2024 Advent Week Five - Finding Joy: Be Sustained By Love

BE SUSTAINED BY LOVE

…but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

JOHN 16:22

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Merry Christmas ! We have embraced this season as an experience of expectant waiting – opened ourselves to a spiritual kind of pregnancy while relying on patient hope for the dawning of new life… new life for our broken world and for our lessthan-perfect selves. We allowed ourselves to experience the darkness, and to open ourselves to a radical trust that new life WILL emerge. We have been called inward to listen deeply and to let go of anything that gets in the way of hearing God’s gentle, loving voice within us. Without distraction, we are fully awake, fully present, fully open to recognize the light and to share it in all that we say and do. The power of light penetrates and dispels all darkness.

This week, Christmastide and beyond, we contemplate how we sustain joy…

When gathering with loved ones in the coming days, remember to continue to check in with your heart. The spiritual practice you’ve developed these last weeks can continue to serve you beyond the season. As we walk this joyful journey together, bound by our shared call to serve in Catholic health care, let us be bold in our expression of God’s love revealed in the world.

Mary Anne Sladich-Lantz

Mary Anne has dedicated the majority of her career to ensuring that health care leaders have all that they need to remain faithful to the Catholic Mission while

responding to the signs of the times. Through her leadership, Providence has developed a ministry leadership formation program that has been highly regarded as best in class.

Only have a minute? Start here.

Choose just one piece of content gathered here and dig deep: What does it say to you about joy? Can you point to an example in your own life?

To lust for joy is to lust for the God of life. To make joy where at first it seems there is none is to become co-creator with the God of life. When we make joy, we make a holier, happier life.

JOAN CHITTISTER, OSB

We need joy as we need air. We need love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share.

MAYA ANGELOU

These things I have spoken to you - that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

JOHN 15:11

Are you entering Christmastide with the inner stillness you sought at the start of Advent? 1

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Where and when have you experienced joy this week?

Be Sustained By Love

A reflection courtesy of Mary Anne Sladich-Lantz. The Catholic Health Association extends its thanks to Providence St. Joseph Health for the use of its recording studio and to David Solheim for his on-site direction.

Filmed at Providence Studios, Renton, Wa.

CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO

“Times of complete joy sustain us.”

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“COMPLETE. JOY.” Where is the emphasis for you? What is fulfilled? What is unfulfilled? Can we be so bold as to think our joy might be complete?

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Can you think of a recent memory of complete joy that has sustained you over time?

How would you describe the joy nestled in your heart today? What graces have emerged over these last weeks?

God of all goodness, may I always know that you are closer to me than I can even fathom. You continue to call me and all of us from darkness into light and hope. As I let go of this past year and let come this new year, may your compassion and love flow through me so that the world may truly be a more loving, just, and peaceful place for all.

Amen.

Readings

for Christmas and Beyond

READING ONE Is 52:7–10

READING TWO Heb 1:1-6

GOSPEL Jn 1:1-18

Easy Listening

Songs, podcast episodes, and more to incorporate into your Advent reflections and accompany your daily routine.

PODCAST EPISODE: On Being: “The Inner Landscape of Beauty”

ADVENT PLAYLIST:

Read On

A few more bits of spiritual nourishment for joy in any season. See chausa.org/advent for an even more extensive list.

A POEM:

“All This Time, Joy” by Jan Richardson found in A Blessing for Women’s Christmas

A BOOK:

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with Douglas Abrams