Jesus rejoices in the Holy Spirit! At first glance it seems an odd thing for Jesus to do. Jesus rejoices! The Holy Spirit as we understand is the love between the Father and the Son. When understood this way, as a relationship of love, we cannot imagine Jesus not rejoicing in the Spirit.
What could cause Jesus to experience great delight and gladness? Lucky for us Jesus has to share the pleasure he feels! Joy shares. I once read a story about an atheist who converted to Christianity not from the experience of suffering and lack of meaning, but from an experience he had of tremendous happiness. He had to share it. So, he shared it with God, and he shared it with his disciples. Jesus rejoices that anyone can experience the gift of the presence of God the Father! Just as he experiences his Father’s presence.
The Person
Doug accompanied me on a trip to Nicaragua, along with his daughters. They had brought some items to give away to the poor that we would be working with. Doug had brought some clothes, but being a taller man, he was going to have a tough time finding someone who would fit into the clothes that he had brought. He would tell me daily he was looking for, as he called it, “the person.” Each morning he brought along his suitcase with the clothes with the hope of encountering “the person.” One day we visited a community that was next to the town dump. Many of the people from this community would spend the day scavenging through the dump to find things they could recycle or sell. Doug joined them on the heaps of garbage. Later that afternoon he found me to tell me, not that he found “the person,” but that he had found his Jesus. For the last couple of days of the trip he just could not stop sharing about his Jesus. He found a young man who would fit into his clothes!
As we begin this Advent season, we meditate and rejoice on the gift the Father has given to us. He gave us his Son, Jesus. Jesus, who fits perfectly into our hearts.
On behalf of the GVM universe, I would like to thank Father Joshua for his reflection writing. He stood in for a few months as a pinch hitter, to use a baseball analogy. You will see a few changes to the line up of writers in 2024; could be new writers, new assignment of days, sharing of days, as we try to keep fresh, and honor people’s time and outside commitments. Remain blessed, Father Joshua!
