3rd Sunday of Advent 16.12.07 Joy
People have noticed over many generations that there is a certain cyclical effect to life. You are up one day and down the next. What comes around goes around. If your football team wins the premiership one year they may be bottom the next year, or vice versa.
No wonder that certain false religions developed along the lines of reincarnation – that we go around in one big circle and never get anywhere.
We of the Catholic faith also notice the cycles but we do not think they go on forever. We are conscious (and especially so in Advent) that things do come to a definite end.
There will be an end of sorrow and suffering for those who trust in God, but not an end of joy.
It may be that we have only ever known the cyclical effect, but that does not mean it will continue forever. It just means there is another reality (called eternity) which we have not yet experienced.
On a similar level we can identify that at any given moment we feel happy and unhappy about different things.
We might be happy that the weather is cooler, but unhappy that we have to go back to work.
Happy that we have passed an exam; unhappy that we have a headache etc.
Always we have this mixture. If someone asks us how we are, it is really a matter of what we focus on that determines the answer. I am happy and unhappy about different things.
So here again we can be resigned to a kind of perpetual mixture, and think that this arrangement will go on forever.
But not so. At the end of the day, or the end of Days, all the temporary things will come to an end, and when all is said and done, when the dust has settled, what have we left?
When you pull away all the layers, what is there going to be? Some would say, Nothing.
We would say, God.
At all the different levels of reality, the last word is that God Is, and knowing that, we can say that all will be well.
Today, Gaudete Sunday, we consider the bedrock of reality, the Last word on the subject. It is very important to know.
Is there God or is there Nothing?
If God then we are truly joyful; if nothing then we are despairing.
We put all our trust in God, and what we lack in trust we turn into a prayer that He will supply the faith, hope, and joy we presently lack.
If we are joyful it may be we do not know it or feel it, and indeed it is hard to feel what is at the deepest level.
We are more likely to feel the last thing that happened, the surface impression, the most current emotion at the time.
This can lead us to think we are unhappy when in fact if we peel it all away we are actually and always happy at that bedrock level.
What’s the use of being happy if you can’t feel it? Well, it is very useful to know that when it is all over, when we wake up from this dreamlike state called life on earth, that there is something better, and a whole lot better.
It would be nice to feel that now, granted, but knowing we are headed towards it is the next best thing.
It also helps to stabilise our emotions and our general sense of purpose to know we are going somewhere definite and not just around in circles.
The pleasure-seekers, those who have abandoned themselves to living for the moment, are acting out of a kind of desperation. They do not have to be desperate. Relax, there is a whole eternity of bliss waiting for you if you can just be a little bit patient.
So, let us rejoice, cultivating the deeper awareness of what we have, union with God the source of all Joy.
