Reason to Rejoice, Despite Our Political Mess?

As always, the third Sunday in Advent is designated as Gaudete Sunday, taking a pause from the more somber preparations of the season with a reminder to be joyful and rejoice at the prospect of the coming of the Lord.  The first reading from Isaiah opens with,

“The LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor,
to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the LORD
and a day of vindication by our God.”  (Isaiah 61:1-2)

Frankly, I am sorely in need of some glad tidings.  This past week, our national legislators approved a massive budget that funds President Obama’s unlawful breach of his constitutional authority.  Worse yet, they added budget earmarks from both sides of the aisle for pet financial projects, swelling the budget to over a trillion dollars, despite federal revenues falling far short of that amount.  I’m frustrated that all this is happening in a lame duck congress, but with the collaboration of politicians who ran political campaigns on the promise of NOT doing this.  From my point of view, all three branches of our federal government are broken and getting worse, and both political parties are to blame.

Fortunately, my personal happiness is not dependent on the government, and neither are my God-given rights, which lately the government has been attempting to usurp. One of my Advent readings this year includes daily excerpts from Bishop Fulton Sheen and in today’s selection the good bishop cited Arnold Toynbee who wrote about three would-be saviors: “the savior who believes in automatic progress; the savior with the sword who cannot sheathe it when he has cut his way to the throne; and the savior who tries to save the world with philosophical sayings.  None of these, says Toynbee, can bring salvation.  The only one who can save civilization is The Savior who saves us from our sins.  Pointing to Christ he says, “There is the Savior.””  (Bishop Sheen - Thoughts for Daily Living)

Now this is something to rejoice about!  Given humanity’s inclinations toward selfish endeavors, we will never have “peace on earth” brought about by political movements, government entities, dictators or monarchs.  But we can find peace in the knowledge that this troubled world is nothing more than a short stop on our eternal journey; or as I like to think of it, a gestational period before we are born to eternal life.  At the risk of repeating what I wrote last week, when the Angels announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds, they proclaimed, “Peace to men, on whom God’s favor rests.”  This has also been interpreted as peace to men who fear the Lord.  This notion of fearing the Lord is commonly misunderstood in our modern minds.  To fear the Lord, is not to fear God’s punishment, but rather, fearing that we might not live our lives in ways that are favorable to the Lord.  The prophet Sirach cites fear of the lord as the beginning of wisdom, and says that those who fear the lord will be happy in end, even in death.

When Jesus departed from His apostles, He left them with this short, if mysterious comment, “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you.” (John 14:27)  I’ve never quite understood this phrase, but perhaps it was a promise of offering “God’s favor” on those committed to living out fear of the Lord which is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Fearing the Lord means trying to avoid sin, and sin is defined this way in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”  (CCC 1849)

We live in a sinful world, meaning that we all say and do things that are “offenses against reason and truth.”  We violate our conscience and rationalize such offenses in the name of personal happiness or freedom, when in reality we are destroying happiness and enslaving ourselves to our passions.  Our political leaders violate reason when they run up massive debts, and they violate truth when they legalize abortion and more recently, euthanasia.  Now we even have government regulations that demand people violate their “right conscience” or be fined and labeled as intolerant and a violator of civil rights.  

The catechism’s definition of sin is well worth remembering.  Many of us who are conservative are disgusted by what is happening to our culture, led by politicians whose “failure in genuine love for God and neighbor” is “injuring human solidarity.”  We are in the process of unraveling civilization which made its greatest progress when it was adhering to Judeo-Christian morality as the gold standard for our national ethics.

In the midst of these disappointments, there is still reason to rejoice because despite our personal and national sinfulness, we have a savior, one who is no politician, not an academic, nor a philosopher.  We have Jesus Christ, the very Son of God who, amazingly, loves us despite our sinfulness and saves us from ourselves.  To know Him, love Him and serve Him, is to find peace of soul, despite what’s going on around us.  Remembering today’s reading from Isaiah, although we may be brokenhearted at what’s going on around us, these are “glad tidings” because the day of vindication by our God is nearer than we think.