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

ADVENT (C)

WEEK FIVE

BE SUSTA I N ED BY LOVE

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

JO H N 1 6 :2 2

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AUTHOR’S NOTE

M

erry Christmas! We have This week, Christmastide and embraced this season as beyond, we contemplate how we an experience of expectant sustain joy… waiting – opened ourselves to a When gathering with loved ones spiritual kind of pregnancy while in the coming days, remember relying on patient hope for the to continue to check in with your dawning of new life… new life for heart. The spiritual practice you’ve our broken world and for our lessdeveloped these last weeks can than-perfect selves. We allowed continue to serve you beyond the ourselves to experience the season. As we walk this joyful journey darkness, and to open ourselves together, bound by our shared call to a radical trust that new life WILL to serve in Catholic health care, let emerge. We have been called us be bold in our expression of God’s inward to listen deeply and to let go love revealed in the world. 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.

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

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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.

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

JOAN CHITTISTER, OSB

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

JOHN 15:11

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PAUSE TO INTEGRATE

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

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Where and when have you experienced joy this week?

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VIDEO REFLECTION

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.

CLICK TO PLAY VIDEO

Filmed at Providence Studios, Renton, Wa.

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“Times of complete joy sustain us.”

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PAUSE TO INTEGRATE

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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?

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

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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.

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Readings for Christmas and Beyond READING ONE

Is 52:7–10 READING TWO

Heb 1:1-6 GOSPEL

Jn 1:1-18

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Easy Listening SCAN FOR PODCAST

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

PODCAST EPISODE:

SCAN FOR PLAYLIST

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:

A BOOK:

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

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

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