December 17, 2023
To His people who are suffering and discouraged, God reveals the joy He is preparing for them.
Key Points
- Let us listen to this whole chapter 61.
This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable. It has not been verified by the author.
“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall exalt in my God. For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland. And as the bride adorns herself with her jewels.” On this Gaudete Sunday, we have this great passage from Isaiah, at the 61st chapter of Isaiah, speaking of the joy that God wants for us. And Jesus Himself said at the Last Supper, He said, “These things I’ve spoken to you.” Why? Why did he speak all this to us? He says, so that’s a good question. Why did he say all this? Do you remember what Jesus’s response was? “That my joy may be in you.” Right, we often have an idea of a Christian life, Christian life is often presented as a bunch of rules and regulations that keep us from doing what we’d like to do and being what we could be. That’s the way it’s often presented in our society. But what the true reason, Jesus says that He reveals this to us is that so that His infinite, divine, eternal joy, overflowing, overflowing, can be in you. He wants that infinite joy that He has to be in you. He says “that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full,” complete. That never happens on earth. Everything on earth is imperfect, and it has to end. But that He wants His joy to be in you and your joy to be full. That is there’s nothing lacking, nothing. You’re saying, Well, I wish I had this, I wish this could be a little bit longer, that your joy be full. So that’s His desire, that His joy be in you, and your joy be full, complete forever. He goes on to say, “Truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament.” So he’s being realistic, saying that right now you might not be experiencing that. He says, “You and the contrary will weep and lament. But the world will rejoice, you will be sorrowful. You will be sorrowful. But your sorrow will turn into joy. The very thing that has been the source of your sorrow, that is by trying to be faithful to the Lord will be transformed into joy. And then it gives a comparison. He says, “When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her hour has come. But when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world. So you have sorrow now.” So you have sorrow now. So now we experience a lot of sorrow in this earth, especially for trying to be faithful to the Lord, and an unfaithful world that brings a lot of sorrows. And so He’s been honest about that. “You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” No one will take your joy from you. So this Gaudete Sunday is a Sunday in which the Lord’s prophesy here, giving us these prophetic words of joy. So I want to, I want to I want to listen with you to this, this chapter that we had, we had an excerpt and the first reading from Isaiah 61. But I’d like to read the whole chapter for you. And as with a lot of prophetic language, it’s kind of mysterious. We don’t understand all that it means yet there’s a lot of things in God’s language and His prophecies that we only understand, sometimes we only understand them when they’re finally accomplished. We only have that, we can understand something already. It has different levels of meaning. It’s speaking, it seems, like first of all of the renewal of Jerusalem. When the exiles come back from Jerusalem, Jerusalem has been destroyed and many people have been led off into exile. But then later on, the exiles will come back to restore Jerusalem and in fact, when Jesus begins His ministry in the Gospel of Luke, He cites this very passage from this chapter of Isaiah. So it’s a very important passage that He uses to inaugurate His ministry. And it has a spiritual sense. The Church always sees itself, it sees Jerusalem, as a prefiguration of the Church. And so in many ways, and I think we’re living that right now a time in which the Church has been devastated. In so many ways, so much is like falling into ruins. And so many people are leaving the Church, we know that. But this is speaking about a prophecy of a great renewal of Jerusalem. So a renewal of the Church. St. Thomas Aquinas says that, in this, God is promising joy. And so I want to, I want to read through that passage, Isaiah 61, with you and I won’t, I won’t give a lot of commentary. But as I’m reading it, you can be asking yourself, Is there a particular passage in which God is speaking, especially to you, that has a special meaning for you. And so this, this prophet, this prophetic language, is His so his is, we don’t always, of course, as I say, as Jesus says, We’re after we’re experiencing sorrow now. So this is an invitation to trust in the Lord, to believe, to believe in the joy that He is preparing for His children. So it begins, and this is the part that Jesus used at the beginning of His ministry, “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” the same Holy Spirit, who’s with us today that we received in baptism, and is with us in a special way, when we gather to celebrate the holy sacrifice. “Because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to the slaves, and the opening of the prison, to those who are bound.” And we can think of all the different ways that people are bound, that we are bound, that we feel prisoners in certain situations, and for instance, addictions and so forth. And so it’s the opening of the prison to those who are bound. “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And that’s the gospel. In Luke’s Gospel, that’s where Jesus ends his quotation. But the passage continues, it says, “And the day of vengeance of our God, and to comfort all who mourn,” a day a vengeance of the Lord, but also of comforting all who mourn. So a vengeance for the enemies of God, and comfort for those who are mourning, “to grant to those who mourn in Zion, to give them a garland, instead of ashes, the oil of gladness, instead of mourning.” There’s so many things that we might be mourning right now. He wants to give us an oil of gladness, “the mantle of praise, instead of a faint spirit,” like a weak or an expiring spirit, “and thus, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” And so as I read this, the word of God, as I say, there might be a lot that we don’t understand. And that’s okay. I think that I’ve often spoken of this, that it’s important to open our minds and our hearts, to what we don’t understand. Because there’s a lot that I say that there’s a passage from Luke’s Gospel, where it says that the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph didn’t understand what Jesus words are when He was, when they found Him at the temple. But she kept those words and pondered them in her heart. That is, even though she didn’t understand them, she kept them in her heart, to God’s words, even if there’s a lot that we don’t understand if we receive it, with a faithful, humble heart, that it can still be giving us graces and nourishing us, even if we don’t understand at all, because of the graces that come from it and because of the humility that we’re receiving it. And so even though we don’t understand it, it’s a grace to receive it. And, and it’s good to hear that so what I’m doing especially is reading from the Word of God, because it’s good to, there’s a special grace when we hear directly the Word of God. So, you know, it’s helpful when there’s someone who explains it, but there’s a special grace of receiving the Word of God directly. So that’s what we’re, we’re hearing this prophetic word. And so it’s talking here about a renewal, which also can signify a spiritual renewal of the Church, “they shall build up the ancient ruins,” they shall build up the ancient ruins. So think of this as for the Church. “They shall raise up the former devastations, ruins and devastations, they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. And then, aliens, or foreigners, shall stand and feed your flocks, they shall be your plowman and your vinedressers.” And when one scholar comments on this, he says, the picture is not of slaves or second-class citizens. But of the glad commitment of those coming in from the outside, to serve the people of God, to take their place within the serving community. That is the joy of others to come in and be part of this and serve in this community. “But you shall be called the priest of the Lord.” And here it’s not speaking of just of those, the ministerial priesthood, but all the children of God, “you shall be called the priest of the Lord. Men shall speak of you as the ministers of our God, you shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their riches, you shall glory, instead of your shame.” All of us, we’re all sinners. And so if we have a little bit of humility, we can feel shame for our sins. But it says, “instead of your shame, you shall have a double portion. Instead of this honor, you shall rejoice in your life,” so that as He’s taken away all the shame of His children, “instead of dishonor, you shall rejoice in your life.” So instead of feeling, dishonored by our situation, we feel our situation, our lot, what we’ve received, what we’ve been given is, so the privilege we’ve been given is so great that it causes rejoicing. “Therefore, in your land, you shall possess a double portion, yours shall be everlasting joy.” How many things on this earth feel good, or nice or good or joyful. But that’s the way to short. And you know, for instance sometimes in the holidays, there can be good moments in the holidays, maybe a good moment of being with people we love, or a good moment of being someplace, but it’s way too short. And so this is talking about a joy, which is not just fleeting, like a little taste, but a joy, which is everlasting. I mean, even enjoy a good meal, right? A meal, when you’re hungry, and you have good food, it tastes so good. But you can only eat so much right, and then after a certain while you can’t eat anymore. And, and so there’s limits to what we can experience you unnecessarily. But this is a joy that is everlasting. For either, so it’s the perfect fulfillment of the prophecies made to the patriarchs, “For I the Lord loves justice. I hate robbery and wrong, I will faithfully give them their recompense. And I will make an everlasting covenant with their descendants shall be known among the nations and their offspring in the midst of the peoples, all who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are people whom the Lord has blessed.” And so that’s this great promise, this prophetic promise of joy and infinite joy that the Lord is announcing with prophetic, with symbolic language. And then we have the response of those who are hearing this. It says, And this is where we heard this passage. And in the first reading today, it says, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall exalt in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. As a bridegroom, decks himself with a garland, as a bride, adorns herself with jewels. For as the earth brings forth it’s shoots and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” So God Himself will bring about this great, like this great flowering of joy, and holiness. Right now the seeds are being planted in the, in the pain of this world, the seeds are being planted, but He will bring about this, this He Himself will bring about this prophecy. And so this prophecy is a call to believe in the joy that the Lord is preparing for all those who trust in Him, for all those who believe in Him. We’re going through often sorrowful times now, but He’s asking us to believe and to hope, to believe and to hope in the joy that He is preparing. And so we can ask our Blessed Mother, in this Advent season, which is specially dedicated to her, our Blessed Mother, to strengthen us in hope, hope of the joy that the Lord is preparing for His people. So I’m just going to end by rereading that passage that we had today. “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall exalt in my God, For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as the bridegroom decks himself with a garland, as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” Amen.
KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11