Joy

Our world is broken. It is drenched in sorrow. And though we mourn, though we stand with those who mourn, all of life is not grief. Indeed,

There is joy even in the mourning.

. . . . .

From the breakfast table this morning, across the house, I heard the yellow-haired child yelling, "Stella! Stella!" in her husky shouting voice. (So it sounded to me, anyway, even though it turns out she was only calling the name of our cat, Tula.) This one is anointed with joy. She shines so brightly. Her eyes like the ocean, her hair like the sand. Her smile remakes the world.

. . . . .

There is wonder in our world still. Above and around all the evil that dandies up our news, that illuminates their boring texts, lies joy. Not joy in evil, but joy that evil is neither the first nor the last word. Evil is small and temporary. Joy is boundless. And

Joy comes in the morning.

Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian. ... The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something. Solemn Super-men and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth" (G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, final paragraph).

We live in the first day of the new creation, in which Christ has already inaugurated his eschatology through His resurrection - the Kingdom is now and not yet. We, as Christ's ambassadors, as His very Body, are to redeem our world. We carry the Kingdom within us. Oh, Christ! Ah, joy!

Morning has come.

St. Cyprian says, "It may even be ... that the Kingdom of God means Christ himself, whom we daily desire to come, and whose coming we wish to be manifested quickly to us. For as he is our resurrection, since in him we rise, so he can also be understood as the Kingdom of God, for in him we shall reign."

And so Christ inaugurates His Kingdom with Himself, inaugurates the new creation of which He is the first fruit. And He is with us today. He is Emmanuel. He is with us in our brothers and our sisters - in us - for we are His Body, we are becoming His Body. He is with us in the Blessed Sacrament. (Holy God! Holy Mighty! Holy Immortal! Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.) And though we wait for the consummation of His Kingdom, we glory in Jesus Christ who stands here with us even today.

Christ is among us! goes the Orthodox greeting. And we respond in like fashion, He is and shall be.

Brother, Joy has come. Sister, He is here.