S1 E2: Finding Joy

Transcript

Carol Vassar:

There’s a theme throughout the readings for Gaudete Sunday - the Third Sunday of Advent - and that theme is joy. We hear it in various forms (joy, joyfully, rejoice) no less than eight times in today’s readings. Even St. Paul tells us to live in joy always. Yet finding joy in life is no easy task. What keeps us from discovering joy? That’s the theme Father Mark explores in this episode of Living in Faith, Hope, & Love. 

First, though, our Gospel reading for today, which is from Luke Chapter 3, verses 10-18. Though there is no mention of the word joy in this Gospel passage, one might argue it underscores the reason for joyfully anticipating the coming of Christ during the season of Advent and always.  

The crowds asked John the Baptist, “What should we do?” He said to them in reply, “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none.  And whoever has food should do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He answered them, “Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.” Soldiers also asked him, “And what is it that we should do?” He told them, “Do not practice extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your wages.”

Now the people were filled with expectation, and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ. John answered them all, saying, “I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Exhorting them in many other ways, he preached good news to the people.

The Gospel of the Lord

“Finding Joy,” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut

Father Mark Suslenko:

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again. Rejoice.” 

St. Paul is very clear with his exhortation that we should always be in a spirit of rejoicing, of intense joy. Now as we hear that coming out of his mouth, and we look at our lives, how often do we really find ourselves experiencing joy? Those moments of intense pleasure and happiness? Those moments when I have achieved something I truly desired? Moments of joy. 

 I think for most of us, we get glimmers of joyful moments. They come every once in a while. Unfortunately, there may be some here today who may have never experienced joy for one reason or another. But joyful moments lift us up, and they bring us to a dimension of life that is a bit more exciting and exuberant. Everything comes together with a feeling of being right. It could be the birth of a child. It could be an experience with a friend. It could be a number of things that make us joyful. But glimmers are basically what most of us get. So how do we go from glimmers of joy to actually trying to do what St. Paul tells us to do and experiencing joy always, rejoicing, always? 

Well, there are a lot of things that can rob us of joy, but I'd like to offer two this morning to reflect upon as we go through this Advent season. Two that have the power to really shut us down emotionally and cause us to keep our feelings within and almost walk through life with a certain numbness. 

The first is a fear of abandonment.   We are in the back of our heads, afraid that those we love are going to leave us. That somehow, I will experience rejection. Maybe some of those gathered here today, or some of you in your life, have felt rejection. You needed a mom to be a mom or a dad to be a dad, and they just weren't able to be there for you, and you felt that intense rejection, fear of abandonment. It prevents us from being honest.  Even consider your closest relationship in your life. Isn't there somewhere in the back of your head where you sometimes think, if I really told them what I was feeling, would they still be around?  If they really knew who I was, would they still love me? And so we're afraid to be honest. Sometimes, we walk on eggshells with one another because we have this fear of being rejected, of being walked away from and alone. And so we keep our relationships on an even keel, and we do what we have to do to keep the boats floating because of that fear. 

Ultimately, it also translates into our work and into our other social relationships.  Who will walk away from me, and will there be somebody there for me when I need them? The bigger question then that comes from all of this is to whom do I really belong?  To whom do I really belong? Where in this world can I be who I am, say what I need to say, and have it be okay, and have the person not walk away?  We'll leave that to the side for a moment.  

The second thing that can rob us of joy is a loss of innocence, a loss of innocence.  You know, let’s face that we come into this world, as philosophers remind us, as "tabula rasas," as blank slates. And so life hasn't affected us yet, but as we begin to live and as we begin to grow and as we begin to mature and we get out into the world, we learn very quickly that the world can hurt us, that people can hurt us, that people aren't who they say they are, that we can be lied to, that we can meet sinfulness, that the world is not always a pleasant place and can be scary. Some of us have met life's ugliness face-to-face in situations that can be classified as nothing less than horrific, and they cause us to lose our innocence.  If we trust someone with a confidence and that confidence is betrayed, it then makes us suspicious and leery of trusting again.  

And so even though we may want to experience joy always, or at least more often than just once in a while, we all have this apprehension. We're all closed down to some degree, either because of fear or because of a loss of innocence, because we've just been wounded too much, and we don't want to be wounded again. 

And so, where do we go to reconcile all of this? Where can we find our way through all of this muddiness of life? Well, St. Paul gives us that answer, too, and it's only in Jesus Christ, in a relationship with God. Think about it:  our earthly loves, our earthly friendships, our earthly acquisitions. They can disappoint us. It's a fact of life.  But if we allow ourselves to shut down and never experience life again, then we're robbing ourselves of something more precious. And so, yes, the real thing here is to take the risk, to be vulnerable, to put ourselves out there. And will we possibly be rejected? Yes, we will. But if we shut ourselves down emotionally, then we're even more useless walking around like a widget or a machine.  But if we have our relationship with Jesus Christ in check, that’s where we can go, always and everywhere at any time, to answer that first question I asked: to whom do I belong?  We belong to God. He's the reason we are here, and he's the one to whom we belong. What relationship in my life can I be who I am,

say what I need to say: with Jesus Christ. He will never walk away. God is always there, always forgives, always welcomes home, and always will bring us back. And when we begin to realize this about our relationship with God and deepen that, then inside, something begins to change,  and we begin to become more positive, and we begin to become more centered and focused, and we develop this resilience that allows us then to go out into the world and meet whatever comes. So that when we meet rejection, when we find ourselves facing abandonment when we find ourselves brushing up against life's ugliness, we can come back to the one who will never abandon us and who can restore our innocence, who allows us to play and to be and to create and to do with the gifts that he has given us to do so. And so, the reason St. Paul can say rejoice in the Lord always is because he had that strong relationship with Jesus Christ. We all can have that strong relationship with Jesus Christ. And he knew because of that relationship that life had meaning, that there was hope, that there was always a tomorrow, that the disappointments of today don't end today, but there's always a new beginning, and that we all journey toward this joyful hope this day when we see God face-to-face and can really be infused with that joy, with that rejoicing, knowing that we are where we need to be, where God wants us to be. But in this life, with that strong and firm relationship, we can extend those moments of joy so they don't just happen every once in a while or not at all, but they can be the disposition we bring to life.  St. Thérèse of Lisieux says, “A person who has a strong relationship with Jesus Christ can experience joy in a prison cell as much as you can in a palace.  Possessing the peace that only God can give is the only key to happiness we have. 

Carol Vassar:

Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. If you like what you've heard today, please subscribe to Living in Faith, Hope, and Love on your favorite podcast app and take a moment to leave a review. 

SS. Isidore and Maria is an active parish community, so whether you’re a long-time parishioner or are just getting to know us through this podcast, we welcome you to join us at Masses or any of our other community events and services. Visit our parish website - isidoreandmaria.org - for a full schedule of Masses, services and other happenings. That's isidoreandmaria.org. We're also active on Facebook and Instagram.

On behalf of Father Mark, I'm Carol Vassar, and we thank you for listening to this episode of Living in Faith, Hope, and Love.