Oh Rose Color Candle Burning Brightly
(Joy: an Inside
& Outside Job)
Isaiah 35:1-5 James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
To
the church in the diaspora[1]
&
to the church of the unchurched[2]
First reading
The desert
will rejoice, and flowers will bloom in the wastelands. The desert will sing
and shout for joy; it will be as beautiful as the mountains of
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew
Glory to you, Lord.
When
John the Baptist heard in prison of the works of the Christ, he sent his
disciples to Jesus with this question, “Are you the one who is to come, or
should we look for another?” Jesus said to them in reply, “Go and tell John
what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news
proclaimed to them. And give him this message, `Blessed are those who don’t
doubt me.’”
As they were going off, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John, “What
did you go out to the desert to see? Were you expecting to see a reed swayed by
the wind? Or someone dressed in fine clothing? Those bedecked in fine clothing dwell
in royal palaces. Were you expecting to see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and
more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written: Behold, I am
sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way before you. Amen, I
say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the
Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
----------------
Introduction
Gaudete Sunday
There is a new Advent
since Vatican II. It is no longer a season of penance but of joyful preparation
for Christmas. What is not new is that the third Sunday of Advent still strikes
a note of joy as it has for centuries.
On the third Sunday of
Advent in liturgical Cycle C, the prophet Zephaniah exhorts the people saying, "Shout for joy, O daughter
In the second reading for Cycle C,
The command to rejoice,
issued midway through Advent, made more sense in the old days when Advent was
still a penitential season which had strict rules for fasting and abstaining,
and which discouraged all celebrating in a formerly somber season. In those
days it was natural to rejoice that the sober season of Advent was
half-through, and that soon we would be allowed to intoxicate ourselves with the
toys and joys of Christmas.
A
command to rejoice?
In a psychological
atmosphere which sings, “I want to be me,” we are inclined to frown upon any
attempt to command our internal emotional states. If I am feeling glum for some
reason, then glum I am going to feel, and do not tell me to smile “because God
loves you.” If I want to go around grouching "Bah humbug!"
like old Scrooge because something has gone wrong in my life, then that’s what
I’m going to do, and do not tell me to
cheer up. The psychological atmosphere of the day frowns on a command to
rejoice, especially if someone is financially down and out or is battling
cancer or is beset with some tragedy or is suffering some irretrievable loss.
On Gaudete
Sunday the prophet Zephaniah does not
frown on a command to rejoice. Speaking to refugees in a slum district of Jerusalem he commands them to, "Shout for
joy, O daughter
Joy:
an inside job
Zephaniah can tell a group of poor refugees
to shout with joy because, as someone has profoundly said, “Joy is an inside
job!” Paul, sitting in prison and bound
in chains, can give the Philippians a command to rejoice (as he, a prisoner,
was rejoicing) because “Joy is an inside job.” That is to say, joy is a
personal decision.
We do not speak of the orgy of joy of the
Christmas season. That kind of joy is tossed out on the curb with the Christmas
tree on the 26th of December. That kind of joy is a capricious mood which
is at the mercy of outside circumstances like getting the high tech toy we want
for Christmas. That kind of joy is a willowy reed which is at the mercy of life’s benign
and favorable winds.
Joy as an inside job does not depend on life’s
benign and favorable winds. It depends on a decision we make. A decision not to
be stuck in our losses or privations or irritations or diminutions or even our
tragedies. To evoke the climate of December, joy is also a personal decision
not to be snowbound by the unfortunate circumstances of life but to break
through our snowdrifts and rise to the top and bloom there like daffodils in
early spring.
A story about joy as an inside job
An e-mail received
paints a perfect picture of joy as an inside job—as a decision.
A 92-year-old, petite,
well-poised and proud lady is fully dressed each morning by
“That doesn’t have
anything to do with it,” she replied. “Happiness is something you decide on
ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on what kind of
furniture is in it or how it is arranged.
It’s what’s in my mind and how that is arranged there that counts. I have already decided to be happy with my
room. It’s a decision I make every
morning when I wake up. I have a choice: I can spend the day in bed bemoaning
the difficulties I have with parts of my body that no longer work, or I can get
out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do work. My recipe for joy and
also for a long life is this: a) free
your heart from hate; b) free your mind from unnecessary worry; c) live simply;
d) give more and expect less.”
Joy as an inside job – as a personal
decision to rise above birth and circumstances - is a mystery. Why does one person make a decision to stay in
bed and bemoan the difficulties she has with the parts of her body that no
longer work, while another decides to get up and coif herself fashionably and
be grateful for the parts that do work? Why is it that old Scrooge, who has all the money he needs, makes a decision to grouch
out “Bah Humbug” to his nephew, while his nephew, who has almost nothing at
all, decides to sing out “Merry Christmas” to old Scrooge?
Joy: also an outside job
Joy is an inside job; it is a personal
decision. But this is also true; joy at times is also an outside job. The reality
on the ground forces us to admit that joy at
times is also at the mercy of fortunate birth and circumstances which provide tender
loving care, self-assurance and health of mind and body. That, often, is beyond
personal decision. When fortunate birth
and circumstances are missing (as they often are), then joy in this unfortunate
valley of tears does not come easily. Then it needs help from outside. Then joy
is also an outside job.
Joy does not come easily for me. I was not very
fortunately born. That might have the ring of self-pity to it, but it also has the
thud of cold hard truth which I have had to deal with all my life. I was born of poor Italian immigrants who
came to this country at the start of the last century. They didn’t fare well here.
Our mother, who couldn’t speak English, was taken from us at an early age. That
left my sister and me as lost pound puppies. That left our father without a helpmate in a foreign land. That
also robbed our house of a soul. No wonder joy does not come easily for me! No wonder
a sheer personal decision for joy on my part is not enough for me! No wonder my joy needs help from outside.
Along the highway of my life, perceptive and compassionate
people have given my joy the help it needs. And because of that, I am
perceptive and compassionate enough to help, in turn, others whose joy also needs
help.
Joy: an outside
job for Robert Hawkins
Listen to the unfortunate birth of
Robert Hawkins, a shaggy-haired, bespectacled lad of 19 years. On
e spent four years in a series of treatment centers
for youths with substance abuse or behavioral problems. A landlady called Hawkins
a "lost pound puppy that nobody wanted." In a suicide note, in which
he characterized himself as having snapped, he wrote, “I know everyone will
remember me as some sort of monster, but please understand that I just don’t
want to be a burden on the ones that I care for. I just want to take a few
pieces of (expletive) with me.”
Joy for that unfortunate and troubled teenager
needed outside help. He did not get it from all the agencies where the system
sent him. Only perceptive and compassionate people, not agencies, could have
given him the help that his joy needed. A relative, aghast at the mall massacre,
remorsefully exclaimed,”Oh, if I had only perceived that he was calling for
help!” It is
so easy to get angry at this shaggy-haired and bespectacled lad of 19 years. It
is so easy to take no stock of his sorrow and pain.
Joy:
an outside job for Scrooge
At this time of the
rolling year, when we pull out that great classic, Dicken’s Christmas Carol,
it is also easy to get angry with old Scrooge for his miserliness and
his grumpy “Bah, Humbug.” Few of us take stock of his sorrow and pain. In the
frigid spooky darkness of winter at
That was what the “Bah, Humbug” in his life was all
about. Scrooge was mired down in his sad childhood. He was snowbound by his less
than fortunate birth. His anger at life “nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheeks,
stiffened his gait, reddened his eyes and made his thin lips blue” (Christmas
Carol). Had he been living in our
present day, old Scrooge might have never grown old at all, but as an angry
young man might have taken himself to a mall to even things off concerning his unfortunate
birth and to exit this life with the front-page
attention which he had never gotten before.
Joy for
old Scrooge needed help from outside. In fact, it was in such dire need that it
needed help not only from outside but also from Above! It needed divine help! It
got the help it needed from the three Ghosts of Christmas: Past, Present and
Future. As the curtain goes up
on the Christmas Carol, old Scrooge is
not shooting up the place with a sawed-off shotgun, but he is grouching “Bah,
Humbug,” and he is boiling people in their own pudding and piercing their
hearts with stakes of holly (Christmas Carol). But as
the curtain is going down, there is a new Scrooge whose joy has been helped by
the three Spirits of Christmas. He is jumping up and down with joy in his heart
and tears in his eyes, and he is
shouting out a promise to all that he will honor Christmas in his heart and keep
it all year round (Christmas Carol).
Conclusion
Oh rose color candle burning brightly
We are not all like that
92-year-old petite lady who perhaps was very fortunately born. In her old age
joy was not an easy job, but it was, indeed, an inside job for her. She made a decision
for it. Because of unfortunate birth and circumstances, many of us are not as deft
at joy as she was. For many of us our joy needs help. Gaudete Sunday commands us, for whom joy comes hard, to seek the outside
help that it needs. We seek that help by sharing our problem and pain with
someone. That could have saved Hawkins from snapping and going to a shopping
mall to resolve his depression and isolation.
Gaudete Sunday commands
us to “Rejoice in the Lord always.” That’s also a command to recognize when our
joy, or the joy of another, is crying for help. That’s a command for us to come
to the aid of that hurting joy.
Oh, rose
color candle burning brightly on Gaudete Sunday in the darkness of our commercial
Christmas season remind us of the decision for joy we must all strive for.
Attune us also to ourselves and others when the lack of joy might be calling
for help.