CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - A number of years ago, a young college student was working as an intern at his college's Museum of Natural History. One day while working at the cash register in the gift shop, he saw an elderly couple come in with a little girl in a wheelchair.

As he looked closer at this girl, he saw that she was kind of perched on her chair. The student realized that she had no arms or legs, just a head, neck and torso. She was wearing a little white dress with red polka dots.

As the couple wheeled her up to the checkout counter, he turned his head toward the girl and gave her a wink. Meanwhile, he took the money from her grandparents and looked back at the girl, who was giving him the cutest, largest smile he had ever seen.

All of a sudden her handicap was gone and all that the college student saw was this beautiful girl, whose smile just melted him and almost instantly gave him a completely new sense of what life is all about. She took him from an unhappy college student and brought him into her world; a world of smiles, love and warmth.

The lighting of the pink candle of the Advent Wreath reminds us that Christmas is almost here. 

The theme of this Sunday's liturgy is joy and Saint Paul tells us to rejoice.  "Rejoice in the Lord always.  I shall say it again: rejoice!" (Philippians 4: 4)

What is joy?  The dictionary defines joy as an emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying.  It is also defined as a state of happiness or felicity.  In Catholicism, joy is a state of soul equated with happiness and it is also defined as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. 

Joy is not to be understood as something superficial or immature.  The person who is filled with Christian joy possesses an immense treasure because the true Christian can smile and laugh even in the middle of the most terrible adversities and sufferings.  Saint Lawrence, when he was being cooked alive by his torturers, joked and told them to turn him over. 

Sadness is certainly the epidemic of our times. A lot of people are walking around without a smile on their face.  Christianity is completely opposite to selfishness, self-absorption and narcissism.  Christianity demands a radical reorientation of our personal lives.  We must be empty of all self-seeking. 

There are many things in our modern society that are causing many to live very selfish lives.  On the top of the list are five things that need to be looked at very carefully.  These five things are: the lack of personal prayer, the infrequent use of the Sacrament of Confession, receiving Holy Communion in the state of mortal sin, sexual sin and excessive television.  All five things have caused many people to become deeply self-absorbed and isolated. 

More and more people are appearing like zombies who are disconnected from their family and their friends.

Saint Thomas Aquinas listed eight Capital or Deadly Sins rather than our list of seven.  He maintained that sadness was the worse one of them all.  The famous Italian poet Dante, in his Divine Comedy, placed sadness at the lowest level of hell. 

We need to laugh and I agree that we should speak of five marks of the Church, rather than four:  One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Joyful. 

If you want to experience the true joy of Christianity, be like Jesus.  Live for others and not for yourself.  Be a gift for others.  Family life is essential.  Parish family life is essential.  No man is an island.  Community is essential in order to be human and Christian. 

Fr. George Rutler wrote: "A culture trapped in its own existence becomes no greater than itself. That old maxim perdures no matter how many times it is repeated: 'A man wrapped up in himself becomes a very small package.'  More important than wrapping gifts in Advent, is the obligation to unwrap the self: to confess to Christ the sins that belittle his image in man, and to live life as he wants it, so that we might rejoice with him forever and never be separated from him."

Life is difficult and it is not getting any easier.  Our secular world makes every attempt to eradicate every visible reminder of the transcendent.  Moreover, most of us live very busy lives, exercising multiple tasks throughout a very intense day. 

Formal moments of total silence and contemplative prayer are necessary for anyone who wants to be a true Christian in the modern world.  Fr. Karl Rahner once wrote, "The Christian of tomorrow will be a mystic, one who has experienced something, or he will be nothing."

If we do not develop a serious life of contemplative prayer and Eucharistic life, the ever-increasing ...