Joy in Sorrow
Jan 26, 2019 18:18:18 GMT
Post by Admin on Jan 26, 2019 18:18:18 GMT
The Angelus - April 1979
And yet there is one passage, only one, where the Gospel, only one Gospel, tell us, "In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the spirit" (Luke 10:21). Jesus looked round about on them with anger—yes, he had that generous human sentiment of indignation which revolts from man's cruelty and man's hypocrisy. He marvelled—yes, He shared that human astonishment which we all feel, sometimes, over the blindness of our fellow creatures. Jesus wept—yes, He would experience that human weakness which can find relief in tears. But "Jesus rejoiced"—that, surely, is the most astonishing proof of his full humanity. He, who in His divine nature could suffer no diminution of His eternal blessedness, He who as man possessed the Beatific Vision, condescended nevertheless to feel and to be refreshed by a human sentiment of joy.
In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the spirit, and said, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou has hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them to little ones. Even so, Father, for so it hath seemed good in thy sight" (Luke 10:21). He rejoices, not because everybody is prepared to receive His message; no, some will reject, will persecute, will crucify Him. No, He rejoices because the right people will receive His message, the simple, the child-like, the humble. He sees its intrinsic worth proved by the reactions of human souls upon its preaching—the Pharisees who stand aloof, the publicans and sinners who flock to hear. He is testing and dividing men's hearts as God wills that they should be tested and divided, and because God's will is being done, He rejoices. And then He goes on to invite us to share in His rejoicing; "Come to me, all you that labour and are burdened and I will refresh you" (Matthew 11:28). You labour and are burdened with all the tragedies of mortality, yet who so deeply, who so intimately as I? "Come to me, then, and I will refresh you"; the Man of Sorrows will communicate to you His human sentiment of joy.
THE CHURCH OF Christ has always borne in the world's eyes, but especially during the first centuries of its existence, the reputation of a gloomy and a kill-joy institution, so oppressed with the realization of human sinfulness, with the dangers which beset man in his path towards salvation, that she has no time to smile through her tears. Why else these solitudes and mortifications of her holiest disciples, these orgies of penance, these feverish anticipations of a judgment to come?
Perhaps this penitential atmosphere was more marked in the first centuries than it was in the Middle Ages, than it is in our own day. Mr. Chesterton has suggested somewhere that all through the late empire and the Dark Ages Christendom was doing penance, making atonement for the foul sins of the heathen world that went before it; only in the medieval world, the world of St. Francis, did it begin to show a child-like appreciation of the beauties and the joys with which God endowed this our perishable world. But remember, there is one season of the year at which the Church returns to her origins, at which her whole liturgy tends to return to a more primitive model. It is the season of Lent, when the different Masses for each fresh day recall to us those solemn processions by which our forefathers in the city of Rome sought to avert the anger of an offended God. In Lent the Christian fast is proclaimed, the solemnities of the marriage rite are forbidden, the organs are hushed, alleluia is sung no more. Yet, next Sunday—Mid-Lent or Refreshment Sunday, as we call it—the Mass begins with the word Laetare, "Rejoice"; the organs sound again, flowers reappear on the altars, the sober purple of the priestly vestments loses a shade of its mournfulness. Even in the middle of that season during which she bids us lament, the Church, for a moment, encourages us to rejoice.
She would remind us, surely, that we Christians are the followers of Christ, and as He, the Man of Sorrows, could rejoice in spirit, so we His servants, must be sorrowful yet always rejoicing. There is a joy which is mere thoughtlessness, the world's privilege; you may be light-hearted because you are hard-hearted, because the sorrows of others and the sins of others strike no responsive chord in your being. But there is also a sorrow which is mere melancholy; which finds in sin only the occasion for disgust. Not such is the sorrow, not such the joy, of God's saints. They have felt, with a sensitiveness of which you and I can only form a dim idea, man's impiety towards God, man's cruelty towards his fellow man, and have pitied, too, all the suffering they saw around them, itself the fruit and the expiation of sin. They have wept and scourged themselves, and spent long nights in an agony of prayer. Yet they have rejoiced, too, because they saw, as we do not see clearly, the beautiful and harmonious working of God's will for men, the perfectness of His dealings, the justification of His revealed message. The sentiments of pity, of horror, of indignation which were provoked in them had no power to dislodge from their hearts that abiding happiness which comes only from a perfect conformity to God's will. They shared the seven sorrows of Our Blessed Lady, but they shared her joys too. They agonized with their Master, yet, even while they agonized, they rejoiced with Him.
In proportion as we are good Christians, the world will find us dull dogs, a little removed from its insensate pursuit of pleasures, a little obsessed with thoughts of death and of judgment, a little sceptical about its facile optimisms. But, again in proportion as we are good Christians, this seriousness of character will not reflect itself in empty brooding on the wickedness of the world, will not make us morbid, self-centered, disillusioned. Rather, we shall find that Christian sorrow and Christian joy have their roots nearer together than we fancied; and the desire for God's will to be done perfectly in us and in all creatures, which is the Christian religion, bears a double fruit of sadness and of gladness. For so it must be, until our earthly Lent is over, and we rejoice for ever in the triumph of the eternal Easter-tide.
"Joy in Sorrow", a Sermon by Msgr. Ronald Knox preached on a Wednesday in Lent later published in THE CROSS, December 1928
Joy in Sorrow
As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing
MAN OF SORROWS—so we call Our Lord and so we think of Him. How, indeed, He could be sorrowful who enjoyed at every moment of His life that vision which is the happiness of the Blessed in heaven, is a mystery we shall never understand on this side of the grave. Yet, if you look at it from a different point of view, the difficulty is all the other way; the difficulty is to imagine how a single ray of light-heartedness could visit such a life as His.
Remember, He saw the existence of sin in those around Him, understood the meaning of sin, realized the horror of sin, as only Incarnate God could. And at the same time, He was perfect Man, with all man's capacity for tears. Think of the great saints, and how they have wept and agonized over the sinful lives of those around them; what then, must have been His tragedy, who hated sin more and was more conscious of its existence even than they? More than that—our human sorrows are lightened, even when we do not realize it, by hope; when things are darkest, we still hope that the sinner will be converted, that the tragedy will be avoided. That pathetic consolation of our poor mortality was not to be found in Christ; He knew all that lay before Him. He chose Judas for His friend, although he knew Judas would betray Him. He laboured to convert the Jews, his fellow countrymen; yet He knew that they would reject Him and deliver Him up to be crucified. What comfort, then was His, in the days of His mortality? How could He be otherwise than sorrowful, with such dark clouds hanging over the horizon of his career?
And yet there is one passage, only one, where the Gospel, only one Gospel, tell us, "In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the spirit" (Luke 10:21). Jesus looked round about on them with anger—yes, he had that generous human sentiment of indignation which revolts from man's cruelty and man's hypocrisy. He marvelled—yes, He shared that human astonishment which we all feel, sometimes, over the blindness of our fellow creatures. Jesus wept—yes, He would experience that human weakness which can find relief in tears. But "Jesus rejoiced"—that, surely, is the most astonishing proof of his full humanity. He, who in His divine nature could suffer no diminution of His eternal blessedness, He who as man possessed the Beatific Vision, condescended nevertheless to feel and to be refreshed by a human sentiment of joy.
In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the spirit, and said, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou has hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them to little ones. Even so, Father, for so it hath seemed good in thy sight" (Luke 10:21). He rejoices, not because everybody is prepared to receive His message; no, some will reject, will persecute, will crucify Him. No, He rejoices because the right people will receive His message, the simple, the child-like, the humble. He sees its intrinsic worth proved by the reactions of human souls upon its preaching—the Pharisees who stand aloof, the publicans and sinners who flock to hear. He is testing and dividing men's hearts as God wills that they should be tested and divided, and because God's will is being done, He rejoices. And then He goes on to invite us to share in His rejoicing; "Come to me, all you that labour and are burdened and I will refresh you" (Matthew 11:28). You labour and are burdened with all the tragedies of mortality, yet who so deeply, who so intimately as I? "Come to me, then, and I will refresh you"; the Man of Sorrows will communicate to you His human sentiment of joy.
THE CHURCH OF Christ has always borne in the world's eyes, but especially during the first centuries of its existence, the reputation of a gloomy and a kill-joy institution, so oppressed with the realization of human sinfulness, with the dangers which beset man in his path towards salvation, that she has no time to smile through her tears. Why else these solitudes and mortifications of her holiest disciples, these orgies of penance, these feverish anticipations of a judgment to come?
Perhaps this penitential atmosphere was more marked in the first centuries than it was in the Middle Ages, than it is in our own day. Mr. Chesterton has suggested somewhere that all through the late empire and the Dark Ages Christendom was doing penance, making atonement for the foul sins of the heathen world that went before it; only in the medieval world, the world of St. Francis, did it begin to show a child-like appreciation of the beauties and the joys with which God endowed this our perishable world. But remember, there is one season of the year at which the Church returns to her origins, at which her whole liturgy tends to return to a more primitive model. It is the season of Lent, when the different Masses for each fresh day recall to us those solemn processions by which our forefathers in the city of Rome sought to avert the anger of an offended God. In Lent the Christian fast is proclaimed, the solemnities of the marriage rite are forbidden, the organs are hushed, alleluia is sung no more. Yet, next Sunday—Mid-Lent or Refreshment Sunday, as we call it—the Mass begins with the word Laetare, "Rejoice"; the organs sound again, flowers reappear on the altars, the sober purple of the priestly vestments loses a shade of its mournfulness. Even in the middle of that season during which she bids us lament, the Church, for a moment, encourages us to rejoice.
She would remind us, surely, that we Christians are the followers of Christ, and as He, the Man of Sorrows, could rejoice in spirit, so we His servants, must be sorrowful yet always rejoicing. There is a joy which is mere thoughtlessness, the world's privilege; you may be light-hearted because you are hard-hearted, because the sorrows of others and the sins of others strike no responsive chord in your being. But there is also a sorrow which is mere melancholy; which finds in sin only the occasion for disgust. Not such is the sorrow, not such the joy, of God's saints. They have felt, with a sensitiveness of which you and I can only form a dim idea, man's impiety towards God, man's cruelty towards his fellow man, and have pitied, too, all the suffering they saw around them, itself the fruit and the expiation of sin. They have wept and scourged themselves, and spent long nights in an agony of prayer. Yet they have rejoiced, too, because they saw, as we do not see clearly, the beautiful and harmonious working of God's will for men, the perfectness of His dealings, the justification of His revealed message. The sentiments of pity, of horror, of indignation which were provoked in them had no power to dislodge from their hearts that abiding happiness which comes only from a perfect conformity to God's will. They shared the seven sorrows of Our Blessed Lady, but they shared her joys too. They agonized with their Master, yet, even while they agonized, they rejoiced with Him.
In proportion as we are good Christians, the world will find us dull dogs, a little removed from its insensate pursuit of pleasures, a little obsessed with thoughts of death and of judgment, a little sceptical about its facile optimisms. But, again in proportion as we are good Christians, this seriousness of character will not reflect itself in empty brooding on the wickedness of the world, will not make us morbid, self-centered, disillusioned. Rather, we shall find that Christian sorrow and Christian joy have their roots nearer together than we fancied; and the desire for God's will to be done perfectly in us and in all creatures, which is the Christian religion, bears a double fruit of sadness and of gladness. For so it must be, until our earthly Lent is over, and we rejoice for ever in the triumph of the eternal Easter-tide.
"Joy in Sorrow", a Sermon by Msgr. Ronald Knox preached on a Wednesday in Lent later published in THE CROSS, December 1928