Meeting Jesus with joy and gratitude

Advent closes as “we await the blessed hope, the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.”

To be full of joy, is the experience
of the highest consolation ... Joy is not easy, but with Jesus it is possible.”  Pope Francis

 This proclamation we exclaim after praying the Our Father during Mass is a declaration filled with joy and gratitude we find in meeting Jesus.

The joy of meeting Christ is ever-present in our lives. During Advent, we anticipate the celebration of the birth of Jesus, look forward to his second coming and participate here and now in the joy of receiving his most precious body and blood in the Eucharist. 

But first let us discover what joy is. According to Paragraph 1832 in the Catechism of The Catholic Church, we read “Joy is one of the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory.” 

We believe “the fruit of joy is the awareness that God is our strength and protector because we safely abide in his love. This inner joy is undisturbed by the negative conditions that may surround us. We know Christ has redeemed us, loves us, protects us and he will never abandon us. The fruit of joy is a foretaste of the perfect bliss and eternal delight of paradise that God wants us to experience.”

Jesus delivered the Holy Spirit, the one who shares virtue, including joy. Joy offers an indication of eternal joy with God. 

Joy is not necessarily walking around with a smile all of the time. Rather, joy in Christ Jesus is an ever-consistent happiness in his life. How can we not be filled with joy knowing that Jesus suffered, died and resurrected to redeem humanity  from its sins and open the path to eternal joy in heaven.”

Moments of despair and obstacles in life are tempered with the experience of this deep joy understanding that Jesus is present  from the brightest of days to the darkest of nights. As we stand in the love of God, we know God is our stronghold and shield. Our deepest, ever-sustaining joy from encountering Jesus in the Eucharist.

Pope Emeritus Benedict, in a homily given on Dec. 10, 2006, said, “God has a face. God has a name. In Christ, God was made flesh and gave himself to us in the mystery of the most holy Eucharist. 

The word is flesh. It is given to us under the appearances of bread and wine and thus truly becomes the bread on which we live. We love on truth. The truth is a person: he speaks to us and we speak to him. 

“The church is the place of our encounter with the son of the living God and thus becomes the place for the encounter among ourselves. This is the joy that God gives us: that he made himself one of us, that we can touch him and that he dwells among us. The joy of God is our strength.” 

In his April 6, 2020 Angelus address Pope Francis explains, “To be full of joy, is the experience of the highest consolation, when the Lord makes us understand that this is something different from being cheerful, positive, bright. Joy is not easy, but with Jesus it is possible.” 

The Blessed Mother is a witness of joy in meeting Jesus. Her motherhood has brought Christians closer to God, as she is closer to him than any other. 

The Archangel Gabriel declared, “Blessed are you among women.” Blessed means happiness, joy. Christians understand Mary’s life and as the mother of our Lord, was joyful as well as sorrowful. From the manger to the cross, from Jesus’ birth to crucifixion to resurrection, Mary retained her blessed joy in God and is the model for Christians.

From joy comes gratitude, the virtue of being thankful and showing appreciation for kindness. As we journey into Christmas, a deeper reality sets in and the question is often asked, “Why did God send his only son, Emmanuel (God with us?).” 

Simply put the catechism teaches “when Christ became incarnate and was made man, he gathered in himself the long history of mankind and secured for us a short cut to salvation, so that what we had lost in Adam, that is, being in the image and likeness of God, we might recover in Christ Jesus. For this reason, Christ experienced all the stages of life, thereby giving communion with God to all men.”  

Christians are fully united in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and look forward to his second coming.  Jesus came to save humanity, to know God’s love and mercy, to be a model of holiness and to share in his divinity. 

On this path, we humbly encounter Jesus, human and divine, in a most precious place, the Eucharist, where Catholics are united to him

Hearts are filled with gratitude when receiving Jesus “under my roof” with faith, hope, joy and love. Jesus is welcomed into  souls in order to live the life that he brings to all. His humble beginning came with abundance, as he brought the greatest gift of all – that of sharing his divinity, as son of God, with us. 

He makes us children of God, raising us up and filling us with the gift that God alone can give us. Peace. 

Jesus is gratefully met in the Eucharist. Pope St. Paul VI writes, “To visit the Blessed Sacrament is a proof of gratitude, an expression of love.”

In his Dec. 30, 2020 General Audience Pope Francis reminded Christians “This ‘thank you’ that we must say continually, this thanks that Christians share with everyone, grows in the encounter with Jesus. The Gospel accounts of Christmas are filled with prayerful people whose hearts are greatly moved by the coming of the savior. And we too are called to participate in this immense jubilation. When you thank someone, you express the certainty that you are loved.”

He continues, “If we are bearers of gratitude, the world itself will become better, even if only a little bit, but that is enough to transmit a bit of hope. The world needs hope. And with gratitude, with this attitude of thanksgiving, we transmit a bit of hope. Everything is united and everything is connected, and each one can do their part wherever they are.”

The hope is Christians experience deep joy and gratitude, believing in what the Lord has promised and they are bearers of gratitude and instruments of God’s love for families, friends and community.