God With Us In The Word: Rejoice in the Lord always

Indeed, by the time this post reaches your inbox and social media feeds for the third Sunday of Advent, Christmas will be a week away! Are your halls decked with boughs of holly? Are you ready to rejoice at the Feast of the Nativity, or not? Or has the Advent season been hard to find reasons to be jolly? I wonder though, is rejoicing the same as being jolly?

It’s mid-November as I write, and I’m still adjusting to our fall back from Daylight Saving to Standard Time. Plunged into darkness before 4:30, I turn on all the lights and the television just to keep myself from going to bed before 9 (or 8!). Christmas advertising is jarring as jingle bells jump the seasons. Barely beyond Harvest Moon and Halloween, I’m still savoring memories of saints and souls gone from me to be with God, and memories of preparing for Thanksgiving with gratitude for family and friends on this side of the veil. I’m rejoicing, but not quite ready to be jolly.

My internet search for “jolly” pops up in the Oxford English Dictionary. OED doubts that jolly derives from the Old Norse jol or yule, and their winter festival, suggesting that it is more likely the word comes from the Old French jolif, and Latin roots, gaudete, meaning “to rejoice.” However it would not surprise me that in the clash of Vikings and Anglo-Saxons before there was a United Kingdom, these two words became connected, eventually coming down to us through a 16th century Welsh carol, Deck the Halls.

With our knowledge of Earth’s annual orbit around the Sun (bless you, Galileo), our Creator offers a carousel of gifts rotating through every season. Different hemispherical reasons for rejoicing in each season. Different seasons to be jolly.

Last summer spontaneous laughter erupted between me and my traveling companion on our visit to the great Stonehenge about a month after the solstice. Whipping winds and wild rain immersed us in primal forces at work since the beginning of creation. Dripping wet, we marveled at prehistoric people who managed to mark the movement of our sun and the stars so precisely.

Drawing near to the winter solstice, Yule logs and Christmas trees shine hopeful light into dark times across our planet. As Earth completes another circuit around the Sun, our solar system, tucked into a spur of the Milky Way’s galactic arms, spirals through an infinite universe. As imagined by the poet Fr. Michael Moynahan, S.J., the Divine Majesty is even now holding a ‘family meeting’ that leads to the Incarnation. Contemplating humanity from the heavens, they draw straws. Shorty loses, coming

to share

your plight,

your fight,

your night,

and point you

toward tomorrow.

Before the New Year’s ball drops in Time Square, I sense an invitation to rest in these longer nights, finding quiet moments to consider my place in the greater cosmos and my reliance on Holy Mystery, always with me even if unseen. I wonder how the little light that is mine might testify to the true light that has come into the world, might cast a circle of love and joy for others while waiting together for the fullness of Christ’s incarnation to arrive.

I invite you, too, to find time to pause for prayer, to wonder about the already and not-yet-ness of Christ’s incarnation. Who or what brightens your days, lights up your life? What is something new beginning to grow within you and around you?

Going Deeper Together:

• Pray with the readings from the Third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, noticing how the John’s Gospel introduces us, through John the Baptist (1:1-9) to Jesus who was with God from the beginning of creation:

      … through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race;
  
      the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
  
  
  
      A man named John was sent from God.
  
      He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.
  
      He was not the light, but came to testify to the light.
  
      The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

• “The root of joy is gratefulness. It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.” ~ Brother David Steindl-Rast. Tap into joy by signing along with a song of thanksgiving and praise for Emmanuel, God-with-us, in and through creation: Let All Things Now Living

• As we begin the new liturgical year with Advent, and move closer to the end of the calendar year, have you reflected on this past year and created a plan for the new year? We invite you to consider these two resources as you create your plan for 2024.

      [Creating a Spiritual Plan](https://ignatianministries.org/store/spiritualplan)
  
      [Annual Examen](https://beckyeldredge.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Annual-Examen_2021.pdf)

• What thoughts of Jenene’s did you resonate with as you read her post and reflect on the questions she poses for us? How are you feeling about Advent so far, ready or reluctant? We invite you to share your comments on this page.

Photo of Jenéne Francis by Michelle Goldman

Jenéne Francis

Jenéne Francis is an aspiring contemplative in action who finds writing creative non-fiction and short fiction a fruitful spiritual practice. She also enjoys adapting and offering the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius for days of reflection and retreats. Jenéne recently retired from the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus after many years supporting Jesuits and colleagues who serve retreat houses, spirituality programs, parishes, and as hospital chaplains and other pastoral ministers. Having spent her first career at the Procter and Gamble Company in product development and manufacturing, followed by more than 20 years in Jesuit ministry, Jenéne gets great satisfaction offering her engineer’s head and poet’s heart for “the greater glory of God.”