Today the Liturgy enjoins us, in the words of St. Paul, to Rejoice in the Lord always; I say it again, rejoice! Oddly enough, of all the commands given us by the Lord and his Apostles, this one may be the hardest to keep: rejoice always. As a Church, we're suffering some very great trials and many individuals have their own private agonies which do not go on holiday at Christmas time. Yet, when St. Paul says Rejoice always he means it, and he knows that his audience had troubles. But we have to understand that he wants us to rejoice because of, not in spite of, our troubles.

Yes, we mustn't miss that point. The key to Christian joy, the key to a perpetual, indomitable, contagious joy is recognizing that - amazingly - weakness, hardship, temptation and trial need not diminish our joy but can actually replenish it. How is that? The answer is in the next sentence of St. Paul's admonition: Again I say rejoice. The Lord is near. Because we have these woes, because we are sick, blind, little, wretched - because God knows this, He comes to save us. He is near at hand, an ever present help in time of need, and precisely for that reason it is good that we are in need, and not self-sufficient. God preserve us from ever being able to say: "I've got it all together, I'm happy and successful in life on my own; I have no need for a Savior." Then the undying cry of Christians, the last line of Scripture, Come Lord Jesus would fade from our hearts; and the joy of caring that the Lord is near would die with it.

Now our greatest danger, and the reason why we do not continually rejoice, is that we also forget that the Lord is near. Or worse, perhaps we begin to question whether He really is the Messiah. Are you the one or are we to wait for another? If you really are the Messiah why am I suffering? Save yourself and us! This is a terrible thing: to allow our troubles, or even just the hum-drum routine of life or its distractions to begin to make us forget that the Lord is near, that He knows our needs and desires, defects and challenges, and that He cares about our cares. We can begin to doubt his Love. And then surely we lose any chance of real and lasting joy.

St. Paul was proud to show his life, as a living example of the paradox wrought by the transformation of nature by grace: behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. (2 Cor 6.9-10) How did he do this? By embracing his sorrow, poverty, and emptiness for Christ's sake. When we thus pick up our cross, we will find Christ by our side lifting it with us. His presence at our side will more than compensate for the suffering. Listen to the words of a wise French priest: "Take advantage, take advantage of these dark hours when nature groans, where the heart is like ice, where you believe, wrongly, that Jesus is very far from you. Take the occasion to make heroic acts of faith and of confidence by your will alone. These are the most precious, having immense merit because then it is pure faith without consolation or sensible help" (Pere Elbee).

So nothing must shake our confidence that the Lord is close by to us with His loving concern and almighty Providence. Our wretchedness, even our sinfulness, will not repel Him as long as we do not deny it. Rather, as soon as we admit humbly: "Lord, look how useless, weak and unworthy I am" then the Lord will fly to our side to save us. We must develop the habit of embracing our miseries as a most precious magnet for attracting the Merciful Saviour. He cannot stay away from the humble; we must decisively reject as the most terrible temptations any thought that we are too ugly, too insignificant, too ordinary or too sinful for the Lord to bother about us. All the more will the Lord seek us out on these accounts and want to be with us and have us with Him. That is the logic of love and mercy and the reason why joy should be our most abundant commodity.