Third week of Advent-- Joy is here!

The events of last week have broken so many hearts.
On Friday, a young man who appears to have struggled with a neurological and a personality disorder all his life, shot his own mother and then shot his way into an elementary school where he murdered many beautiful young children and their teachers and support staff. More challenging for most people to comprehend-- there appears to be no motive.

For Christians, of course, the problem of evil is not a new one.
The Catechism makes this clear when it says:

"This dramatic situation of the whole world, which is in the power of the evil one, makes man's life a battle: The whole of man's history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day." -CCC 409

But for most people walking around trying to make sense of what happened, this quote from the catechism is not a tangible reality. In fact, what happened on Friday is incomprehensible to most, and therefore utterly devastating, to those affected by this horrible news.

In the face of this senseless violence, many people have responded by taking down their Christmas decorations, because they cannot feel joy in their hearts. What meaning can Christmas have when so many beautiful young lives have been cut short for no reason at all?

And yet this is the message of the third week of Advent: REJOICE, even when all looks bleak and dark. This message is so powerful.
When my family gathers around the dinner table or family altar to sing our favorite advent hymn with the advent candles lit and the lights turned down low, this is the refrain that moves us to tears and in which our serene voices seem to carry not from us, but from heaven: REJOICE! REJOICE! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

The shooting happened on the feast day of Saint John of the Cross, a Carmelite monk, mystic,  and spiritual director who suffered greatly in his quest for holiness.

When my first reaction was one of rage and fury at the shooter, a troubled young man named Adam Lanza, It was St John of the Cross who whispered to me: "Where there is no love, put love, and there you will find love." Within the hour I was reflecting on what I could do to improve care for the mentally ill in my community. I suddenly felt compassion for him and for his mother and whole family.... a family which had been ripped apart, no doubt in part by this very illness and everything that it entailed. I felt compassion for all those who daily experience life with the mentally ill. As someone who has seen the poisonous effects of mental illness in my community and family time and again, I began to feel compassion and love for the Lanzas. My heart was changed.

In that same way, we can "put on the mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2:13-16) and be  transformed in our minds. We can stop our suffering thinking and put it to use. What meaning can we ascribe to our suffering that gives us cause to rejoice?

First, we can offer our suffering up. When we give to God those things which cause us pain we participate in the Cross of  Christ and great joy can come out of knowing that we have co-operated with Him in His mission. We believe in redemptive suffering, that our suffering can bring about a positive result. And so, though we find it so painful, we can lay our pain on the altar and say to Our Lord, who suffered so greatly for us, that we are willing to take on some of that weight. It grieves the heart of God, who wills good and not evil for each of us according to scripture, to see the innocent suffer. In fact, He does not tolerate it.

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? (Habbakuk 1:13, NIV)

Indeed, why??
We can find the answer in the plans God has for our suffering. Glory is revealed in suffering. If we have not overcome, we have nothing to rejoice in and life becomes stale. A stale life is the result of ingratitude. My husband likes to say that ingratitude is the mother of iniquity. When we are ungrateful, we begin to turn sour. A life of perpetual "fun" is empty and meaningless. This is why Scripture tells us to praise God.

Upon hearing the news, most people had the reaction of desiring to hug their own kids a little longer. In the morning, many may have sent them off to school with a sigh of relief:  Perhaps they thought: "Finally, some quiet around the house!" But a few hours later, many of them raced to school to pick up their children with one thing on their minds: GRATITUDE.

In order to rejoice, we need to start with obedience. We cannot put on the mind of Christ if we are not doing what He says to do. Some of those messages are particularly hard. He tells us, for example, to love the unloveable. This includes people with mental illnesses, who are made in God's image. It is hard to love people who are hard to love. It is hard to rejoice in our pain! And yet those of us who walk the Christian walk will tell you that we have experienced our greatest personal growth through accepting this truth and following Nike's famous advice: Just do it. This is how we are transformed and transform the world.

There is a little known passage in Ezekiel that demonstrates this reality.

Ezekiel 24:18 says:

So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded.

Did you catch that? In the evening, his wife died. This was his Dark Night. But in the morning, he did as he was commanded. The great blessing for Ezekiel, and the fact that even today we reflect on his experiences and life in our own pursuit of holiness, was that in the morning, he did as he was commanded. Untold grace flowed through those actions. It was through Ezekiel that we receive the vision of the dry bones snapping back to life:

37 The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’” (Ezekiel 38, NIV)

Saint John of the Cross spoke of this Dark Night often-- in fact it was the subject of most of his writing. He taught that the Dark Night was a necessary step in our faith lives and union with God. He advised people to stay quiet in their own Nights and continue to pray although they may feel numb. In fact, he taught that this numbness of feeling was a blessing that would later enable us to rejoice unspeakably and forever!

Ezekiel 24:17 says:
Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.”

I believe this is the key to our hope. if you are a Catholic today, you have the Bread of Angels to eat instead. We have this Eucharistic banquet to partake of... human sorrow, though we can experience is, is not the end. We are a people of the resurrection, and there is no permanence in our sorrow. Though we grieve these victims here on earth, when we receive communion we are united to them and in their presence with Jesus-- they are closer than our breath.

The command to love one another is not something Jesus took lightly. In fact, He scripture records that He called it the second greatest commandment. While many grapple for a way to cope with their loss and with the fear and sadness they experience in their suffering, Jesus Himself has provided the answer.

On the feast of St John of the Cross, known for his joy in suffering, we were called to enter with him into the Dark Night.  There is a poem often attributed to him that will help us obey God's commandment to rejoice in the midst of our darkness:

And I saw the river over which every soul must pass
to reach the kingdom of heaven
and the name of that river was suffering:
and I saw a boat which carries souls across the river
and the name of that boat was love.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” –John 1:5