Last Thursday was the Jog-athon Day at St. Clare School. Jonathan completed 31 laps. Jane managed to do only 12 as she scraped her knees early on in her jogging. The theme of the event was “Give Joy! Get Joy!”
There is great joy in doing things for and in the Lord’s name, as the disciples found out after returning from their missions. I can feel this joy as several events have come together to help me see God’s handwriting all over the place.
It was a joy watching the students in St. Clare run the oval as they jogged in glee and merriment. Even as the country’s leaders are bickering, presiding over what seems to be turning out to be yet another meltdown and disaster, here are families and their children joyfully building the future in the small acts of togetherness and community. No fanfare but the bouncy music the children run by. No earth shaking speeches nor debates but the warm and strong affirmation of each child by his classmates, his teachers and the parents who were there. In this hiddeness and simplicity, the strength and future of this nation is being built. Pope Francis, in his pilgrimage to Assisi, also visited an orphanage and being with the children there noted that, similar to how Jesus is hidden in the Eucharist, he “is hidden in these young people, in these children.”
Following Jesus is not about money, nor about power. Joy is not about being changing the world through power or money. That is the way of the world. Following Jesus is the way of the cross; it is about being poor and powerless yet, in that nothingness and emptiness, still loving and serving others. Power and money are the ways of the world. In the same pilgrimage to Assisi, Pope Francis said: “Money indicates the whole spirit of worldliness — that path leads us to vanity, arrogance, pride. And that is an idol; itʼs not God.” There are those who would make Christianity ‘a little more human’ by taking away the cross. But the Pope dismisses this as ‘bakery Christianity’, where everything is beautiful and sweet like a cake.
“And if we want to be Christians, there is no other way,” the Holy Father added. “We must undress ourselves today from a very serious danger that threatens each person in the Church: the danger of worldliness.”
The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’
Jesus said to them privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.’
Luke 10:17-24