“Rejoice! Hear this command, this imperative, this ‘rejoice’ as we celebrate this wonderful Gaudete Sunday. There’s two beautiful days of the year in which priests and the deacons, the clerics of the church are allowed to indeed wear rose or pink. Many priest get very offended when you call it pink, but rose is just the Latin word for pink, so it is here today we wear this rose, this pink, this beautiful color of celebration here in the midst of this season of preparation, here as we continue, here in this heart of Advent, this season where we have been spending these weeks preparing, praying, fasting, giving alms, preparing indeed for that coming of our Lord, awaiting here his coming at Christmas that here today we rejoice. Here in the midst of our waiting, we rejoice and what I love indeed is this call to gaudete, this call of St. Paul that we hear. He says, ‘Brothers and sisters rejoice always.’ he does not say you should be rejoicing, or rejoicing is good, it’s a good thing to do in troubling times. He commands, rejoice! This command to go and to indeed rejoice here in the midst of everything, to rejoice always, to pray without ceasing, to in all things give thanks to our God. These tremendous calls that St. Paul makes of use here in this second reading, these tremendous calls here in this midst of this season of preparation these tremendous calls, but what I love that indeed that here in the face of this tremendous call it’s hard to think well why should I have joy if there’s this tremendous call being asked of me? Because of that last line that St. Paul states there in his letter: the one who calls is faithful and he will also accomplish it. There here in the midst of our struggle whether indeed it be that struggle whether indeed be that struggle with that simple preparation for the coming of our Lord whether indeed be that the season of Advent is a difficult one for us or whether it be simply that this point in our life our life is full of difficulty of sorrow of pain of struggle there at home with our family struggle indeed with friends that used to be whether it is indeed with struggle that cuts so very deep there in our own life or that pain and that suffering that we see in the lives of others that here today, here on this Gaudete Sunday we have that call that command to go and to rejoice always, here in our Lord’s rejoice at all times to pray without ceasing and in all things to give thanks to our God because indeed our Lord, he is the one who calls and he is faithful and he will also accomplish it that here in the midst of our struggle in that struggle to see him here in the pain in the suffering even simply in the preparation for his coming during Advent. It can be difficult to see it can be difficult not to grasp him here, but to know that indeed to pull back to that which we know that the one who calls you is faithful and he will also accomplish it that beautiful fact that indeed that we can take this time take this Sunday to indeed rejoice to answer that call to rejoice here in the midst of whatever suffering whatever pain whatever current moment of struggle we are enduring because it is not a struggle we have to make alone that beautiful fact that indeed our Lord God has called us here has called us here in the midst of whatever this moment of our life we are going through whether it is indeed that struggle here within our family or whether it is indeed that struggle that we see elsewhere that our Lord has called us our Lord has called you our Lord has called me he has called each one of us here into this time into this place so that indeed he might accomplish his glory here through us. He does not ever call us alone, but always calls us here with himself to know that here indeed in our struggle we go not alone, but with him. We rejoice always, we pray without ceasing, we give thanksgiving in all things to our God not because indeed at all moments everything is going perfectly, no instead because indeed here in our struggle here in our mess here in our pain we rejoice always because our Lord is here with us. He has called us here and the one who calls us is faithful and he will also accomplish it.”