PREACHING WITHOUT SPEAKING
Catholic Homily/Sunday Reflection 3rd Sunday of Advent - Cycle B December 14,2008 A whole lot of joy pervades the Liturgy today. Traditionally, the Church has, for so long, set aside this third Sunday of Advent as a reflection on, an exhortation to, and as a paean to joy. Thus, the reason for its being known as Gaudete Sunday, from the word used by St. Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians in today’s second reading, right from the first sentence of the passage. This, we all know by now. We have heard this so often, year after year. But perhaps, what we have not heard as often is what should be behind all that joy; what should go together with that joy, and what one who is joyful ought to be doing, or in fact, really does in effect. If we are to go by that old scholastic philosophical dictum, bonum diffusivum sui, goodness is self-diffusive; the tendency of good is to spread itself, then today’s exhortation to joy is a clear and convincing example. Goodness comes in clusters, a...