Third Sunday – Advent Cycle C

Reflecting on Philippians 4:4-7

Here’s a prescription for you from St. Paul: stop worrying.  Yes, he’s talking to you.  Stop it!

St. Paul

But what does he know about anxiety, right?  When he cataloged his sufferings in 2 Cor. 11:23-27 he gave the following list: three shipwrecks, five beatings with a lash, three beatings with rods, and stonings which left him near death.  And he couldn’t even mention the three imprisonments and a near-fatal snake bite that occurred in the years after he wrote that letter.   And it all ended in Rome, where, according to an ancient tradition of the Church, he was caught in Nero’s net and beheaded.

And this is the man who wrote to his beloved friends in Philippi―while he was imprisoned in chains in Ephesus!―to have no anxiety about anything, but to approach everything with prayer and supplication.   He ended this section with the assurance that if we live our lives this way we will be covered with the peace that passes all understanding.

How did he do it?  He must have been terrified of the pain of being executed.  In places he prayed for the strength to stand firm under torture.  And yet he was able to say to his dear friends at Philippi, the first church founded on European soil, Rejoice!  In fact, he said it twice:  Rejoice!  Rejoice!

Hence the rose candle for this Gaudete (rejoice!) Sunday.  We can somehow hear St. Paul calling to us from his eternal place of peace and everlasting joy:  have no anxiety about anything.  The Lord is near.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

What worries are you willing to put aside so that you can experience true peace?

Painting, Valentin de Boulogne or Nicolas Tournier, 16th Century, Blaffer Foundation Collection, Houston, Texas

Advent - Cycle C