Readings: Isaiah 6610-14; Galatians 6.14-18; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20
Theme: The Joy of the Gospel
By Michael McCabe, SMA.
In his 2013 Apostolic Exhortation, the Joy of the Gospel. Pope Francis characteristically highlighted an essential feature of the Christian message often ignored or quickly passed over, namely, the experience of joy. The word ‘joy’ occurs over 100 times in this inspiring document. It opens with the following heart-warming lines: ‘The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew’ (EG 1).
Joy is the dominant tone of today Scripture readings. In the Gospel reading from Luke, we hear the account of the seventy-two disciples returning from the mission Jesus had given them, their hearts full of joy because even the devils submit to them when they use the name of Jesus. They are bursting to tell Jesus all about the success of their mission. Jesus listens to their story, shares in their joy, and then bursts into a prayer of gratitude to the Father: “Filled with joy by the Holy Spirit, he said, ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children” (Lk 10:27).
Indeed joy is one of the great themes of Luke’s gospel. Here are just a few examples. Mary is filled with joy on being chosen to be the mother of the Messiah: ‘My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoice in God my Saviour’ (Lk 1:46). An angel announces the birth of the Saviour to the shepherds of Bethlehem with the proclamation: ‘Do not be afraid. Look, I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people’ (Lk 2:10). In the story of the Prodigal Son, Jesus underlines the joy of the father when his ‘lost’ son returns home (Lk 15: 21-24), and he says ‘there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine persons who have no need of repentance’ (Lk 15:7). Examples could be multiplied.
The theme of joy, however, is not restricted to Luke’s gospel or even to the New Testament. In our first reading from the prophet Isaiah, the Lord calls on the people of Jerusalem to rejoice: ‘Rejoice Jerusalem, be glad for her, all you who love her! Rejoice, rejoice for her, all you who mourned her’ (Is 66:10). And the reason for all this rejoicing is that the Lord ‘will send (Jerusalem) flowing peace, like a river, and like a stream in spate the glory of the nations’ (Is 66: 12). This promise must surely have a resonance today, not just in Jerusalem but far beyond its borders. Today’s responsorial psalm also echoes the sentiments of Isaiah and calls on the whole earth to ‘cry out to God with joy’:
“Shout joyfully to God, all the earth,
sing praise to the glory of his name;
proclaim his glorious praise.
Say to God, “How tremendous are your deeds”.
In a world and at a time when joy seems in short supply, I believe this emphasis on joy is particularly important. We think of joy very much in association with youthfulness, freshness, innocence. And it is true that joy keeps us young. A joyful person seem always youthful. Like the kiss of the sun on a flower, or a smile lighting up a child’s face, joy transforms. People who are joyful also transform those around them. Joy is contagious. In the presence of joyful people, our own hearts become lighter and the world around us seems so much brighter. However, we must not confuse Gospel joy with a superficial cheerfulness. The joy Jesus speaks of, and wishes us to have, is not the false hilarity of those who ignore the reality of suffering in the world around them or avoid pain in their own lives. It is not the joy of those who cannot endure any sorrow. To quote Timothy Radcliffe: ‘True joy is not the happy clappy jollity of those who go around slapping people on the back and telling them to be happy because Jesus loves them.’ Nor is Gospel joy the obligatory cheerfulness referred to by the Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, when he speaks of ‘the fixed smile of a prebooked place in Paradise.’
The joy Christ brings us the felt knowledge of God’s unlimited and unearned love for us, a love that is constant and never taken back, even when we fail dismally to respond as we should. And this joy is found often at the very heart of pain and suffering. This was the experience of Barbara McNulty, an Irish Lay Missionary, who worked among the poor in Brazil. Writing of her experience in The Tablet, she said she found joy in the heart of suffering: ‘I found it (joy) at the heart of suffering. It is the paradox of joy that it is at its most significant in association with suffering. I worked for many years with the sick and the dying in a place where one would expect to find despair and depression; yet because of the warmth of the love all around me I found laughter and hope’ (The Tablet, 16 August, 1980). So let us pray:
Father, sustain us with your love and help us to be always witnesses to the Good News of Jesus Christ, to the faith we profess, the hope that animates us, and the liberating power of the Gospel. Amen.
Listen to an alternative audio Homily by Tom Casey, SMA: