Finding Joy
(Isa.35:1-6, 10; Jas.5:7-10; Mt.11:2-11)
Today as we light the rose candle in our Advent wreath, we recall that the name Gaudete Sunday comes from St Paul who says, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. The Lord is near’ (Phil.4:4-5).
The joy he speaks of isn’t shallow cheerfulness, or pretending that everything is fine. It’s a joy that glows like a hidden flame, even in times of struggle. And it comes from understanding that God is always working and always close by.
Few people understood this better than Anne Frank. She was the Jewish teenager who spent two years hiding from the Nazis in a secret attic in Amsterdam during the Second World War.
Her world was filled with anxiety and fear, and yet in her diary she wrote: ‘In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.’
Her words aren’t just naïve optimism. They are hope grounded in something greater than the visible world. Anne Frank’s light shone because her heart was full. She could see goodness and beauty even in the midst of terror and cruelty.
This is the essence of Christian joy. It’s not a denial of suffering, but recognising that love and goodness will always endure because God is close to us.
In today’s Gospel, John the Baptist is in Herod’s prison. He’s feeling anxious, so he sends someone to ask Jesus: ‘Are you the one who is to come, or must we wait for another?’
In his answer, Jesus describes signs of joy: ‘The blind see, the lame walk and the poor have good news preached to them.’ In other words, he reassures John that the world is changing because the kingdom of God is coming and bringing with it mercy, healing and new life.
Joy is the quiet evidence that God is behind all this work.
There’s a similar message in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s film Amélie (2001). It’s the story of a shy young woman in Paris who learns that selfish living does not make her happy. Instead, she finds that her deepest joy comes from the small, secret acts of love she performs for others.
She starts noticing the people around her, and then does kind things for them. She returns a lost treasure, she helps a blind man and she brightens lonely lives. And along the way she finds that joy isn’t something you need to chase, but something that simply flows when you lighten someone else’s darkness.
This is Advent joy. It’s the joy of those who prepare the way of the Lord through small acts of love.
Both Anne Frank and Amélie demonstrate what Isaiah talks about in our first reading today: ‘The desert shall rejoice and blossom… the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped.’
Joy doesn’t wait for perfection. It blooms right there in the desert, in the hidden attic, in the lonely streets of the city, and in the ordinary corners of life where love quietly labours.
St Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880-1906) was a French Carmelite nun who lived a hidden, simple and very short life. Her wisdom, however, was profound. She once wrote, ‘My joy is so deep because it is in God, and God is joy within me.’
Like Amélie, Elizabeth discovered that joy was not something to achieve, but something to receive. She came to realise that God is never far away, and once wrote: ‘It seems to me that I have found my Heaven on earth, since Heaven is God, and God is in my soul.’
At another time she wrote: ‘I can’t find words to express my happiness. Here there is no longer anything but God. He is All; he suffices and we live by him alone.’
When she was 23, Elizabeth contracted Addison’s Disease, a painful and incurable illness. But she never stopped radiating interior peace and joy. She was convinced that when you truly trust in God’s constant presence, nothing external can ever steal your inner harmony – your sense of peace and joy.
Today, St Elizabeth of the Trinity reminds us that joy doesn’t depend on our circumstances or our outward success. True joy comes from our inward nearness to Jesus – Emmanuel, God-with-us – who is already here, quietly transforming the world from within.
As St Paul tells us, ‘The Lord is near.’
This is why Anne Frank could believe in goodness, despite our messy world.
This is why Amélie could make joy visible through her small acts of kindness.
And this is why, like John the Baptist, we can always point to Jesus and confidently say ‘He is coming.’