In your midst there is one that you do not know: Commentary Fr. Jorge Miró

Father Jorge Miró shares with Exaudi readers his commentary on today’s Gospel, Sunday, December 17, 2023, titled “In your midst there is one whom you do not know.”

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The Word of God that we proclaim today invites us to live joyfully in the Lord. If the Lord is close to him, his proximity should not be a reason for indifference or sadness, but rather for joy. Because the Lord, the Friend, the Husband is coming. The first reading gives us the keys.

He comes to give good news to those who suffer, to bind up broken hearts, to proclaim amnesty to captives, and freedom to prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Therefore, I overflow with joy with the Lord, and I rejoice with my God: because he has dressed me in a gala dress and has wrapped me in a mantle of triumph, like a bridegroom who puts on the crown, or a bride who adorns herself with her jewelry.

He comes to you, to your heart, to your life. He comes to heal your wounds, to bear your sins, to tell you that he loves you freely, just as you are; to tell you that he will never stop loving you and that he gives you a new life.

And this is true joy: having the certainty of God’s faithfulness and love, the certainty that there is nothing and no one that can separate us from the love of God manifested in Christ Jesus.

True joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit: it is found in the experience of God’s love and mercy, in living the presence of God in life. Only God can give us true joy and complete happiness.

Christian joy is not an ephemeral, naive and unconscious state of mind that forgets the sufferings of the world, but is born precisely from the encounter with the love of God that gives them meaning and turns them, with his mysterious grace, into a source of salvation and of life.

John the Baptist is the man who has been sent by God before the Light. His function is to be a witness to the Light. He must live in humility, he must hide so as not to overshadow the Light. As a witness, his entire life, his entire activity is aimed at discovering the Light, at preparing the way for Christ, Light of the world.

We too are called to be witnesses of the Light, to be witnesses of Christ. For this reason, Saint Paul invites Christians to live the vocation to holiness (which is the best way to be good witnesses).

To do this, Saint Paul tells us four fundamental attitudes in the life of the Christian: the joy of knowing that we are loved by God and that nothing and no one can take this love away from us; constant prayer, because we always want to be with God, to live his presence in our lives; thanksgiving, because the response to Love cannot be other than gratitude, generous gratitude; and not quench the Spirit, because He is the one who guides us to the full truth and the one who carries out the work of sanctification in us.

How is your life? You are happy? Do you have true joy in your heart? The Lord calls you. He wants your happiness, he illuminates your steps, he shows you the path of life. Do not be afraid! Christ takes nothing away, he gives everything! Live the new life of Jesus Christ… and you will find Life!

Come Holy Spirit!