It’s common knowledge that we live in a time—in a society—of immediate gratification. We want our Google searches to show up in less than half a second. We want our Uber rides and Amazon deliveries to arrive right on time. We want the movie to start streaming the instant we hit the play button. This is the nature of the world we live in—a society that values immediacy above all else. And in a way, that same impatience has found a home in our hearts.
But the season of Advent, particularly this Gaudete Sunday, stands in direct opposition to this culture. We need to learn to yearn. Advent is about learning to desire—to truly yearn. It’s a slow, deliberate season, teaching us to wait and anticipate. That’s why we light one candle each week, not all at once. The Church changes her liturgical colors. We sing different songs. The rites and prayers change. The decor shifts. And in many of our homes, we start our own traditions—like setting up the Advent wreath at the dinner table or placing the Nativity scene.
If you have the tradition of a little Nativity scene, I invite you to turn that space into a place of prayer: a place where you read Scripture, meditate, and develop a space to desire. Yes, we need to learn to desire—all of us. And today, the Holy Liturgy points us toward Christian joy as the object of our desire.
We see this in the readings. Take Zephaniah in the first reading:
He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will renew you in his love. He will sing joyfully because of you.
Pause for a moment and think about that. God, singing joyfully because of you. Can you picture it? God—the Creator of the universe—singing out of joy over you. The text continues:
He will sing joyfully because of you, as one sings at festivals.
Think of that image—the joy of people at a festival or concert. Imagine the energy, the music, the singing at a Neil Diamond or Beyoncé concert, where everyone is lifted with excitement and song. That’s the kind of joy Zephaniah describes—a joy God has for as one signing at a festival.
The second reading from Paul reinforces this theme:
Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again, rejoice.
Paul’s words almost sound like a commandment: Rejoice. He doesn’t say, “Rejoice when you feel like it,” or “Rejoice when your life is going well.” No—he says, Rejoice. Always. And he continues:
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.
Joy has nothing to do with your feelings
But here’s the question we might ask:
“Paul, how can you command us to rejoice? I don’t feel joy in my life. I’m financially strained. I’m struggling with my health. I just lost a loved one. I’m unhappy with my work. How can I rejoice?”
In a culture that is “addicted” to feelings, we might struggle to understand how Paul can say this. But here’s an answer: Christian joy is not rooted in feelings. It’s not tied to fleeting circumstances. Christian joy is a choice. It’s a choice we make based on where we focus our desire. If my desires are all about me—my wants, my frustrations, my circumstances—then yes, I will find plenty of reasons for dissatisfaction and hopelessness.
But if the object of my desire rises above myself—if I focus on God, who is faithful, loving, and near—then joy becomes possible. Joy becomes a choice that transcends feelings.
Here’s an example. For three weeks now, I’ve been craving a Belgian waffle. Not just any waffle—a nice, crispy, golden-brown waffle, tender and smushy on the inside. I’ve been imagining the butter oozing over the top, the drizzle of honey, a sprinkle of powdered sugar, maybe some blueberries and crushed walnuts.
What just happened in your spirit as I described that waffle? You started to imagine it. You started to desire it. Maybe you even started salivating. And all I did was describe it for 20 seconds.
That’s what Advent is about.
What we contemplate becomes what we desire.
Yet so often, what do we contemplate? Ourselves. Our disappointments, our frustrations, our wants. Paul is telling us: Stop looking at yourself. Fix your eyes on something greater. If you want to rejoice always, the object of your contemplation must be greater than you.
A spiritual author says it this way:
What you are in love with—what seizes your imagination—will affect everything. It will decide what gets you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love. Stay in love. And it will decide everything. (Arrupe)
For the Christian, joy is the result of being in love with God Himself. That is the object of our hope and our desire.
Joy has nothing to do with your circumstances
But maybe you’re still thinking, “I have no causes for joy.” If we believe we are victims of our circumstances and continually contemplate that, we will become trapped in that belief.
Let me finish with a quote from Father Walter Ciszek, a Jesuit priest who spent years in the brutal Lubyanka concentration camp during World War II. His friends were killed. He endured spiritual, psychological, and physical suffering. Yet in his memoir He Leadeth Me, he writes:
This simple truth that the sole purpose of man’s life on earth is to do the will of God contains in it riches and resources enough for a lifetime. Once you have learned to live with it uppermost in mind, to see each day and each day’s activities in its light, the will of God becomes more than a source of eternal salvation. It becomes, listen to this, a source of joy and happiness here on earth. (coming from a man who was in a concentration camp).
The notion that the human will, united with the divine will, can play a part in Christ’s work of redeeming all mankind is overpowering. I had continuously to learn to accept God’s will, not as I wished it to be, not as it might have been, but exactly as it was unfolding at the moment. So I learned by trial and error that if I wanted to preserve my interior peace and joy, I had to have constant recourse to prayer, to the eyes of faith, to a humility that could make me aware of how little my own efforts meant and how dependent I was upon God’s grace, even for prayer and faith itself.
Once you have learned to live with it uppermost in mind—to see each day and each day’s activities in its light—the will of God becomes more than a source of eternal salvation. It becomes a source of joy and happiness here on earth.
Father Ciszek’s life teaches us that Christian joy focuses beyond our circumstances. Even in a concentration camp, he found joy by uniting his will with God’s. He learned to accept God’s will exactly as it was unfolding in the moment.
And so, this Advent, we pray for two gifts:
- The gift of true Christian joy, which frees us from being victims of our circumstances, the joy that comes from obeying a will more beautiful and perfect than our own, the will of the Father in Heaven.
- The gift of spiritual freedom, so that the object of our desire may always be God—the one who comes to your heart.
This post is also available in: Spanish
