Quote of the Day

You don't have a soul.
You are a Soul.
You have a body.

C.S. Lewis

Sorrow and Joy

I have struggled for a long time to understand sorrow, which is no less a part of our Christianity than joy.  I've always known that it EXISTS, but it seems like my chief response to sorrow is to avoid it, deny it, run away from it as fast as I can.  I'm AFRAID of sorrow - may think about it briefly as it affects others, but certainly don't want it for myself.  After all, isn't Christianity about being happy? That's what we seem to think in this day and age - we seek religion out to become "self-fufilled", as an antidote to the unhappiness in our lives.  Christians are protrayed as living in their naieve little bubbles of butterflies and sunshine, smiling all the time with their perfect little families.  That's bogus.   Christianity is not a 12-step program, the Bible not a self-help book.  In short - it's not about US, and our happiness.  So, where does that leave us?  And why would the Church ask us to contemplate the sorrow found in the Gospel?  Why dwell on something so UNPLEASANT and MORBID?

In the Sorrowful Mysteries we stand beneath the Cross of Jesus, coming face to face with the truth of his insistence that the Christ must suffer and die. No matter that we long to cry out, if only we had been there; we still encounter the reality of our human position and the truth that is Our Lord's. We sense the sword piercing the heart of his Mother, and pray that it may open our whole being to the agony and the power that the infinite love of Jesus in his Passion chose and endured for us .

Over the past few weeks, the idea of sorrow has been insistent in my head.  God is trying to tell me something, and I am only just now starting to get it.   I struggle to put it into words, so bear with me.

Matthew 6:22 "The lamp of the body is the eye.  If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness.  And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be."

Jesus tells us that part of receiving light is SEEING.  Light reveals all.

Luke 12:2  "There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.  Therefore, whatever you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops."

We can't hide behind our ignorance, or our sinful natures any more.  The purpose of Christianity is to expose reality - to open our eyes to what is Truth.  And Truth isn't always pretty.  Christianity is like Dorothy stepping outside her black and white world into Oz for the first time, where everything is in full technicolor.   We SEE the world differently, as it truly is.  We become at some point aware of the holiness of certain commonplace things like marriage,  family.  We recognize mystery where science purports answers.  We find beauty where we had never noticed any before.  We register awe at what we before had seen as mere "coincedence".  Bread and wine cease to be mere physical sustenance, and instead become divine.  In short, we begin to see the fingerprints of God everywhere in our lives.  The mundane becomes infused with the supernatural.  "Open the eyes of our hearts, Lord".  And they are opened.  The light "enlightens" us, and we can finally SEE.  And yet, light doesn't reveal only what is lovely.  We become aware of ugliness, too - the hurt caused by our own actions, the poverty of spirit, the depravity, the self-centeredness of humanity.  Technicolor brings out the vibrancy and beauty of the world around us, but at the same time, we're no longer shielded from the plight of our world in muted graytones - it is before us in bright blood red. We can hear each whimper, clearly see the hurt in others. In this way, sorrow and beauty are inexorably connected, because both are the result of clarity. 

So the "happy clappy" Christian stereotype doesn't ring true.  If we truly embrace this "enlightenment", then we are no longer allowed our naievete, our denial, our perfect little bubbles.  They are stripped away.  If we are called to love others as God loves us (and we are), then we must immerse ourselves in this world's tragedy as well as its beauty.  There are no facades in true Christianity, because the light of God fully reveals all of us, and reveals all of the world TO us. 

As a mother, I think of how I might feel watching a fierce battle from nearby, knowing that my children are in the fray, fighting the enemy.  I can't look away, because I love them.  I NEED to be there, I need to know what is happening to them.  But each moment would pierce my heart, would bring such pain.  I never want that for myself, or for anyone!  And yet - it's what Mary saw... at the foot of the cross.  It's what God sees, as He looks down on His creation. 

We are not called to hide away from ugliness, or tsk tsk it, or deny it, or try not to think about it.  We are not called to HIDE AWAY.  We are called to stare it down, and be not afraid.  Because in the end, all the ugliness, all the sin, all death in the world loses.  The ending has already been written.  God wins.  Light and love WIN.  That is the source of our joy.  Not that we fool ourselves into living where pain cannot touch us, but that we can see the world as it truly is... beautiful, tragic, hurting... and know that there is HOPE.  Because Christ triumphs over death. 

 Ignorance is bliss - but when we can no longer hide behind ignorance (sin), when our eyes are opened by the Truth, what then? Are we swallowed up in despair? Are we drowned in grief and guilt? There, at our stripped away, fully bare weakness - THAT is where God meets us, and we can fully understand the enormity of His love for us. For at our bottom, at THE bottom, we find the Rock - a love that can never go away. Our fear disappears, knowing that nothing can touch that Rock. And from THAT THOUGHT comes our joy.  This is the courage of the early martyrs, as they welcomed the lions with smiles on their faces. 

Christianity doesn't run from sorrow.  It embraces sorrow to provide comfort.

Christianity does not anesthetize pain.  It fully experiences pain, but realizes that pain cannot vanquish us.

Christianity reveals the horror of our own actions and attitudes.  We're never as good as we think we are.  And we're infinitely more valuable than we can possibly know.

Christianity reveals the holocaust in our midst, but responds with hope rather than despair.


Luke 12:32 "Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom."

Joy is not the absence of sorrow.  Joy is experiencing the sorrow fully, and "being not afraid" of it.

Addendum:  For an example of a life that lives this principle out, visit this blog: http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com  This young woman's LIFE is far more eloquent than any words that I can muster. 

The Accuracy of the Scriptures - Can We Trust Them?

Was reading about the early manuscripts of the New Testament.  Amazing.  Every Christian should know this stuff.  Thought I'd share....

The following are some examples of the number of manuscripts of ancient writers that have survived. The plays of Aeschylus are preserved in perhaps 50 manuscripts, of which none is complete. Sophocles is represented by about 100 manuscripts, of which only 7 have any appreciable independent value. The Greek Anthology has survived in one solitary copy. The same is the case with a considerable part of Tacitus’ Annals. Of the poems of Catullus there are only 3 independent manuscripts. Some of the classical authors, such as Euripides, Cicero, Ovid, and especially Virgil, are better served with the numbers rising into the hundreds.
The numbers of manuscripts of other writers are: for Caesar’s Gallic War 10, Aristotle 49, Plato 7, Herodotus 8, Aristophanes 10. Apart from a few papyrus scraps only 8 manuscripts of Thucydides, considered by many to be one of the most accurate of ancient historians, have survived. Of the 142 books of the Roman History of Livy only 35 survive, represented in about 20 manuscripts. Homer’s Iliad is the best represented of all ancient writings, apart from the New Testament, with something like 700 manuscripts. However, there are many more significant variations in the Iliad manuscripts than there are in those of the New Testament.
When we come to the New Testament, however, we find a very different picture. Altogether we possess about 5,300 partial or complete Greek manuscripts. Early on, the New Testament books were translated into other languages, which seldom happened with other Greek and Latin writers. This means that in addition to Greek, we have something like 8,000 manuscripts in Latin, and an additional 8,000 or so manuscripts in other languages such as Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, Coptic, Gothic, Slavic, Sahidic and Georgian. As these translations began to be made before the close of the second century, they provide an excellent source for assessing the text of the New Testament writings from a very early date — Dick Tripp (Anglican Clergyman) Exploring Christianity – The Bible.