Third Sunday of Advent, 2018

Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! – Phil 4:4

If our desire to praise God is His gift to us, then using this gift-as-given is a sure way to grow in holiness. How so? To desire something is to acknowledge the absence of that something. I desire holiness, or a more perfect holiness, therefore, I lack the holiness I want. To desire to praise God implies that praising God fulfills a basic need, establishes a fundamental relationship to God that I do not currently enjoy. Perhaps God – to me – is a heavenly Father who rebukes me when I sin but loves me always. Maybe He's a Teacher who guides me and shows me how to live. Or maybe He's a Santa Claus figure who grants wishes and appears when I need Him. Each of these versions of God is severely lacking, maybe even idolatrous. Surely, we desire more!

The gift of the desire to praise God opens for us an unbridgeable distance that nonetheless brings us closer to God, into a more intimate relationship that leaves words and concepts behind so that we might favor more primitive responses to God's presence – awe, wonder, astonishment, gratitude. Rather than plying God with promises of good behavior or fleeing in primal fear, we can pray in the silence of praise, simply being in His presence and experiencing our finitude as the gift that it is.

Praising, rejoicing, being glad – all of these place us inevitably and squarely within our lacking, a lacking that only God Himself can perfect.