Homily for Sunday- July 4, 2010

Jesus has often been portrayed as a man of sorrows, which indeed He was. It is doubtful that anyone ever felt pain more acutely, or grieved more deeply than He did. This, however, is only a partial picture. With equal truth, he can also be portrayed as a man of joys. He rejoiced in the world of nature finding more beauty in wild flowers than in the wardrobe of a king. He was a man of sorrows. Yet there is reason to believe that no one ever got more joy out of life than He did.
As it was with Him, so it is with the faith that He founded. Christianity makes for both sorrow and joy. The reason for this two-fold effect is not hard to find.
Devotion to Christ produces a deeper and wider devotion to other people. Our Catholic faith is not a Jesus and me spirituality. And that enlarged circle of concern produces an increased liability to pain. When we truly love others, whatever happens to them, happens to us if their hearts are broken, our hearts are broken. If their fortunes fail, we cannot go our carefree way pretending that all is well. But this expanded sympathy also multiples the possibility of joy. The good fortune of those we love becomes our good fortune. Their gladness inevitably overflows and floods our lives, too.
A genuine devotion to Christ makes for both sorrow and joy. But it is first and foremost a way of joy. Our gospel reading for today brings that truth into focus. Jesus was putting His disciples to work. He divided them into teams of two, then gave them their job descriptions. They were to heal the sick and proclaim the reign of God. He told them to expect hard times. They would be like lambs in the midst of wolves. Their living conditions would be sparse, and they would encounter rejection. The whole thing sounded like a prescription for misery. It was not a happy prospect. But they made their journey, did their work, and came back home.
Then comes a surprising report. St. Luke tells us that they “returned in jubilation”. With every apparent reason to be miserable, they were instead overflowing with gladness. That seems very strange, but it was not an isolated event. Many others have known the same experience. Men and women from every walk of life have found joy in circumstances where misery might have been expected. This historic truth gets us into the realm of Christianity’s contribution to happiness. What is it, and how does it work?
The first contribution is to put happiness in its proper place. Those disciples, whom Jesus sent out, were not concerned with making themselves happy. That was probably the furthest thought from their minds. If this had been their primary purpose they would never have gone. Jesus told them, up front, that they would be overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated. People, who were obsessed with thoughts of happiness, would not have accepted that kind of assignment. They would have looked for something easier, something more profitable. And as a result, they would have missed the greatest joy of their lives. Happiness is not a goal to be directly pursued. The people who do that, seldom, if ever, find it.
Most of us are probably familiar with the word, serendipity. It was coined in 1754, by the English writer, Sir Horace Walpole. He borrowed it from a Persian fairy tale called “The Three Princes of Serendip”. These young men had a knack for finding something valuable, while searching for something else. Thus Sir Horace came up with the word, serendipity. It refers to valuable discoveries that are made without being sought. Happiness is serendipity. It is almost always found by people who are not looking for it.
Christianity has made a major contribution to that insight. It has removed happiness from the forefront of life, and put it in the background where it belongs. Jesus never sought to be happy. He sought to do the will of God, and happiness came along. He did not teach His disciples how to find happiness. He taught them the truth about life. And when they put the truth into practice, happiness found them. That is how it works. The happiest people in the world did not set out with that goal in mind. In fact, they have seldom bothered to think about it.
Another contribution of Christianity to happiness is its concept of God. Jesus told His disciples to announce the good news that “the reign of God is at hand”. The implications of that for human happiness are beyond calculation. It means we mortals are not alone in an uncaring universe. We are in the hands of a divine goodness and mercy and power. It means God is with us in a real and personal way. And with Him, there is forgiveness for sin, healing for sorrow, and strength for living in all conditions. It means history is the fulfilling of a divine purpose.
I want to consider one other contribution. It is the possibility of working with God in His creative and redemptive purpose. This was the primary factor in the happiness of those returning disciples.
It is true that happiness is mostly usefulness. It comes from meeting a need, from lifting a load, from sharing a sorrow, from playing some part in God’s redemptive purpose. These sources of endless delight are at every person’s hand every day. Yet how often we let their treasures go unclaimed. Longing to be happy, seeking it in places where it can never be found, we allow the true sources of joy to slip through our fingers day after day.
Christianity’s contribution to happiness is not some hidden secret known only to mystics and saints. Make a study of really happy people and you will see it at work. All of them have certain traits in common. They do not pursue happiness. They seldom even think about it. More important matters claim their attention. They make themselves useful to someone. They pick up some creative work needing to be done, and lose themselves in the doing of it. Then happiness, that illusive something of which everybody dreams, comes along. This is within reach of everyone, including you and me.
A beauty salon owner was surprised when one of her regular customers came in to have her hair styled. She wasn’t scheduled for a cut for another couple of weeks. She asked if she had some big plans that evening.
“No,” she said. “I don’t have anything special going on. I just want to look and feel good tonight.”
So the stylist went to work. She gave the woman a scalp massage then shampooed and styled her hair. During their 30 minutes together, the two talked and joked and laughed. When she had finished, the woman smiled radiantly and hugged her goodbye.
A few days later the salon owner received a note from the woman. She thanked her for the wonderful time she had that afternoon. Her kindness and the fun they shared had given her hope enough to check herself into a hospital, seek professional help for her depression, instead of taking her own life, as she was contemplating that evening. “Thank you for being there,” she wrote, “without knowing that you were.”
The experience shocked the hair dresser. She had known the woman for three years yet had no inkling she was in such distress. What if she had been distracted, upset, or rushed through the appointment? How many of the ten clients she saw each day were in similar crisis without her even being aware of it? She would never know. She vowed from that point on to give extra care and attention to everyone she saw and to do her best to make his or her day. The experience not only changed the woman’s life but the salon owner’s perspective, as well.
As Christ sends forth the seventy-two in today’s gospel, he sends all of us - salon owners and police officers, contractors and accountants, bishops, priests, deacons, religious sisters and professionals, grandparents, parents and children - to proclaim God’s peace. A peace that enables us to bring forth the good within others; a peace that is returned to us in extending the blessing of that peace to others.