Today is Gaudete Sunday – the third Sunday of Advent … the start of the week of joy.
As we lit the third candle in our Advent wreath, I felt a flood of overwhelming emotions.
At Mass today, I cried. It was as though all the difficult moments of my Advent – and, kind of, this entire year – came into focus as that third candle was lit… and, in that moment, I felt, well, not joy.
Usually, as we approach Christmas with the anticipation of the birth of Jesus, I am full of joy, but I have friends who are dealing with things. There is grief. There is illness. There is loneliness. There is fear. There is overwhelm. There is anxiety and stress and pain and unsettledness. There is darkness.
But then there is the lighting of the candles.
Sometimes, light feels so contradictory.
I see the Christmas lights all over. When the square was lit in front of hundreds of people, the excitement was palpable, but I felt a little loneliness. When I drove long routes at night, I saw gorgeous light displays, but I wasn’t feeling Christmasy. When we put up the tree, I felt unappreciative. Light usually draws me in and calms me, but the candle today felt harder. The flickering flame felt … unreliable. It felt somber. Yet, I was supposed to reflect on joy.
I’m usually the person who can walk the journey with someone to find the joy, but my heart had been burdened this month … perhaps all year. We have five friends anticipating major surgery in the next few weeks. A friend just passed away. There has been angst and stress and too much loss in my circle this year. And today, on the day we celebrate joy, my heart was too heavy. When our priest began his homily about challenges, and tears, and dryness in our spiritual life – and how God uses them to bring us closer to Him … I couldn’t stop the spilling of tears … I couldn’t prevent the overwhelm … You see, I knew … those words were being directed at me. And, there is joy in knowing that God’s plan is bigger than mine – and joy and all of those other hard emotions actually can live together side-by-side. We can all feel pain and sorrow and compassion for ourselves and for others, while at the same time being joyous this season. They are not mutually exclusive.
There is one more candle to light – and that is for love. Love of God. Love within families. Love between spouses. Love of children. Love of parents. And love between friends. I’ve been known to exchange, “I love yous” with some friends. They are usually the friends who are there when no one else wants to be. They are the ones who reach out if they haven’t heard from me in a while. They are the ones who, even after some dryness in our friendship, will pick up exactly where we were without batting an eyelash. They are my people. And I am theirs. And we have chosen to love like family. How amazing does it feel when someone chooses you – not for what you wear, or what your job is, or who you know, or what you can do, but for who you are?
So it is with God. There will always be periods of dryness in our faith life – it can be a little sand we need to sweep away or a boulder that presses heavy against our hearts. We can harbor resentment and choose to believe that God has abandoned us, or we can continue to press on … as He relentlessly pursues us. And we can find joy in knowing that we are His people.
When joy is pure, it can coexist with grief, sorrow, pain, anxiety, fear, challenge, and so many more. Joy leads us to that fourth candle... love.
So, I choose to hold fast to the love. Because, in the end, despite loss, despite grief, despite hurt or pain or anxiety, it is love that binds us together.
And now, these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love ~ 1 Corinthians 13:13
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