Joy through Cross and Sorrow.

This past week we celebrated the Exultation of the Holy Cross on Wednesday and then the seven sorrows of the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows on Thursday. These two liturgical days, especially presented back to back, reveal to us the fundamental difference in the understanding of Hope and Joy the Christian possesses as opposed to that of the unbeliever. We are constantly living life thinking that the absence of pain or suffering, or the increase in pleasure and possessions will somehow complete our desire for hope and our desire for joy. To live life this way prohibits us from being able to live in the current moment.

We are trained that hope means that tomorrow, there will be no more illness, tomorrow there will be more money, tomorrow a relationship will be pieced back together, tomorrow I will suffer less, have more, and will experience no discomfort. That is NOT what the Christian means by hope. For the Christian, Hope is something much more profound, something all together superior to some vague wish that tomorrow is more pleasant that today.

For the Christian, Hope is the virtue of expecting an internal peace and an unconquerable joy that persists within the internal life of the person. Several years ago, I met a man who had undergone 60-some surgeries in his life. This man, whenever I saw him, had a smile on his face and a joke on his tongue. Whenever I asked him what was going on in his life, he would respond by telling me what Jesus was doing for him in his prayer life. We are trained, not only that hope and joy consist in the externals, but that our entire lives are dependent on what we experience in the world. I am very guilty of this, when asked how I am doing I will typically respond by listing how teaching is, how the renovation work is going, what events are coming up in the parish, how previous events went, what vacation I am looking forward to, and on and on. What would our lives be like if we spent our days working and paying mind to our internal lives. The life that we have when the phone is turned off; when there is no music playing; when we detach from all the noise.

Take up again the resources at your disposal to cultivate an interior life. Spend time in the Scriptures, speak to the Lord, LISTEN to the Lord, meditate, cultivate silence, live your life with meaning, move past the cheap and superficial externals. Instead of being overwhelmed by the storms life spins up, be at peace because the Lord Jesus is holding you as He carries you through that storm. Live like a Christian. When someone asks, “how are you?” respond with an update on what God is doing in your interior life.