Christian life, we have to face it, is
quite demanding. We speak of high cost
of discipleship, of carrying our crosses each day, of self-denial and
self-sacrificing love among others.
Without the correct disposition, our life in the Lord can end up as listless,
unhappy and exhausting commitment of self-giving. In fact, stern faces and humorless outlook in
life are not uncommon among many serious Christians we meet. Needless to say, this joyless witnessing is a
source of discouragement for others to take Christian faith seriously. How can
we be attractive when there’s no joy in the life we lead?
Joy is an essential disposition of a
true disciple. The demands of Christian
life have to be carried out with a joyful heart. Gaudete
Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, is meant to remind us of the fact that always
God’s presence in our life is a cause for rejoicing. All Advent biblical figures attest to this. We
hear Isaiah exclaims, in the first reading (Is 61:1-2, 10-11): “I rejoice
heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul…” (v. 10). Mary’s magnificat, too, is read as the
responsorial psalm and we hear Mary exults: “My being proclaims the greatness
of the Lord, my spirit finds joy in God my savior” (Lk 1: 46). We recall too, though not in today’s
readings, John the Baptist leaping with joy in her mother’s womb as Elizabeth
and Mary greeted each other.
Do we find joy in God? Allow me to offer
three ways of finding joy in God—the joy of gratitude, the joy of ministry, the
joy of surrender.
The
Joy of Gratitude.
There is joy in thanksgiving. No doubt about it. St. Paul, in our second reading, tells the
Thessalonians to rejoice and pray always and give thanks in all circumstances
(1 Thes 5: 16). Christian life may be demanding but even before we are faced
with the demands of our commitments to the Lord, God has favored us first as “He
has looked with favor on his lowly servant”, Mary, that she may be called
blessed in all ages. Isaiah’s joy too is
one of gratitude as he attests: “for He has clothed me with a robe of
salvation, and wrapped me in a mantle of justice” (Is. 61: 10).
When God asks our commitment, he sees to
it first that he endows us with the gifts required for fulfilling what he
expects of us. When we see it this way,
gratitude then is our first response to God’s goodness. Whatever we do for God, we do it with the joy
of a grateful heart.
How often, deep in our hearts, we demand
from God our reward for being good in this life! This we expect with a stern sense
of entitlement oblivious of the fundamental fact that we have been blessed
already prior to our achievements and that we are good only because God has
been good to us first.
Advent allows us to rejoice because of
the goodness of God in our lives. An important
Advent preparation then is cultivating a grateful heart, one that truly brings
forth joy, as it recognizes God’s favor on us.
The
Joy of Ministry.
There is joy in serving. We sure
feel physically tired after serving, yet at the end of the day, we wonder why a
serene sense of deep satisfaction invigorates us from within. I believe it is the quiet and gentle power of
joy that revitalizes us.
I once worked in a rural and mountainous
parish with an aging missionary as my parish priest. Because I was young, nimble and quick, all ministering
that involved going through the rough roads and dangerous trails of the
countryside were understandably left to my care. Always upon my return from these difficult
areas, the kind old missionary would come to me with much concern in his face
making sure I was fine. Sometimes, for
one reason or another, I could not make it to the barrio, he would volunteer to
go as we were left with no choice. As he
returned home, I would meet him to see if he was fine. On those days, he surely looked tired and
older but, to my amazement, a lot happier.
He would look at me beaming with a joyful smile and say, “I’m back and I’m
great!”
Such is the joy of serving. This I believe is the same joy that exudes and
makes the face of Mother Teresa beautiful—more beautiful than the fresh and
pampered faces of those hailed Miss Universe.
Do we find joy as we serve in our
ministry? In our professions?
The
Joy of Surrender.
There is joy in trusting and in believing in the faithfulness of
God. This is the joy of placing our
lives at the hands of the faithful God.
Sometimes, in this result-oriented
society we are living now, we can become control freaks. We spend a lot of our energy making sure that
everything goes according to our wishes and plans. We begin to become strict, intolerant, stiff,
unbending. We lose our flexibility and spontaneity.
All because we want to see our design
successfully materialized, our set goals met and our plans well-executed. Failures and adversities have no place in our
lives. Yet, the fact is, they do
happen. Not everything goes according to
our design. Hence, our contemporary life
is marked by stress and anxiety.
To surrender to God is liberating. Filipinos are said to be the happiest people
despite formidable adversities. I
suspect this is because we know how to place our lives into the hands of
God. “Bahala na!” in its positive sense
expresses our trust in God’s providential care.
We trust that in God’s wisdom, everything will fit together, everything
will make sense. So we learn how to let
go and let God and get a life.
In our Christian life it is not our own
will but God’s will that matters most, not our own design but God’s
design. Advent reminds us that like the
prophets and Mary who listened to God’s will and trusted in God’s fidelity, we
too may do well to surrender to God.
There’s so much joy in it. Promise.
