Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad because of her, all you who love her; exult, exult with her, all you who were mourning over her! Oh, that you may suck fully of the milk of her comfort, that you may nurse with delight at her abundant breasts!    Isaiah 60:10-11.

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The quotation above is possibly one of the earthiest passages in all Scripture! On another level, I haven’t put a second picture above today, because my lead picture “Virgin and Child Enthroned”, I think tells it all. I have found over the years that it is very difficult to find a Virgin and Child picture where both look happy! But wandering through the lovely National Museum in Gdansk (Dantzig), Poland, in March of this year, I saw that statue carved in wood and took a picture of it. Although dating from the 14th century, it looks very human and up to date. The child looks goofy (which seems perfectly natural to me) playing with a ball, in the lap of his happy mother, and both look like normal people, not dazzlingly beautiful, not agonized, not anticipating the worst, but simply content and normal. Quite clearly a happy couple. And I think that speaks to today’s readings. Isaiah seems to be talking about such a couple as shown here, and each of us can imagine ourselves as the happy child, being dangled and jiggled around in the same perfect union of the Christ Child and Our Lady, our protective mother also (and remember we are all called to be Christ to the world). Our Blessed Mother must have had moments like that! Then in the second reading Paul talks of “a new creation. Peace and mercy be to all who follow this rule and to the Israel of God”, again talking of a happy time, and then the gospel describes that “the seventy-two returned rejoicing, and said, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name”. Put them together and we are in a world of fulfillment and peace, which, of course, should always be the case.

“Every Child Needs to be Happy…..”, Cathy Yeulet, Psychology Today, June 2016.

All of which talks of a happy life, and how to achieve it. Hopefully we all began with a mother who was perfect, bringing us up with the expression we see on the Virgin’s and the children’s faces above. If not, then to the Virgin we go and request a loving, maternal and guiding hand, even if we are, like me, in our 80s. It’s never too late, though luckily for me I had a mother who was exceptional, despite extreme financial challenges after the war. Then the rejoicing of the 72 in today’s gospel should be reflected in our own life’s work, identifying, developing and utilizing the gifts God gave to each one of us in the service of others. I recall when I was still a Religious Studies teacher, each year I would ask my students in Junior year (it was a Catholic girls’ high school in Brooklyn, New York) to interview their parents and their parents’ friends about their life work. They had to ask if they were happy and fulfilled in that (most were) and then ask why. Overwhelmingly the answer was because, in one way or another, they said my job helps other people. It was hardly ever because “I make the best money there”. In fact, I vividly recall one student who had interviewed her uncle, the wealthiest member of the family; he worked on Wall Street. She asked “Are you happy in your work?” “No”, he said. “It takes all my energy to get up on a Monday morning and get into the city” She was astonished, didn’t have a clue. I had cautioned students to be very careful if you got a response like this. It would mean you are dealing with someone in pain. Be gentle. So when she managed to ask what the reason was, the answer was “I have wanted all my life to be a chef, but when this banking offer was made, everyone said I’d be an idiot if I didn’t take it. So I did.” Now, of course, for him, there was no question of turning back. A chef with a family makes very little in comparison to a Wall Street tycoon! Then came the agonizing last line in her essay: “I now know why, when we have a family cookout, my uncle is there, with his chef’s hat on, cooking and serving, the happiest I ever see him”. 

I did all this hoping to let them trust that God calls us to the happiest life, with full utilization of our gifts in some general field of activity. We should recognize that, accept it and respond with hope and trust, and try hard not to let money be our one and only guide.

And then there is Paul’s reading today, briefly talking about “a new creation”. In the context of these readings, I think we can say that this is a reference to the new life which awaits us at the final call. He says that if we have lived with the example of the Lord before us at all times, then when called from this life we can expect that the “new creation” will be really all we had hoped for. And so, let it be. 

“True Moment of Happiness”, iStock by Getty Images.

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