Filled with the spirit of the Lord… fueled to be joyful

 

The theme of this Sunday is JOY. In the first reading taken from Is 61:1-2A, 10-11 the prophet is crying out the news of joy and happiness. He proclaims good words to the poor, healing to the broken hearted, liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners. All these news are joy to respective groups. Above all these, He declares the year of Lord or Jubilee year or year of Lords favour. In the Israel world, jubilee year is the year of Lord, where in the slaves will be set free, people would rest from work and dedicated the entire year only for the praise and worship of Lord Yahweh. The prophet also rejoices gladly because the God of Israel has captivated his soul. His soul is imbibed with the spirit of Lord Yahweh. Only a person who is filled with the spirit of Lord can enjoy real happiness and find happiness and joy in the proper place.

All of us want to be happy and joyful always. Of course, sufferings and unfortunes are inevitable in one’s life. But, we can still be happy if we approach those inevitable moments with apposite orientations. The mistake that we do today is that we often search for happiness in wrong places. Material things give satisfaction to our needs. Happiness is not something that can be drawn from materials. The joys that we get by accumulating things and celebrating festive with grand eats are only momentary. Therefore, they are not real joy, they are only satisfaction of momentary needs. Joy is not bound by time and produced by things. The joy and happiness are the desires of soul. St. John the Baptist, though lived ascetic life in desert still he lived happily, because his soul was filled with the spirit of the Lord Yahweh. The Lord was the sole desire of his soul. Thus, he sang the coming of the savior and proclaimed Him when He came. He bore witness to Jesus by declaring “I am not the messiah” and humbly denying that he is neither Elijah nor a prophet, although he was both.

In the second reading St. Paul invites us to be happy always. To do that he suggests us to be constant in prayer and be engaged in thanksgiving. In prayer we understand the will of God and in thanksgiving we come to know the blessings we have received. Joy is not restricted by material property nor determined by worldly scale of greatness. The real joy is peace in the heart. Jesus is the prince of peace. He gives peace to the broken hearted and fainted souls. Let us open our hearts to His message of salvation and peace. Let our life, soul and body be filled with His spirit, so that we may sing the praise of God as Mary did in today’s responsorial psalm. A person filled with the spirit of the Lord is fueled to be joyful in life, soul and body. May the coming of ‘Joy to the world’ fuel us to experience joy always and radiate holiness everywhere. 

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