III Week of Advent
![Photo: III Week of Advent
Benedict XVI, Angelus, 16 December 2007
The Church… prepares to celebrate Christmas and her gaze is focused ever more intently on Bethlehem. Indeed, we wait with hope, certain of Christ's second coming because we have experienced his first.
The mystery of Bethlehem reveals to us God-with-us, the God close to us and not merely in the spatial and temporal sense; he is close to us because he has, as it were, "espoused" our humanity… in order to make us become like him. Christian joy thus springs from this certainty: God is close, he is with me... And this joy... does not remain only on the surface; it dwells in the depths of the person who entrusts himself to God. […]
Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta […wrote]: "We wait impatiently for paradise, where God is, but it is in our power to be in paradise even here on earth and from this moment. Being happy with God means loving like him, helping like him, giving like him, serving like him." Yes, joy enters the hearts of those who put themselves at the service of the lowly and poor. God abides in those who love like this and their souls rejoice.
If, instead, people make an idol of happiness, they lose their way and it is truly hard for them to find the joy of which Jesus speaks.
Carl Heinrich Bloch. The Shepherds and the Angel. 1879. Museum of Natural History, Copenhagen.](https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/p480x480/1479080_641965535867467_1662048400_n.jpg)
The Church… prepares to celebrate Christmas and her gaze is focused ever more intently on Bethlehem. Indeed, we wait with hope, certain of Christ's second coming because we have experienced his first.
The mystery of Bethlehem reveals to us God-with-us, the God close to us and not merely in the spatial and temporal sense; he is close to us because he has, as it were, "espoused" our humanity… in order to make us become like him. Christian joy thus springs from this certainty: God is close, he is with me... And this joy... does not remain only on the surface; it dwells in the depths of the person who entrusts himself to God. […]
Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta […wrote]: "We wait impatiently for paradise, where God is, but it is in our power to be in paradise even here on earth and from this moment. Being happy with God means loving like him, helping like him, giving like him, serving like him." Yes, joy enters the hearts of those who put themselves at the service of the lowly and poor. God abides in those who love like this and their souls rejoice.
If, instead, people make an idol of happiness, they lose their way and it is truly hard for them to find the joy of which Jesus speaks.
Carl Heinrich Bloch. The Shepherds and the Angel. 1879. Museum of Natural History, Copenhagen.