Gaudete
Introduction
Gaudete
Remember we said that Advent is divided into a first part
and a second part. The first part gazes into the future when Christ will come
again in glory. The second part begins
on the 17th of December (that’s today) with the beginning of the
Novena for Christmas. The look now is
backward into the past, to that moment of history when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. If the 17th
were not a Sunday but a week-day, the gospel reading would be that long
male-ridden genealogy of Jesus from Matthew
in which Abraham begets Isaac and Isaac begets Jacob and Jacob begets Judah, etc., etc. It runs through
forty-two generations, and nobody today
has the courage to read it at liturgy
in its entirety. The genealogy
finally arrives at “Joseph, the husband
of Mary, and it was of her that the Christ was born” (Mt 1:1-7).
Today is not only the beginning of the novena for
Christmas, it is also third Sunday of
Advent. The third Sunday has always
been called Gaudete Sunday,
because half-way through Advent the Church gives us a command to rejoice (“Gaudete,” the opening
word from the old Latin Mass for the
third Sunday of Advent, means
“rejoice.”) That rejoice-command was more welcomed in the old days than it is
now, because Advent used to be a penitential season. Then Gaudete seemed
to be saying to us, “Hey, rejoice, we’re half-way through Advent!”
The Church issues
a rejoice-command also during Lent but
there she uses a different Latin word
for rejoice: Laetare. So that
Sunday is called Laetare Sunday. And it too is issued half-way through
Lent. And Lent still being the
penitential season it always was,
the rejoice-command is welcomed
for it means we’re half-way through our
journey to Easter and to Spring.
Unpsychological but scriptural
In
Latin grammar, gaudete and laetare are in the imperative mood,
not the volitive mood. The volitive
mood would translate, "Be so kind as to rejoice, please." The
imperative mood is a good healthy command: "Rejoice!" Period. But in
this great age of psychology we don't
like people commanding our internal states.
If I want to go around grouching "Bah humbug!" like old
Scrooge, then that's what I'm going to do, and don't tell me to rejoice. Some
of us don't like bumper stickers that order us to smile because "God loves
you" (even though the guy sporting the sticker might not).
You just don't go around commanding people to rejoice or
to be happy or to smile. Oh, but Scripture does. Look at the gaudete scriptures
for this third Sunday of Advent. In the first reading, the prophet Zephaniah,
addressing refugees in a slum district of Jerusalem, issues them a command
to, "Shout for joy, O daughter
Zion! sing joyfully, O Israel.... The Lord, your God, is in your midst..."
(3:14‑18a). In the second
reading, Paul, mind you, is sitting in prison and bound with chains, and yet is
crying out, "Gaudete! Rejoice in the Lord always." He's even
repeats himself: "Iterum, dico, gaudete. Again I say, rejoice! The
Lord is near" (Phil 4:4‑7).
I am reminded of the German Jesuit, Father Delp, who was
executed by Hitler on the second of February, 1945. In a book entitled The
Prison meditations of Fr. Delp, we find this diary entry for Gaudete Sunday: “Is happiness possible in a prison cell, a
space covered by three paces in each
direction, one’s hands fettered, one’s heart filled with longings, one’s head
full of problems and worries? Is happiness possible here?” He answers, “Yes, it
can happen even under these circumstances. I tell you, every now and then my
heart can scarcely contain the delirious joy that's in it. Suddenly, not
knowing why, my spirits soar again and there is no doubt in my mind that all the divine promises hold
good." He admits that this might just be an unconscious defense mechanism
against depression. "But not always," he writes. "Sometimes it
is due to a premonition of great good tidings.”
Despite Hitler’s war and his prison chains, the divine promises still hold good for him:
" One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they
train for war anymore” (Is 2:4-5). Despite all the ruin and rubble around
him, the divine promises still hold good: there will be a new heaven
and earth, and a new city of Jerusalem (Rv 21:1). Despite his very stark and sober circumstances, the divine
promises still hold good: the best wine
is being saved for last (Jn 2:10). Despite all the tears he shed in prison and
despite his impending execution, the
divine promises hold good: “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,
and there will be no more crying and no more dying” (Rev 7:17; 21:4).
How is it possible for Fr. Delp to rejoice in a prison
cell, “a space covered by three paces
in each direction”? How is it possible
for us to rejoice, if we have just received a very chilling
verdict from the doctor? How is it possible for us to rejoice if we have lost a
spouse of 30, 40, 50 years, or if our life
or the life of someone we love very much has been plunged into inconsolable grief by some senseless
tragedy? How can we possibly rejoice when we have lost a pet “of human estate”
who showed us, like no human being ever showed us, what God’s unconditional
love of us looks like? How can we
possibly rejoice in the face of all those other losses which have the taste of
death about them and which pepper our
human lives along the way: loss of limb, loss of job, loss of friendship, loss
of reputation? How is it possible?
A mood and a decision
Psychiatry has part of the answer: It is possible because
joy is not just a mood which is at the
pure mercy of the right circumstances of life.
Joy is also a decision or
choice ‑‑ a decision not to get stuck in our sorrow and pain
but to rise above them. To use the
climate of December, it is a decision
not to be snowbound by the grieves, the losses, the misfortunes of life, but to
shovel out and get on top of it all. Joy: not just a mood at the mercy of life but also a decision.
But psychiatry does not have the whole answer. There is
also a mysterious inexplicable element involved here. Somewhere along the way,
very very early in life (they tell us
everything is signed, sealed, and
delivered by then), we come to a cross-road, and there we make a
basic decision for our life -- a decision to head out into one or the other
direction. That cross-road-moment might be very undramatic, almost unnoticed,
but it is very critical and decisive. //There at the cross-road (to use the
imagery of Charles Dicken’s) we make a basic decision either
to sing out “Merry Christmas” like the nephew in A Christmas Carol,
or to grouch out “Bab Humbug” like old
Ebenezer Scrooge. //There at the cross-road (to use the
climate of the moment) we make a basic
decision to either be snowbound by the sorrow
and grief of life, or to dig out and get on top of it all. //There at the
cross-road we make a decision either to
wiggle and wallow in self-pity
or to rise above our sorrow and
pain, and break through the snowdrift on top of us, like daffodils in early
spring, and get on with life and bloom
wherever we are.
Now the mysterious inexplicable element is this: How
come one person will make a decision to go into one direction, and another
person, in basically the same circumstances, will decide to go off into
the other direction? How come one person will make a basic choice for
joy in life while another person will not?
How come one person will choose to sing out “Merry Christmas” while
another will choose to grouch out “Bah Humbug” in life? How come Scrooge (that “ squeezing,
wrenching, grasping, clutching, covetous old sinner”), who has all the money he
needs, chooses to grouch out “Bah
Humbug,” while his nephew, who has
almost nothing at all, chooses to sing
out “Merry Christmas!“ Recall what
Scrooge shouted back at him? “What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor
enough.” To which the young man
replies, “What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough?” The decision
made at the crossroad is mysterious and
inexplicable. It is also critical. There at the crossroad we are fixed
in our decision. That’s the way it is going to be for us for the rest of our
lives. People don’t change.
Though old
Scrooge perhap0s never made a decision against joy (people just
don’t do that; it’s psychologically impossible), he surely didn’t make a
decision for joy, and that itself was a decision. And he was fixed in
that decision. When the curtain goes up on A Christmas Carol, there’s
old Scrooge fixed in his “Bah Humbug.”
But when the curtain comes down,
there is a new Scrooge on the stage. He has been changed by something “ghostly.” He has been changed by the three Spirits of Christmas. He has
been changed by some divine visitation that intervenes, and works the miracle that it takes to change
him. When the curtain comes down, the new Scrooge is “gaudete-ing.” He is
rejoicing. He is shouting out, “Merry Christmas.” And he promising the whole
world that he will keep Christmas in his heart the whole year though. And the
new Scrooge is proof positive, for all of us who need it, that with some help from above we aren’t fixed and we can change.