RELEARNING JOY: IN PRAISE OF THE JOYFUL MYSTERIES
Photo from Unsplash.
After I sat in silence, eyes closed, for about 20 minutes in front of my computer with the contemplative prayer group I just joined at my local parish, I listened as the members discussed their Advent devotions. Some were lighting candles or sharing a short, daily meal liturgy with their families. Others were focusing on strengthening their commitment to the group’s twice-daily Centering Prayer practice.
“I need a lot of help these days,” I said sheepishly when my turn came, “so I’ve been doing a lot of intercessory prayer.” My Advent practice has been a daily recitation of the rosary, mostly asking for help, which felt somehow “unspiritual” to admit to the group. Like many of my fellow millennials reeling from the effects of the pandemic, I am unemployed, living with my in-laws, and trying not to publicly boil over when I don’t get a call back from a potential employer within 48 hours.
In a time when millions of Americans are no longer able to feed themselves, both contemplative and intercessory prayer can feel a little self-indulgent when I—at least, for now—have my basic needs met. Who am I to ask for more mercy when I have been spared so much? If anything, attempting a daily rosary has revealed to me in small, digestible increments, just how much I have fallen short of that same Mercy that I have received in my life. Have I called my sick mother? Have I written a letter to a prisoner this Advent? Did I volunteer to shovel the driveway after that snowstorm, or did I have to be asked?
Prayer is challenging like this. Though Jesus assured us that the Father knows our needs and will provide for them, we often hear of—and sometimes are—people who walk away from conventional religion because they find their prayers go unanswered. Perhaps that basic trust in Providence that Jesus requests of us is a prerequisite to the real transformation that prayer can work. More so than allowing us to storm heaven, it opens us for heaven to storm.
The rosary is special to me. One of the first masses I voluntarily attended as an adult was at a Catholic church on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, which is just around the corner again. The priest’s homily focused on the rosary and encouraged its frequent recitation. Though I eventually found my home in the Episcopal Church, the rosary has been dear to me ever since, especially in times of dearth, when joy is scarce.
As we set our Sunday rosaries one mystery forward from Advent to Lent (if we follow Pope John Paul II’s recommendation), substituting the Glorious Mysteries for the Joyful, we have more opportunities—three to be exact, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday—to reflect on the true sources of joy in the world. More than any material assistance, reflection on the virtues of the Joyful Mysteries have been a consistent source of strength and nourishment to me this Advent season, especially in the absence of physical sacraments.
The Annunciation is all about Mary’s great “yes” to God. Traditionally, the virtue associated with this particular mystery has been the love of humility, which is easy to lose when our basic survival mechanisms feel threatened by insecurity, disease, and unrest. When every fiber of our being is crying out with a plea for guidance, for change, sometimes the best thing we can do is sink into our basic helplessness and say “yes” to God—as best as we can.
In one popular video on YouTube, the late Fr. Thomas Keating considers the Blessed Mother as the ultimate role model of the contemplative path, especially when it presents us with the impossible “double-bind” situations that the pandemic has exacerbated for many. We can take comfort in Mary’s response to her own double-bind situation: likely to lose Joseph and be known as an adulteress to her community, she said yes anyway!
But what does that “yes” look like in our ordinary lives? Differently for each person and circumstance, to be sure. But I can usually be sure I’m on the right track if I’m lead to greater service to others. After making that earth-shattering decision to bear God-With-Us into this darkened world, Mary didn’t lapse into navel gazing or wallow in self-pity. According to the next mystery, The Visitation, she went to help her cousin with the housework, thus becoming a paradigm of spiritual transformation.
Sometimes I like to think that Mary didn’t really utter the words enshrined in the Magnificat at all. Not physically, with her lips, at least. Maybe her simple action set the whole scene ablaze with God’s love for and through these two Palestinian, Jewish, peasant women—and all of us. “He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent away empty.”
The next mystery is the core of not only the Joyful mysteries, but the entire Christian project. In loving imitation of the God who gave up everything to be with us, we are called to be poor in spirit. I admit, I struggle with this one often. How am I supposed to be empty of self-will, as “poor in spirit” is sometimes understood, when the world calls me to be ambitious? Maybe it’s easier later in life, I privately condescend, when I’m stable, when I’m successful, and so on. As the great religious poet of the seventeenth century, George Herbert, once wrote: “I struck the board, and cried, No more. / I will abroad.”
Yet, we are all poor in relation to the fullness of God. The great secret is that this is actually the source of our freedom. How can I possibly know what is best for my life when my perspective—especially in my mid-twenties—is so limited? The more I can empty myself of my pretensions, fears, and habitual ways of being in the world that motivate so many of my actions, the more I can develop the ears to hear what Jesus really meant when He blessed the poor in spirit. “Me thoughts I heard one calling, Child: / And I replied, My Lord,” writes Herbert in reprisal.
The three preceding mysteries of the holy rosary are the ones that have meant the most to me this holiday season. Of course, there are great riches to be gleaned from the Presentation and The Finding in the Temple. Indeed, committing to a spiritual discipline is itself an act of obedience—the virtue associated with the Presentation—that can yield these and greater insights. Perhaps then may we hear the newly born Christ Child whispering to us from the secret temple of our hearts. I see these two mysteries as intimately connected.
What is special about these Mysteries is that they are presented from the perspective of Mary as she watches the Christ Child leap headfirst into the work of the Father. Fully human like her, we are charged with bearing God into our lives and into the world, this Advent and always. It was no mistake that God incarnated at the darkest time of the year according to the traditional symbolism of the Church calendar.
Ultimately, what I’ve gained from my practice this tumultuous Advent season has been insight into what I believe Jesus was getting at when He instructed us to “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Maybe I won’t get the new job I desire, and maybe life will continue to be hard, even very hard, after Christmas. But there’s plenty opportunity this Advent to connect to the mainsprings of Joy that make all the difference, issuing from and simultaneously returning to that precious font of faith, hope, and love. According to the great doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, joy is the human being’s noblest act.
In the meantime, I pray for the grace to be ready for that next snowstorm, bright and early, with shovel in hand.
