Advent Joy for Students

I am amazed at how fast the week goes; here it is, Friday and the First Friday of December so I know the noon Mass will be packed with people who come on their lunch hour; many of them come every single day, but the parking is difficult on First Fridays even without the University students who, I suspect, are leaving for a good break. At least I know St. Thomas University students are finished with exams and most leave campus immediately. Now they begin to rejoice in Advent as they start vacation!
To continue with the Holy Father's Apostolic Exhortation:

7.
Sometimes we are tempted to find excuses and complain, acting as if we could only be happy if a thousand conditions were met. To some extent this is because our “technological society has succeeded in multiplying occasions of pleasure, yet has found it very difficult to engender joy”. I can say that the most beautiful and natural expressions of joy which I have seen in my life were in poor people who had little to hold on to. I also think of the real joy shown by others who, even amid pressing professional obligations, were able to preserve, in detachment and simplicity, a heart full of faith. In their own way, all these instances of joy flow from the infinite love of God, who has revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ. I never tire of repeating those words of Benedict XVI which take us to the very heart of the Gospel: “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction”.

How do I encounter Jesus each day?What gives me joy?