The Third Week of Advent

A blank space at the end of this week’s calendar?  Nah, space for a reminder why this Sunday is Gaudete (Latin for rejoice) in the tradition of Advent.  It is the pink candle of JOY. Despite the difficulties of our world and our lives, this is a Sunday we look to God with Joy–joy of salvation, of redemption, of the presence of God not just as Almighty on High, but as parent, as mother, as comfort.  The intimacy of the humanity of the Christ child.

Richard Rohr’s Devotion yesterday quoted from Stephaine Duncan Smith and what she learned as she found herself wanting to avoid Advent in the aftermath of deep grief.  A reminder and a lesson as we look for joy in the dark news of our day:

The God of Advent is not a God of indifference, but the God who imagined mirror neurons into existence—the cell network responsible for so much of what makes us human, which is the basic ability to read and respond to the emotional needs of others. Every human encounter of empathy begins with mirror neurons firing in witness to pain.

It is fitting, then, that the sacred year begins with Advent. Human pain is the call—every nerve ending crying out. The Incarnation is the response—every mirror neuron of God firing, volcanic in awakening. God hears the crash and cries of our great fall and, like a mother, comes running. Emmanuel rushes through time and space to be not just near our hurt, but human with us in it.

May we never forget that it is God’s very presence that is our Joy.  And, God’s presence is a promise forever and ever.