Pastor's Spiritual Reflections

By Fr. Leo Schneider (12/14/2008)

Dear People of Holy Name,

Today, the third Sunday of Advent is known as Gaudete Sunday, for today we rejoice in the Lord’s salvation. Too often we think of God’s salvation as something that will come when we die, but in truth God’s salvation is now. Today we celebrate a salvation that is ours, not will be ours.

Religion is not some kind of retirement plan where we endure this miserable life and cast down all our sins so that we can have a great reward in the here after. That feels too much like earning a payback from God. Our spirituality is to be a living in the presence of God now. That is heaven. It begins here, now.

Ours should be the words of the Prophet Isaiah rising from our hearts, “I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul; for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation.” Our second reading reminds us that God who is faithful will accomplish it. We need to trust in God, give our lives over to him, and let him lead us, for it is his Holy Spirit that sanctifies and guides us on our way.

I met a saintly and holy man this week. He is struggling with a disease that kills all but five percent of people with the disease in the first three years. Full of peace, joy and the energy of the Holy Spirit, he knew how lucky he is to be alive and has had time to prepare for death. Now he lectures on, “Death, where is your sting?” Life is a great gift for him, but nothing like the gift of death and resurrection he will soon receive.

He has an amazing spirit, so joyful and full of peace. He radiated the presence of God and knows his joy and peace is itself a gift from God. This is the gift we pray for in the Advent season, to know the presence of God with us now, so that living in God, it does not matter whether we are alive or passed on to new life in eternity.

We do not need to live in fear of God, but in trust that he desires to save us, and indeed has saved us! It is this kind of joy we are to feel and proclaim on this Gaudete Sunday. We replace guilt with rejoicing as we celebrate God’s forgiveness and reconciliation in our lives. Jesus came for us. Jesus died for us and promises to raise us up with him in his resurrection. There is nothing to fear for God has visited his people.

Emanuel means God-with-us. It is this reality that dispels our darkness and fills us with the light of salvation. It is God’s presence with us now that causes our rejoicing. The Lord God created us and has chosen us in his Son, to be his people. This gift is now and we enter into its fullness in God’s heavenly kingdom, to which he as gone ahead to pre- pare a place for us. Entering this eternity begins with the joy and rejoicing we feel as we realize God is with us now and that nothing can separate us from him and all he will do for us in his justice and love.

May the Lord fill us with his Holy Spirit, and may we live in conscious awareness of God’s love for us so that our trust may be real and our joy may be complete.

In Christ’s peace, Fr. Leo