Our Hope & Joy
There is a well known story about a man who goes to see a doctor. He tells the doctor that his life is without joy and hope, despondency and melancholy are his only companions. The doctor tells him that he knows exactly what is needed to cure his dejection. The doctor tells this poor soul that there is a famous comedian who every weekend appears at a club down the street, “go see him,” the doctor says, “and you will feel happiness and be freed of your misery.” The man looks down and begins to weep, he tells the doctor, “I am the comedian of whom you speak.”
Today the contemporary youth is told that he or she will find escape in their search for happiness. Some young people find respite in entertainment and technology; others search for it in the pursuit of popularity or hedonistic pleasures such as sex or alcohol and drug use. Sadly, each of these pursuits leads only to an existential loneliness. Many of us can identify with Sisyphus. Whereas Sisyphus was forever trying to push a boulder up a hill only to have it slide down at the end, we push and push for “happiness” but the harder we seem to try the deeper we seem to fall.
A computer or television screen cannot replace a face to face encounter with another person. Hedonism transforms oneself and the other into objects of gratification. We mask ourselves and conform ourselves to be accepted but deep down we feel that no one knows us as we are.
Despite this seemingly inescapable tragedy there is hope, there is an answer to loneliness and despair. Do not be betrayed by the simplicity of the answer, though it is often scoffed and derided, this answer, the answer that our holy Church gives us is able to provide us with a peace that surpasses our wildest dreams.
What is the answer? Christ. We must search for and acquire Christ. As simple as this answer might seem it is in stark opposition to the answer the world offers. The world says, “Enjoy yourself: eat, drink, and be merry.” Christ says, “take up your cross and follow Me.” The joy of the Resurrection follows Golgotha’s ascent.
How do we find Christ and how do we teach our children to acquire Christ?
- We must become acquainted with His words through the reading of sacred scripture.
- We must continually and consistently call upon Him in prayer.
- We must serve Him through His holy icons, the people we encounter daily who were created in His image.
- We must open ourselves to His healing presence in the sacrament of holy confession.
- We must humble ourselves so that emptied of egotism, pride, and self pity, we will have made room for Him in our hearts.
I will conclude with an image that we are familiar with but often overlook the significance of. At every Divine Liturgy Christ, our King who was broken upon the cross, comes to us appearing as bread that is broken. We His people, broken by our daily struggles and our many and varied crosses, come to receive Him. And when the King who out of great love was broken for us is received by His scattered and broken people we are gathered into one, become whole, and receive the promise and hope of the Resurrection.
“For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread” (1st Corinthians 10:17) and “He who eats this bread will live forever.” (John 6:58)
-micah
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