“Shout for joy, daughter of Zion, Israel, shout aloud. Rejoice, exult with all your heart.” The scriptures for the Third Sunday of Advent bring us ever closer to the celebration of Christmas and summon us to joy. The Advent wreaths that decorate our churches mark this change of tempo by the more festive pink candle that is lit on this Sunday, a subtle change whose significance is not lost on the children who are generally invited to light these candles. The change of colour matches their mounting excitement as Christmas draws near.

A useful exercise on this Sunday of Advent might be a prayerful consideration of what joy might mean in our lives.

It is a difficult emotion to describe with any precision, and certainly not an emotion that can be summoned spontaneously. Lasting joy is rooted in a life at peace with itself, that is, secured in a sustaining love, and that can therefore look to the future with confidence.

The reality of the hospital, continued the prelate, presents considerable differences from country to country. In industrial countries, for example, "in addition to the grave economic and financial crisis which has seized numerous nations, leading to an even drastic reconsideration of the health services, serious challenges must be addressed, beginning with the safeguarding of the identity of hospitals and other Catholic health premises and the maintenance of the specific subsidiary character of their role."

Remaining in the foreground, he continued, always are “fundamental” questions such as:

 -     Absolute respect of life from conception to its natural end.