As a young schoolboy many, many years ago, I had the privilege of having a first-rate music master, the late Jesuit, Fr Anton Caruana SJ. He had music in his veins. His passion for music also introduced us to an unbelievable repertoire of Christmas carols. For me, Handel’s Joy to the World stood out above the rest as it captured the aura of Christ’s entry into the world in a most uplifting way.
Joy is the essence of Christ’s message. It is an inexpressible feeling that defies description. It is the essence of the good news of the Gospel that has fired and transformed men and women, in many notable cases, to an exceptional degree.
Unfortunately, for too many cradle Catholics, their faith is more a question of tradition, of ethnicity and culture, rather than belief. The first winds of egoism, cynicism, hedonism and any form of escapism, mental laziness and self-interest quickly blow away any roots of their faith, whose nourishment has been indifferent and neglected.
Sadly and too often, Christianity has been discredited by those who claim to be Christians. That is certainly true of Catholicism. It bears repeating Pope John Paul II’s magnificent understatement when he said: “The Catholic Church does not forget that many among her members cause God’s plan to be discernible only with difficulty.”
This should not be surprising. It should be painfully obvious that the Christian faith doesn’t work if you don’t practise it. It doesn’t work by genetics, or by proximity. You actually have to believe it and live it. Thankfully, the Church has been blessed with most outstanding people, recognised saints, who by their commitment and spirituality have even converted nations.
The joy of faith is often most marked and conspicuous in that of converts. One need only mention G. K. Chesterton, who by his exuberant character drew so many to conversion, even after his death, through the legacy of his writings.
Only recently, a blogger had this to say: Chesterton’s writings convey an intense joy, gratitude, and peace. The novelist and atheist Franz Kafka once said about Chesterton after reading only one of his novels, that, “He is so happy! I can almost believe that he has found God”.
Joy… is the gigantic secret of the Christian- G.K.Chesterton
Indeed, Chesterton himself said that “Joy… is the gigantic secret of the Christian”, and he seemed fully to grasp the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John that, “I came that they might have life and have it to the full”.
This year, just about a month before Christmas, the concept of joy was again placed at the centre of the Christian message. ‘Joy of the Gospel’ is the title of this recent document of Pope Francis, who with his inimitable charisma and enthusiasm presents with typical candour and clarity the ‘Good News’.
Quoting Benedict XVI, Pope Francis reminds us that the core of the Gospel implies that: “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction”.
The key to the encounter is humility, the indispensable virtue that leads to self-awareness and to spiritual growth. In our modern culture of entitlement, pride and the pretentiousness of rights, real and imaginary, this salutary exercise is made more and more difficult.
Therefore, we should accept the invitation of Pope Francis by finding the time to read and digest this important document that has a message for us all.
As Christians, we have a great responsibility to transmit the ‘Good News’, and this is more effectively done by what we do and how we behave and relate with others, than by what we profess.
No doubt, the beauty and timelessness of traditional Christmas carols lend to this inner conversion that galvanises us to face the future more joyfully with increased self-discipline, social awareness and commitment.
In this way, Joy to the World will be more than an uplifting seasonal hymn.
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