{"id":3464,"date":"2024-12-15T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=3464"},"modified":"2024-12-14T20:50:08","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T20:50:08","slug":"with-joyful-hearts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2024\/12\/15\/with-joyful-hearts\/benedictine-spirituality\/3464\/","title":{"rendered":"With Joyful Hearts."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Naganath Chiluveru on unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today we\u2019re celebrating Gaudete Sunday, the day in Advent when we pause to that remember that even in dark and uncertain times we are called to be people of joy and hope. In the darkest and most challenging of times we are called to bring Christ\u2019s light to the world, even if that\u2019s only in the smallest glimmers.

There have been years when that seems easy, perhaps even when we been able to take it for granted. But it seems to me that this is not the case in the times we are currently living through. Whichever direction we turn in there is so much to concern us that it almost overwhelms.

A great deal of what we see and hear around us could crush the hope out of us. Yet, the message of today\u2019s readings is clear, whatever we are living through, we are called to rejoice and hope. The prophet Zephaniah proclaims:

\u201cShout for joy, daughter of Zion, Israel, shout aloud! Rejoice, exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem!\u201d<\/em>

St Paul offers us a way to move towards that joy, however hard our times are. Writing to the Philippians he said:

\u201cIf there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving, and that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, will guard your hearts and your thoughts, in Christ Jesus.\u201d<\/em>

His words remind me that whatever we face Christ will be there with us. That is the source of our hope and our joy. It is by keeping focused firstly on Christ, by being committed to a life of prayer that we will discover the ways our troubled world needs us to bring those glimmers of light of Christ into it.

This Gaudete Sunday where is Christ enabling you to find joy and light?
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Today we\u2019re celebrating Gaudete Sunday, the day in Advent when we pause to that remember that even in dark and uncertain times we are called to be people of joy and hope. In the darkest and most challenging of times we are called to bring Christ\u2019s light to the world, even if that\u2019s only in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274,222,494,468,271,537,335,246],"tags":[28,18,53,223,6,8,130,33,229,13,5,719,29,15,55,109,10],"class_list":["post-3464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-gaudete","category-lectio-divina","category-liturgy","category-prayer","category-scripture","tag-benedictine","tag-challenge","tag-christ","tag-christlike","tag-gospel","tag-hope","tag-joy","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-lectiodivina","tag-light","tag-lightindarkness","tag-love","tag-newlife","tag-prayer","tag-rejoice","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3464"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3472,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3464\/revisions\/3472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}