FINDING JOY

 A few days ago I had to get in touch with one of our prep school students, a junior girl named Joy. I went to the girls' building at lunch time and began asking, "I'm looking for Joy." Judging from the blank looks I received, I immediately realized that I could have some fun with this name by asking the freshmen, who didn't know the girl in question, so I tried a few variations as I walked around: "Hey, I need Joy," and "Do you know where I can find Joy?" However, when I asked her classmates, the fun was over and I got answers such as "Joy? I just saw her in the corner over there." 

My fun questions, however, did make me think for a moment or two: "I'm looking for joy."  "Hey, I need joy," and "Do you know where I can find joy?" I wasn't sure whether joy is something that we're meant to pursue in life. Remember, it's one of the twelve "Gifts" that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory: "charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity." Any chance of pondering my own question was lost when I met up with Joy and began talking with her about her role in about the upcoming Christmas Program.

I forgot about my question concerning "joy" until yesterday when I saw in the missal that tomorrow, the Third Sunday of Advent, is "Gaudete Sunday," or "Rejoice Sunday." The entrance antiphon bids us "Rejoice!" because Advent is half over. The second reading begins "Brothers and sisters, rejoice always."(1 Thess. 5:16)

Clearly, then, Saint Paul thinks that it is possible for us to choose to decide to "rejoice," to "be joyful," But, we might object, it's hard to rejoice when we look at the wars and atrocities and hatred that are the stuff of our world, or when we consider the suffering of our relatives and friends -- and ourselves. 

There is, however, a clue to a way out of this problem: it's the word "always." Paul tells Christians of Thessalonica to "rejoice always." The Greek adverb can be translated "always, at all times." One dictionary gives the meaning as "duration of time, with reference to a series of occasions." So, it seems that he is not speaking of joy as a constant, steady state of being but rather as a response to every single occasion in our lives -- including times of difficulty and suffering. But how can we manage to be joyful in the midst of suffering and misery?

The current "Seasonal Missalette" from World Library Publications offers a pretty insightful answer to this question on page 29:

How can we rejoice when our life is not joyful? John the Baptist points to the answer; it's the one he testified to, who has  now come, God's greatest gift: Jesus Christ. In Christ, we can always find joy. For he came to share in our losses, our anxieties, our disappointments, and our struggles and, in so doing , revealed the kingdom of God, where we receive the glad tidings, the healing, the liberty, the justice, the consolation, and the salvation that Isaiah proclaimed. After all, Jesus himself testified that he fulfilled this passage. So let us rejoice, for Jesus has come to fill us with joy. Always.

We need to remember that at the heart of our Christian faith is the Cross. Suffering is not something on the fringes of faith that messes up the otherwise "nice" realities of our religion. No. It's right there in  the center. We get so familiar with seeing crosses and crucifixes and making "the sign of the cross" that we forget the central place of Christ's redemptive sacrifice on Calvary.  

But in some deeply mysterious way the cross is the cause of our joy, of the Good News of our salvation. So, let us rejoice in every circumstance, knowing that Christ's victory over sin and suffering has brought us cause for rejoicing.

So, if I ask "Where can I find joy?" the answer is "Everywhere."