Sing Along

Finding joy in following Jesus

02/01/2018

Mark 6:7-13 Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick –no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic. He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from there. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them." So they went off and preached repentance. The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

            We learn things by doing them, not just by reading about them in a book or studying them in a classroom. You cannot learn how to ride a bike just by reading a bike-riding manual alone, helpful as that may be. You must ride a bike. You do not become a gourmet chef just by reading and memorizing great recipes. You must spend time cooking in the kitchen. You do not learn pastoral care as a priest only by graduating from seminary, you have to go to Fort Smith and be “Galvanized.” You do not learn how to be married well just by taking a marriage preparation class, you have to spend years learning how to love. That is why St. Thomas Aquinas defined virtue as a “habit,” that is, not merely as something we “know” but above all as something we “do.” Book learning as to become street smarts in order to say you really know something.

             But I believe even doing is not enough to create a virtue. A virtue is a habit that is so ingrained in us that we do it easily and effortlessly. Indeed, doing the good becomes joyful and we feel happy. Matthew Kelly, the Australian Christian writer and speaker observed: “Working hard makes me happy. And there is no work that brings me more joy than writing.

              Writing makes me happy, and at the end of a good day of writing everything is better in my world” (Resisting Happiness, 9). Matthew Kelly has acquired the virtue of being a good writer because not only can he do it well, but he does it effortlessly and he does it happily. For my money, the real mark of a virtue is joy; not only when book learning becomes street smarts, but also when street smarts becomes a passion and a pleasure. If you are not happy with what you do, you have not really learned how to do it well; it is not a virtue yet.

             Jesus sends out his disciples so they can start “doing” discipleship, and not just learning about it. We read: “Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits.” Up until that point, the apostles had spent time in the classroom with Christ, they had obtained some book smarts you might say. But now it is time for them to learn some street smarts, literally. But even having the habit of following Jesus is not the end of their training; they must do it with joy, pleasure and happiness. Do you remember what Jesus did as he walked from the Last Supper in the Upper Room to the Garden of Gethsemane? He sang a song, the “Great Hallel,” Psalms 113-118, the Great Alleluia. As he went to his Cross, Jesus showed the mark of real virtue: joy. If you are not doing something joyfully, you really have not mastered how to do it.

              Does joy and happiness mark your Christian path in following Jesus? Yes, it is wonderful you make it to daily Mass. It’s truly praise-worthy if you go to confession. The daily recitation of the Rosary certainly makes Jesus and Mary smile. Maybe you give generously to the poor, and see Christ in them. Perhaps you have gained the habit of doing these things regularly and you would not change that. All that is good! But if you want to acquire the virtue of discipleship (and not merely the habit) then you must do these things with joy, pleasure and happiness. Someone who gets this deeply and daily is Pope Francis. That is why he calls his major documents, “The Joy of the Gospel” (Evangelii gaudium) and “The Joy of Love” (Amoris laetitia). At the end of his encyclical on the environment, “Our Common Home,” he wrote: “Let us sing as we go. May our struggles and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope” (Laudato si’, 244). Pope Francis would happily have been singing following Jesus from the Last Supper to the Garden of Gethsemane.  We sing when we are happy.

              Josef Pieper, the German philosopher, added this about Aquinas’ understanding of virtue, saying: “In fact, [Aquinas] says, the sublime achievements of moral goodness are characterized by effortlessness – because it is of their essence to spring from love” (Leisure the Basis of Culture, 34). Aquinas would have also been singing as he followed Jesus. Joy is the mark of a true disciple of Christ, just like it is the sign of a good biker, a gourmet chef, a good priest, and a married couple.

Praised be Jesus Christ!