December 14, 2025 Homily: Fr. Vigoa — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:02In the middle of Advent, right when
2. 0:05people feel stretched, thin,
3. 0:09tired, anxious, or quietly overwhelmed,
4. 0:14the church does something almost
5. 0:17startling.
6. 0:19She in she interrupts us by saying quite
7. 0:23plainly, "Rejoice.
8. 0:26Not later, not when things settle down,
9. 0:30not when Christmas finally comes, but
10. 0:33right now.
11. 0:36That's why this third Sunday of Advent
12. 0:38is called Galete Sunday. It's from the
13. 0:42ancient words of the entrance antifon
14. 0:45that I I said at the beginning of mass.
15. 0:49Today's opening liturgy says doino,
16. 0:54rejoice in the Lord always.
17. 0:58And it's important to notice that the
18. 0:59church does not offer this as a
19. 1:02suggestion or some kind uh gentle
20. 1:06encouragement.
21. 1:08No, it's a command. It's telling us to
22. 1:11rejoice.
23. 1:13Which immediately raises a very honest
24. 1:16question.
25. 1:18How can the church asks that of us,
26. 1:21especially now?
27. 1:24How can she dare to speak joy when so
28. 1:27many people are carrying grief?
29. 1:31Grief of a lost one,
30. 1:33uncertainty,
31. 1:35illness, a new diagnosis,
32. 1:38broken relationships, financial
33. 1:40pressures, especially during this time
34. 1:42of the year with so many commitments. or
35. 1:46or even just the simple exhaustion that
36. 1:49so often marks this season.
37. 1:53To understand that, we have to listen
38. 1:55carefully to where those words at the
39. 1:58beginning entrance antifon come from.
40. 2:02Well, they come from St. Paul.
41. 2:05And he's writing a letter to the
42. 2:06Philippines.
43. 2:08It's a community he loved deeply, a a
44. 2:11community that he knew very well.
45. 2:15Philippi was not a sentimental place.
46. 2:19It was a city shaped by power, by
47. 2:21conquest, and an empire.
48. 2:24It had been conquered by Philip of
49. 2:26Macedon.
50. 2:28Later, it was absorbed into the Roman
51. 2:30world, and it was a sight of one of
52. 2:33Rome's most decisive military victories.
53. 2:37Yet, it was also the place where Paul
54. 2:40founded the very first Christian
55. 2:42community in Europe.
56. 2:45These were believers who knew what it
57. 2:47meant to live under intense pressure,
58. 2:51to stand out, to be vulnerable, but
59. 2:54because of their faith.
60. 2:56And when Paul writes to them urging them
61. 2:59to rejoice, he's not writing them to
62. 3:01them. He's not writing to them from a
63. 3:04place of comfort or safety.
64. 3:08He's writing to them from a prison cell,
65. 3:12isolated, chained, unsure whether he
66. 3:15will be released or executed.
67. 3:19And yet from that place he writes these
68. 3:21astonishing words, rejoice in the Lord
69. 3:23always.
70. 3:26That alone should make us stop and
71. 3:28meditate and think.
72. 3:31Because Paul's joy does not come from
73. 3:33when his suffering is resolved.
74. 3:36comes right in the middle of it.
75. 3:39And that tells us something immediately
76. 3:41about what Christian joy is not.
77. 3:44It's not a forced smile. It's not some
78. 3:48goofy
79. 3:50happy stance or pretending that
80. 3:52everything is fine.
81. 3:54It's not denying pain or the the loss or
82. 3:58fear. Paul is not offering some
83. 4:01emotional type a some emotional hype or
84. 4:05spiritual denial.
85. 4:08He knows very well how harsh life can
86. 4:11be.
87. 4:13He knows what prisons are like. He knows
88. 4:17what persecution feels like. So when he
89. 4:20speaks of joy, he speaks about something
90. 4:23deeper, something stronger, something
91. 4:25that suffering itself cannot destroy.
92. 4:30What Paul understands and what changed
93. 4:32everything for him is what God had
94. 4:35already done in Jesus Christ.
95. 4:39The incarnation,
96. 4:41the cross, the resurrection are not some
97. 4:43abstract ideas from Paul
98. 4:47for Paul. They are decisive events.
99. 4:52In the birth of Christ, God enters fully
100. 4:54into human history, into human weakness,
101. 4:58into our human suffering.
102. 5:00In the cross, God himself takes on sin
103. 5:04and death. And in the res in the
104. 5:07resurrection, something utterly new
105. 5:09happens.
106. 5:10Death is defeated from the inside.
107. 5:14A victory is one that no power on earth
108. 5:16can undo.
109. 5:19Paul uses the language of victory again
110. 5:22and again because he's convinced that
111. 5:25this one unshakable truth
112. 5:28that the worst thing is never the last
113. 5:31thing.
114. 5:33Sin does not get the final word.
115. 5:36Mistakes do not get the final word.
116. 5:38Failure does not get the final word.
117. 5:40Suffering does not get the final word.
118. 5:44Death itself does not get the final
119. 5:46word. Jesus Christ does.
120. 5:50And Paul is writing to people who have
121. 5:52been baptized, people who belong to
122. 5:54Christ, people who have been grafted
123. 5:57onto the body of Christ and made shares
124. 6:00in his divine life. To them and to all
125. 6:04of us, he's saying something astonishing
126. 6:08astonishingly bold. He's saying to us
127. 6:12that if you really understand that you
128. 6:14belong to Christ, then his victory is
129. 6:17now your victory, too.
130. 6:21Nothing can undo it. No loss,
131. 6:25no illness, no disappointment, no grief
132. 6:29or or the grief of a loss of a loved
133. 6:31one, no setback, not even death can
134. 6:34separate you from what Christ has
135. 6:36already accomplished.
136. 6:38That's why when we read Paul's letter to
137. 6:40the Romans, he says, "Neither anguish
138. 6:42nor distress, neither persecution nor
139. 6:45famine, neither danger nor the sword,
140. 6:48neither anything else in all of creation
141. 6:51will be able to separate us from the
142. 6:53love of Christ."
143. 6:55That's why Paul That's why Paul can say,
144. 6:58"Even from a prison cell, rejoice in the
145. 7:01Lord always."
146. 7:05Not because circumstances are easy, but
147. 7:07because Christ has already won.
148. 7:11This is why Galete Sunday matters so
149. 7:14much.
150. 7:16Advent is not about pretending that the
151. 7:19world is fine.
152. 7:21Advent is about waiting honestly while
153. 7:24remembering what is already true.
154. 7:28We're not waiting for a victory that
155. 7:30might happen someday.
156. 7:33We are waiting for the full unveiling of
157. 7:36that victory that has already been won
158. 7:38for us. And that changes how we wait.
159. 7:43It changes how we suffer. It changes how
160. 7:46we live. Because Christian joy is not
161. 7:49the absence of struggle.
162. 7:52It is the presence of Christ.
163. 7:55It is the quiet quiet steady confidence
164. 7:59that no darkness is strong enough to
165. 8:01extinguish the light that has already
166. 8:04entered the world.
167. 8:07This is also why Christian faith spreads
168. 8:09so fast and so quickly.
169. 8:13People looked at believers who had lost
170. 8:16status, who lost all of their security,
171. 8:19even lost their lives, and yet they were
172. 8:22not defeated.
173. 8:24They saw joy that could not be explained
174. 8:27by circumstances.
175. 8:29They saw people who could lose the whole
176. 8:31world and still remain unbroken.
177. 8:35People who looked at them and said, "I
178. 8:36want what you have. Please tell me about
179. 8:40that Jesus."
180. 8:42Because as long as you have Jesus
181. 8:44Christ, you have everything.
182. 8:46And the opposite is also true. You can
183. 8:49gain the whole world. look for riches
184. 8:52and material things, success, comfort,
185. 8:55control. But I can guarantee you this.
186. 8:59If you lose Christ, you lose everything
187. 9:02your heart was made for.
188. 9:05So today, the church asks us a very
189. 9:07question and a very important question.
190. 9:09Do you believe this? Do you believe
191. 9:12these words? Do you believe the promises
192. 9:15of Christ?
193. 9:17Because the church does not ask us to
194. 9:20rejoice because everything is resolved.
195. 9:23She asks us to rejoice because the Lord
196. 9:25is near.
197. 9:27Near to his word, near in the eukarist,
198. 9:30near in our waiting, near in our
199. 9:33suffering, near in our hope.
200. 9:37Galdi Sunday reminds us that joy is not
201. 9:40postponed until Christmas morning. It
202. 9:43become it begins now because Christ is
203. 9:46already among us and his victory cannot
204. 9:49be undone.
205. 9:51And so my brothers and sisters
206. 9:54today in a world that is anxious,
207. 9:57divided, weary, and longing for relief,
208. 10:02the church dares to say something
209. 10:03radical and deeply hopeful. Rejoice.
210. 10:08Not because life is easy, not because
211. 10:11the road is smooth, but because Christ
212. 10:14has conquered sin and death and nothing,
213. 10:17absolutely nothing can separate us from
214. 10:19him. And the world will try to separate
215. 10:22us from him.
216. 10:26Because when we put all of our trust,
217. 10:28all of our hope in him, that is
218. 10:30Christian joy. That is advent hope. And
219. 10:34that is why St. Paul,
220. 10:37we can pray for the grace to remain
221. 10:39steadfast.
222. 10:41We can pray for the grace to remain
223. 10:43faithful. And yes, even now, even with
224. 10:46everything that's going on, be so
225. 10:48determined in our faith, so determined
226. 10:50in our relationship with the Lord that
227. 10:51we today can say, "Rejoice in the Lord
228. 10:55always." Amen.