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| Balance by *clairity* on flickr |
One morning, I found him [Fr. Giussani] reading the Bible. He closed the page he had been reading and welcomed me with the quotation of a Gospel passage: “How can the wedding guests fast when the bridegroom is with them?” And he commented, “This is the concept of Christian penance,” where penance coincides with joy; this was written all over his face. Like when he said, “Our position brings the flesh back into Christian life, as it has never been since the Fathers of the Church.” Or when assessing the character of a mutual friend, whom he judged to be rather fragile, he used an effective metaphor: “Tenderness is not only flowers; tenderness is a trunk.” ("Make Friends with Five People and You Will Reach Fifty")How can penance coincide with joy? Or can it? Maybe it's not possible: maybe my life is as bitter as anybody else's, but knowing the end of the story I put a happy face on things— I smile because, like Stoics, I know that this too will pass away. If this is the case, then joy is a ruse, a tactic, to ensnare the unwitting in a secretly despairing triumphalism.
Fr. Robert Barron and Cardinal Timothy Dolan have both proclaimed that joy is the most convincing witness to the Gospel, and yet I cannot believe that a semblance of joy convinces anyone. The most critical priority of the New Evangelization is not to speak with joy but to discover for myself the joy of Christianity, and then who could be silent? I know myself that I cannot create joy, choose joy, make myself believe in joy: to be credible, I must discover it, encounter it. Fr. Barron says: "The most effective way to evangelize is to share the contagious joy of being a friend of Jesus Christ." And Cardinal Dolan says that "God does not satisfy the thirst of the human heart with a proposition, but with a Person, whose name is Jesus." To heed these two evangelists, I must encounter Christ here and now. Sunday's reading perhaps sounds as strange to our ears now as it did when it was first uttered: "Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" Christ became man, yes, but is it possible that I could meet Him 'under my roof' — in my house, at my workplace?
The event of penance that Jesus describes in Mark 2:18ff is like a razor's edge. In the first place, penance is the mortification of my measure, my gloom, my plans, and welcoming His extraordinary presence instead. His presence definitively in the sacraments, but also increasingly in the situations of life. For example, seeing a son trust his father to cross a stream at the park— at a moment when I feel my work situation has reached an impasse. A joy because He is here, because He shows His face to me. In the second place, penance is sorrow at having missed Him (and paradoxically this cannot happen to me except as a sign of His Spirit). The penance given by the Church has these two dimensions as well: fasting not only reminds me that I do not live by bread alone, but also connects me to the people Christ has gathered. And this is why a fish fry can be a joyful occasion too— so long as Christ is remembered.
No doubt the coincidence of penance and joy is also a reason for the popularity of the non-obligatory celebration of Ash Wednesday. It is a joy to be marked by the ashes of death in the sign of the One who has conquered death. And even wearing ashes can testify to this joy. As we begin this Lenten journey, let us mourn our absence from Christ, our refusal to embrace Him in our human circumstances, so that we may grow in the joy of His presence.
And the beatification process is beginning.
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