The Joy of the Journey to Bethlehem

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“These things I have spoken to you, so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be fulfilled” (John 15:11). We are coming again into a period of particular joy as we prepare to accompany the Holy Family on their journey to Bethlehem very shortly.

There were challenges, there were difficulties, and there were all sorts of ups and downs, but there was also a profound joy, a joy that comes from fulfilling the will of God, when we know that everything is in the right place; we're doing the right thing. God is with us in all sorts of moments. It’s the consequence of our divine filiation, of being little children being led along by the hand of God.

The Psalm says, “Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the requests of your heart” (Ps. 37:4).

Joy is mentioned something like 300 times in Scripture. The frequency of the occurrence of a word is an indication of its importance.

Our Lord has come to bring us joy, and not just any sort of joy. The angel said to the shepherds, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all the people” (Luke 2:10).

We have those good tidings. We are meant to bring joy to many people. And if we're to bring joy to many people, God wants us also to be filled with joy: “…my joy may be in you.” It's not just any joy—it's a supernatural joy, it's a divine joy.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man having found it, he hid it, and for joy went off and sold all that he had and bought that field” (Matt. 13:44). He was full of joy because he had found the treasure. He had a sense and an awareness of this great find.

Our Lord wants us to have that same sense of joy in our vocation. We have the treasure, we found the treasure, we have the most important things. He wants us to have the joy of taking care of that treasure, not forgetting about it or taking it for granted, but rather rediscovering it in a regular way, thanking Our Lord for it.

The more we thank, the more there's an expression of appreciation. St. Paul says to the Philippians, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice” (Phil. 4:4).

When Joseph and Mary got to Bethlehem and they found there was no room at the inn—no hospitality, no preparation, rejection—on a human plane, they could have had plenty of reasons to lose their joy.

But we don't find that happening. You get the impression that they just continue on their journey. They realize there's a new bump in the road. But there's a solution to all of this and with the solution will come a great joy.

Many years ago on Christmas Day, Pope John Paul II was giving his Christmas message to the United Nations—lofty words of peace—and when he was finished saying those things, he said, “And now we turn our attention from the Assembly Hall of the United Nations in New York to a small stable in Bethlehem of Judea.”

The contrast was very marked. We turn our attention from the great things of men with their glitter and their glamour and their razzmatazz to the great things of God—which are silent, which pass unnoticed, and which are full of authentic joy—not the sort of passing joys that we might find in the world.

That's why the passing things of this world can't be a source of profound joy for us because we know those things are passing, they're material, there are literally limits to this world.

We find our true joys in the things of God that last to eternity. We're prepared for that: the wedding feast.

“But the fruit of the Spirit,” says St. Paul to the Galatians, “is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity” (Gal. 5:22). We can ask Our Lord for the grace to have that joy. And if we ever lose that joy, we're to recover it again quickly.

When the Father was in Kampala and he had to be told by Father Albert that Father Luijino Miungi had passed away, it was just after lunch, the start of the visit. Don Álvaro said when he told those things to the Father, the Father sort of moved away. He said, “No.” He didn't want to hear that piece of bad news.

And then they prayed, they said a Response, and at the get-together, the Father says, “When we hear these pieces of difficult news, we're sad a little bit, but only for a while, and then very quickly we recover our joy because we accept the will of God, Fiat voluntas tua. Fiat adimpleatur. May the most lovable will of God be fulfilled, be exalted above all things.”

That helps us to recover our peace and our joy. “Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets that were before you” (Matt. 5:12).

If ever there's a problem—a difficulty, something that rattles us a little bit—we think of the future, the reward. “Your reward is great in heaven. Be glad and rejoice.”

“Blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4). Our Lord wants this to be one of the great attractive features of our apostolate: to attract people with our joy.

In the early days in Rome, they went outside to get the photos for Cronica developed. But then after a number of years they got the machines themselves, and they told the place that they used to go to, to bring those photos: We now won't be coming anymore because we have our machine, and thank you very much, etc.

The person in charge of that shop said, “Could I ask you one question before you go? For some time we've noticed that all the people who appear in these photographs that you've given to us look very happy and serene. We used to ask ourselves, What could be behind that?”

They took advantage of that moment to explain the Work to this person. Because of that, they got in contact, their wife also got in contact, their daughter was planning a civil marriage the following month but decided to get married in Church instead, and the son who was an agnostic decided to attend some catechism classes.

The treasure of the faces that speak. Our joy will help people to ask the question, What is there behind that joy?—the joy that never goes away; we can never be robbed of it.

Tristitia vestra vertetur in gaudium, says [Our Lord.] “Your sadness will be turned into joy” (John 16:20). There are sadnesses in the things of the world, there are ups and downs, there are chemical, hormonal, all sorts of reasons that may bring us down a little bit, little pieces of news.

But then we recover that joy, our sadness is converted into good things. “I now rejoice in the sufferings I bear for you,” says St. Paul. “I fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh, for his body, which is the Church” (Col. 1:24).

When we turn those things around, we offer them, we place them in front of the tabernacle, we place them at the feet of Our Lord on the Cross—it helps us to see the loving hand of Divine Providence behind those things that God has permitted.

We find some reason then to be happy. And like the Holy Family on the way to Bethlehem, there's tiredness, there's contradiction, there is, perhaps, lack of understanding of the plans of God.

We're told that when they found Our Lord in the temple, “he told them, ‘Did you not know I must be about my father's business?’ And they did not understand the things that he spoke to them” (Luke 2:46-50).

Sometimes, Our Lord leaves His parents a little bit high and dry: “Did you not know I must be about my father's business?”

“Woman, my hour has not yet come” (John 2:4). She receives a no; it's only an apparent no.

Through all of these little bumps on the road, Joseph and Mary maintain their joy because they know this is part of the divine plan. If God asks us for something, there must be something great beyond this. He must want to give us great things.

Jesus Urteaga in the Mundo Christiano one time told about a certain occasion in Rome. Our Father had noticed a certain gesture of annoyance in the face of a student of the Roman College, and he asked him what was the matter.

When the student answered, he said, “I'm tired.” And our Father said, “My son, I've been going against the grain for the past fifty years.”

Despite that going against the grain or hardship or difficulty or contradiction, we find a reason to smile. In laetitia, nulla dies sine cruce! [In joy, no day without a cross!] (Josemaría Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 176; Friends of God, Point 216).

Ours is a smiling asceticism. And our Father had this infectious joy that he passed on to so many other people.

On the 27th of June 1975, in the newspaper of Zaragoza, there was an article by a certain journalist who was reflecting on the joy and the warmth of our Father that he created around him as if by osmosis.

He told a story that in October 1960, he had gone to Zaragoza. Our Father had gone there to receive the honorary doctorate from his old university, and this journalist was there to cover the event.

He said, “I was a little bit sad because a brother of mine had passed away a few days earlier at an early age. For a number of days, I hadn't been able to do the daily radio program that I was normally involved in, due to the unexpected death of my brother.

“But,” he said, “the mood in this hall where St. Josemaría received this honorary doctorate was festive. He entered, very much at ease, completely devoid of all human vanity, smiling and familiar.”

He said, “I understood as he trod that academic path that he, the author of The Way, was showing us his own path and his own way of walking along it: simplicity, which, with pure honesty begets peace, and gentle rigor, which can smilingly undergo crucifixion.”

He said, “I was so moved that at noon that very day, I once more began to be a voice on the radio, by sinking my own sorrows and describing the cheerfulness of that man from Upper Aragon.

Our Father infected other people with his joy and helped them see their crosses and difficulties in a different light.

In The Forge, we're told: “With crystal clarity, I saw the formula, the secret of happiness, both earthly and eternal. It's not just a matter of accepting the will of God, but of embracing it, of identifying oneself with it—in a word, of loving the Divine Will with a positive act of our own will. —This, I repeat, is the infallible secret of joy and peace” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 1006).

We find that very frequently in the life of Our Lady and St. Joseph. That journey to Bethlehem that we're called to walk along each year—accompanying them—is an opportunity for us to learn those lessons. In spite of their tiredness or their contradictions or leaving things behind, or uncertainty, or the risk, they go forward along this pilgrimage.

John Paul II liked to call the vocation of Our Lady a pilgrimage of faith (John Paul II, General Audience, March 21, 2001; Vatican II, Lumen gentium, Point 58), and the journey to Bethlehem is like a model, a piece of that pilgrimage of faith, going forward in hope and joy, not getting put off by anything.

“You should make sure,” said our Father in The Forge, “that wherever you are, there is good humor—that cheerfulness—which is born of an interior life” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 151).

Hopefully, nothing can take away that cheerfulness. “Always rejoice in the Lord,” he says. “Again I say, rejoice’ (Phil. 4:4).

“My children, we should always look on the bright side of things. What seems most overwhelming in life is not really so dark, so unbearable. If you get down to specifics, you will not draw pessimistic conclusions” (John C. Portavella, The Little Manual for Spiritual Growth).

Fulton Sheen liked to say, “The greatest joys in life are purchased at the cost of some sacrifice. No one ever enjoys good reading, good music, or good art without a certain amount of [study and effort. Neither can one enjoy love without a certain amount of] self-denial.

“It is not that love by its nature demands suffering, for there is no suffering in Divine Love. But whenever love is imperfect, or whenever a body is associated with a soul, there must be suffering, for such is the cost of love's purification.

“One cannot grow from ignorance to love of poetry without discipline. Neither can one mount from one level of love to another without a certain amount of purification.

“The Blessed Virgin passed from one level of love, which was for her Divine Son, to the higher level of love for all whom he would redeem, by willing his Passion and Death at the marriage feast of Cana” (Fulton J. Sheen, Three to Get Married).

The Holy Father has given us this document, The Joy of the Gospel. He says, “The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. … I wish to encourage the Christian faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by this joy” (Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, Point 1, November 24, 2013).

People in the world are looking for something. They're looking for things. They're looking for answers—answers to the questions of “Where am I going? Where have I come from? What is my life all about?”

We have all of those answers. One of the keys to be able to transmit that answer is the key of joy.

There was a prominent Chinese lawyer once who had a daughter, age 14. There was a missionary priest there who got in touch with this family, particularly with his daughter. The prominent lawyer didn't like this missionary priest visiting his daughter. He thought he was a bad influence.

Eventually the daughter died of tuberculosis. The father had thrown the missionary out of the house and forbade him from having any more contact with his daughter. But the missionary went to the wake.

At the wake, this prominent lawyer came to him and said, “Thank you. I want to thank you for what you did for my daughter.”

The missionary was a bit confused, saying, “I really didn't do anything for her.” And the lawyer said, “Yes, you did. Look at the smile on her face. She died with a smile on her face because she knew this was not the end. She was looking forward to something much greater. She knew she was loved by Love.”

That smile meant an awful lot. That missionary had brought that smile and brought it about by the things he communicated.

At a deanery meeting one time in Eastlands, we were talking about the Justice and Peace Commission, which you have in every diocese and every deanery. And somebody remarked, “We should change the name of this commission. It should be the Justice, Peace, and Joy Commission, to sort of emphasize very much the joy that is there in all that we're doing.”

Joy can be the most infallible sign of God's presence. It's a permanent state because our childlikeness, our sonship, our filiation is a permanent state. It doesn't come and go. It's part of our being. No matter what's happening on the surface of the sea of our life, our divine filiation leads us to find that joy.

A numerary told me once how they were in hospital for an investigation of a cancer that they had. They were sharing a room with two other people, and they also had some sort of cancer.

One of them, I think, was a supernumerary. Talking one day, they said, “Do you feel any apprehension, any worry, any difficulty, any anxiety?” And the person said, “No, I'm totally relaxed, totally peaceful.”

And he said, “I feel the same way, I have no care in the world. It doesn't matter what's happening with my health. I'm just totally in the hands of God.”

Joy is the mark and the fruit of our charity. To be with Christ is a source of joy. Hopefully, we find joy in our norms, in our plan of life, in our prayer, in our spiritual greeting, in our Rosary, in the time we spend with Our Lord each day, in our Mass. We come there with, maybe, our concerns or worries, to place them on the paten and then to forget about them ourselves. We leave them there.

If we try to love the cross more each day, then we'll be more joyful people. “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46.10). I'm taking care of things. I'm in command of the show. I just want you to do what I asked you to do.

Joy comes from abandonment to the hands of Our Father God. We're here to live out a life of joy. We have to enjoy ourselves. And our Father wanted us to be very happy because we're so close to the source of all joy.

True virtue is pleasantly joyful. If ever we momentarily lose that joy, an Act of Thanksgiving can help us to recover that joy, helps us to see the loving hand of Providence in this particular thing that has come to pass.

Our joy is the necessary and unavoidable consequence of love. Therefore, our constant joy is an indication of our self-surrender. If some time we're a little bit too serious, or it's a while since we smiled, or other people notice that we're not as happy as we might be, it's a sign that maybe, we're not as self-surrendered as we could be.

We're also aware that the greatest joys of our life are purchased at the cost of some sacrifice. Our self-denial necessarily leads us to other great joys that are to come, the hundredfold that God has promised us. [A Chinese proverb] says, “When you drink water, you should remember the source”—the great gift that this particular thing is, that has come to me.

A pleasant state of mind tends to bring abnormal situations back to normal, helps us to be more peaceful, to see things in a different light.

Our Lady and St. Joseph experienced rejection in Bethlehem. Yet we find that they were so calm. There isn't a word of complaint. They accept the situation with great serenity.

We're told in the Furrow, “The cheerfulness of a man of God, a woman of God, has to overflow: it has to be calm, contagious, attractive...; in a few words, it has to be so supernatural, and natural, so infectious that it brings others to follow Christian ways” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 60).

Good thing if people notice this and somehow are curious—What is it that's behind that state of joy?—like the person in that photography shop.

Looking at ourselves, at our lives, our Father said, “We may have very few reasons to be joyful. We see our miseries, our weaknesses, our addictions, our addictions to laziness, to comfort, to a whole pile of things. But looking at Christ, we find the source of our holiness.”

Our cheerfulness and joy is not a function of circumstances. There can be a joyful occasion, but there can also be sadness. We can have a certain sadness in our lives about certain things that may have happened, but joy can also be present at the same time.

We build our joy on faith, faith in the love that God has for us, in our divine filiation. We find a new joy in beginning again, starting over. The great secret in our life that not everybody knows about: we wipe the slate clean. We don't look to the past; we look to the future.

G. K. Chesterton has said that of all the things that have been written down through history about Christ on the Cross, one of the aspects of His life on the Cross that has not been written about enough is joy, the joy of Christ on the Cross.

Consummatum est. “It is accomplished” (John 19:30). This great work of redemption, this great enterprise, the most important thing that has happened in the whole history of humanity. “Into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit” (cf. Luke 23:46).

Joy is one of nature's greatest medicines. It's always healthy. Joy in our fraternity, we marvel at our brothers, the people we live with, and thank God for them. We see the good things they're doing. We live with saints.

We see their struggles, their fidelity, things they've achieved in their life, their effort to practice virtue, their care of our spirit, care of details. Joy means reference to others.

It means we forget about ourselves. We solve all our own problems by thinking about the others. If we're all wound up in ourselves and what we have to do and things that we're not managing to achieve, of course that will lead to a certain lack of joy and seriousness. We get a great joy from serving God, whatever our situation.

When we went to visit Luis de Moya, stuck in a wheelchair for thirty years, he can hardly move his head, he communicated a certain joy. “Our effectiveness,” he says, “is mysteriously tied up to our unity to the Father”—our effectiveness, and necessarily also, our joy, because it's a joy of serving, of being useful, of knowing that nothing is ever lost, that my life and whatever aspect it may take is one of incense going up to God in every moment of my being.

The joy of my self-surrender, when I renew that self-surrender by consulting this or that, or by leaving something I've received on the desk of the director, getting my expense account in on time—so many other ways where we live that joy of our self-surrender in family life—being on time, contributing to the get-togethers, fulfilling our job, looking after our duties and knowing what they are.

When we live this spirit, Our Lord gives us consolations, the consolations of our life. And our Father had a phrase that he used in talking about the consolations that God would give him—consolaciones que solo tu puedes dar, consolations that only you can give—profound joy of soul and happiness that this world cannot give.

Chesterton says that cheerfulness is a highly civilized product. Everybody loves to be with people who are cheerful, who are happy.

“You are not happy,” said our Father in the Furrow, “because you make everything revolve around yourself as if you were always the center: you have a stomach-ache, or you're tired, or they've said this or that...—Have you tried thinking about him, and through him, about others?” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 74).

I heard a director in Pamplona once say, “Those of you who are going to serve your brothers will be happy and persevering in Opus Dei. The key to our joy and happiness is service. What can I contribute? What can I do?”

“We will never achieve true supernatural and human cheerfulness,” said our Father in The Forge, “real good humor, if we don't really imitate Jesus: if we aren't humble, as he was” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 590).

Mother Teresa used to say, “Never be so down [Never let anything so fill you with sorrow] as to forget the joy of the risen Christ” (Mother Teresa, No Greater Love).

There's a church in Singapore called The Church of the Risen Christ. I always thought that was a very nice title, not just The Church of Christ, but The Church of the Risen Christ.

The Risen Christ, the Easter Christ, is in particular a source of our joy. He's conquered the world, He's conquered the devil, He's conquered sin. He's risen. Resurrexit sicut dixit, Hallelujah!

That joy of the risen Christ can infuse joy into every aspect of our life. “A smile,” someone said once, “is a light in the window of your face that tells others that your heart is at home” (Christian D. Larson).

My heart is at home where it should be in the things of my vocation, in the things of the apostles, in the things of the Father.

Lord, may you help me to make a lot of resolutions, to have a lot of joy, because we are with God. As we come to face this period of more intense family life and fraternity, and maybe annual courses and other things, we could try to stir up that joy a little more—a special joy that our Father wants us to have in our family around the time of Christmas and Advent, where we come together a little bit more and, maybe, appreciate the great things we have in the family life that God has given to us.

“Joy has its roots in the shape of a cross,” our Father told us (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 28). In laetitia, nulla dies sine cruce! Lux in cruce, gaudium in cruce, requies in cruce. Joy comes from the cross, accepting this particular cross that God has wanted to send us.

There's a lot to be learned from accompanying the Holy Family as they learn about the decree of Caesar Augustus (Luke 2:1). Maybe they talked about it at home and they tried to find out, What should we do? Our Lady is nine months pregnant. Journeys are dangerous.

My mother used to say that in rural Ireland there was a cure for women who went over their time in their pregnancy: they put her into a horse and cart and led her over a very bumpy murrum road for a couple of hours, and it always worked. The women always went into labor. Happily, times have changed. We have more sophisticated cures for these problems.

But the journey of Our Lady on a donkey to Bethlehem was certainly not obstetrically advisable. St. Joseph must have realized that. The difficulty of making that decision: Do we go or do we stay? They talk about it, they discuss it.

Our Father says we listen to the traditions of the House of Israel. We listen in on that conversation which is all prayer. As they come to the difficult decision that God wants them to go to Bethlehem, leaving everything behind, they set out on their journey, the picture of our own vocation setting out on that supernatural journey.

Our role is to follow them very closely, to learn how to practice this virtue in all situations.

Mary, you are empty of self and therefore are “full of grace” (Luke 1:28). and full of joy. Teach me to empty myself, teach me to be humble, not to think myself indispensable, not to think myself important. Teach me real abandonment, teach me to let go of myself in order to cling tightly to you.

Your presence in my life is a cause for gladness and rejoicing. You are the cause of our joy because a mother's presence is always a source of joy and peace. You are “our life, our sweetness, and our hope” (Prayer, Hail, Holy Queen).

Intercede for us so that we may become joyful bringers of the good news to all souls. “Good tidings of great joy” (Luke 2:10).

We know that our “names are written [by God] in heaven” (Luke 10:20); they're tattooed on His hand. God can't look at His hand without seeing our name. This can be the great reason for our permanent state of joy and truthfulness.

Mary, may you help us to have that and to grow in it in all the situations of our life.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

JOSH