WHERE THERE IS SADNESS

Reading: John 16: 16-24

St. Francis had a great many reasons to be discouraged yet one of his chief attributes, perhaps the one that draws us to him the most and, yet paradoxically for us, is the most elusive, was joy. Joy is very hard to define. It is probably the most selfless of all the emotions. We find it much easier to commiserate with someone in their sadness than to unselfishly rejoice in their good fortune. And where there is great sadness we feel totally ill-equipped and inadequate to enter that sadness. At best we come with an embarrassed silence; at worst with pious platitudes. But to come, to press through the heavy shadows of sadness and bring joy – where would we begin? Very simply put, if Jesus is first in our lives, others second and ourselves last, then we have joy. This was so true for Francis. The more he fell in love with the Great Lover, the more he was propelled in love towards those whose hearts were in anguish, whose spirits were oppressed, whose bodies were broken and the greater joy he experienced.

In the days leading up to his death, Jesus sought, in various ways, to prepare his disciples for his departure. He had spoken to them often during the three years of the kind of death he would die, but their minds could not take on board the thought that the Messiah would be killed. They were probably largely in denial right up to the crucifixion. On their last evening together, he shared many things with them that they would only really take on board at a later date. At one point, he says very directly that he is leaving. “Truly, you will weep and mourn over what is going to happen to me, but the world will rejoice. You will grieve, but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy when you see me again.” So, it seems that joy has something to do with letting go, something to do with being willing to enter the shadow of sadness, plumbing its depths and emerging into new life, resurrection.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. In order to be such an instrument we require to be transformed, to move out of the safe places, which are often places of shadow. We are challenged to face some uncomfortable realities within ourselves and then invited to do some unfamiliar, even risky things where the shadows fall for others. Lent is the season of hard choices. This is our challenge to walk the road that Jesus walked, a journey that may initially lead us into chaos but as we are ‘forced’ or persuaded by the Spirit to let go, then the power of love quenches the smouldering embers or even the blazing fire of hatred, the continuous flow of pardon washes away the dividing wall of injury, the life-giving energy of faith does to death the demons of doubt, the standard of hope is raised irrevocably over the defeated battle grounds of despair, unquenchable light pierces the darkness of sin, of death and of evil, and joy wells up and dances its way, rainbow-like, through the greyness of years and tears of sadness. We are in the process of transformation, of being the change we want to see in our world.

Reflections in this series