CHRISTIAN JOY ARISES FROM THE CERTAINTY THAT GOD IS NEAR

VATICAN CITY, DEC 16, 2007 (VIS) - Having returned to the Vatican following his visit this morning to the Roman parish of "Santa Maria del Rosario ai Maritiri Portuensi," the Pope appeared at the window of his private study overlooking St. Peter's Square to pray the Angelus with the faithful gathered below.

  In his remarks, the Pope recalled how the third Sunday of Advent is traditionally known as "Gaudete Sunday" because Christians are called to rejoice at the coming of the Lord. "Christian joy," he explained, "flows from this certainty. God is near. ... He is with us, in happiness and in pain, in health and in sickness."

  "Some people ask themselves," the Pope went on, "if this joy can still be felt today." The answer, he said, "is supplied by the lives of men and women of all ages and social conditions who are happy to consecrate their existence to others." In this context, the Holy Father mentioned Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta, "an unforgettable witness of true evangelical joy."

  Mother Theresa, he continued, "experienced the trial of the dark night of faith, yet she continued to give everyone the smile of God. On one occasion she wrote: ... 'Being happy with God means loving like Him, helping like Him, giving like Him, serving like Him.'

  "Indeed, joy enters the heart of those who place themselves at the service of the smallest and the poorest," the Pope added. "God dwells in people who love in such a way, and the soul is infused with joy. If, on the other hand, people idolize happiness, they take the wrong path and it becomes truly difficult to discover the joy of which Jesus speaks.

  "And this, unfortunately, is what cultures that put individual happiness in place of God propose," he said. Emblematic of such a mentality "is the search for pleasure at all costs" and "the increasing use of drugs as an escape, a refuge in an artificial paradise which is subsequently revealed as merely illusory."

  "At Christmas too it is possible to take the wrong path," Pope Benedict concluded, "mistaking the true feast for one that does not open the heart to the joy of Christ. May the Virgin Mary help all Christians - and men and women searching for God - to reach Bethlehem and meet the Child Who was born for us, for the salvation and happiness of all mankind."
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