summer sojourn back in the parish of St Michael’s, Nowra – this time, living at Holy Spirit Church in Vincentia (on Jervis Bay).

In this homily, Fr Richard Healey delivers a sermon during an Advent Sunday service. The sermon focuses on finding joy in all circumstances, drawing on Paul’s commandment to rejoice in the Lord always. The pastor discusses the examples of John the Baptist and Mary, emphasising the importance of letting go of negativity and embracing our true identity to experience God’s presence. The sermon also highlights Paul’s teachings in 1 Thessalonians, providing a framework for living a life of freedom and joy.

(00:00:00) – Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say, rejoice. That sense of joy this Sunday of rejoicing, the invitation of the opening antiphon. And Paul gives us this commandment. Be happy at all times. Rejoice in the Lord in every circumstance and in every situation. Is that easy to do? A lot of the times our life kind of goes to, uh #$%&, and there’s lots of words that describe that experience. And most of them are inappropriate to say in church. I’ve been known to say some of these from time to time, but I won’t start my first Sunday back here by swearing at you. But that’s often our experience that life doesn’t always give us those opportunities to flourish, to find life, to find freedom. And yet there are people around us at times that do invite us more deeply into that experience of joy and wonder. And sometimes those people can be real markers for us, models for us, pointing the way to that experience of life, of goodness.

(00:01:25) – And for us, it is that experience. Now, when we think of John the Baptist, I don’t think joy is probably the first word that comes to mind to describe him. I mean, he’s this weird, strange character who goes away from people, shuns the company of others, it seems, in order to take people back there into the wilderness, back into that place where they first entered the promised land, that place where they first returned to the land after that period of exile. And John knew that the people needed this experience of cleansing. And so the questions that he’s asked today provide a wonderful insight into how we might experience joy, because he’s able to know at least what he’s not. I am not the Christ. I am not Elijah. I am not the prophet, but he knows what he is doing. And that pathway to joy often comes by stripping away those things that don’t serve us anymore, stripping away those parts of ourselves, those images that we’ve gathered, those critical thoughts that have often been thrown at us by parents and teachers or colleagues or friends or priests over the course of our lives.

(00:02:49) – Some of those may have elements of truth, but most of them are not. Most of them are not helpful. And so stripping away all those things and saying, no, I am not that; that is not true, provides then the capacity to be filled with God. Because our psalm response today is from Mary’s Magnificat. And Mary was able to also experience that in her confusion. And in that sense of how on earth is this all going to unfold? How will this all happen? But she doesn’t know, and yet she still opens herself to that. Yes. And that yes is where it all begins. The no that we first say to all the things that we’re not, all the things that we don’t want to be true of our lives, gives us the capacity to say yes to the one thing that really matters, which is our relationship with the Lord. And Paul today in first Thessalonians offers us, you know, this wonderful framework of how we are to live in that experience, all those things that matter for our lives in order to find freedom, in order to find that capacity to experience our joy in the Lord.

(00:04:09) – And joy is not just a superficial experience. It’s something that begins to bubble away deep within us, and it’s in the depth of who we are. It’s in the core of our being. It’s in that place, that secret place where we can encounter God’s love and God’s mercy and God’s truth, where I know that no matter what I do, no matter how many times I drift away from the path, no matter how many times I sin and stuff things up and get things wrong, the Lord is always there, inviting us back into freedom. And in that place, in that secret place. I am deeply and wonderfully loved by God. And it’s in that moment. It’s in that place that the Lord and freedom is available to us. And that’s the pathway to joy. That’s where we begin to experience that possibility of joy, the possibility of rejoicing in the Lord always. When we get rid of the things that don’t matter, and we cling desperately to the love of God, that does provide us that scope and that possibility of surrendering our lives to the Lord.

(00:05:23) – So in this final week of the season of Advent, let’s indeed remember those things that aren’t really significant. Let go of all the things that don’t serve us anymore and cling to the love of God. Cling to his peace. Cling to his hope, and cling to the joy that he’s wanting to offer to us. And next Sunday, cling to that love that he’s able to provide the foundation for the whole of our lives.