Timothy Cardinal Dolan: As the holidays approach, remember that it’s no season for a sourpuss

Posted by Jim on December 23, 2013

 

In the face of life’s everyday challenges, it’s too easy to be bad humored. Pope Francis reminds us to have faith that ‘all will work out for the good for those who believe’ at this joyful time of year.

By Timothy Cardinal Dolan / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

 

What’s the Latin word for “sourpuss”? You got me. But that’s the expression Pope Francis uses in his recent letter on The Joy of the Gospel. It has to be the first time that word’s been used in a papal document!

Crabby, whining, frowning people — sourpusses! — according to Pope Francis, are in contradiction to belief.

If we have faith that all is in God’s loving, providential hands; that, as the Bible teaches, “all will work out for the good for those who believe,” a sense of quiet joy would then characterize our days. As Stephen Colbert remarked at Fordham University, “My sense of humor comes from my hope, because I believe God’s in charge, and all will work out. So, I can laugh!” Sure, there will be concerns, trials, and heartaches, at times nonstop, and these can cause tears, worry and questioning.

But, faith and hope keep us going. And smiles replace sourpusses.

That’s the meaning of both Chanukah and Christmas. At the dreariest time of the year, when the sun is at its lowest point, and the winds, dead earth, ice and darkness of winter are at their start, we celebrate the triumph of light over darkness, faith over doubt, hope over despair, life over death, as the sun begins its slow ascent. Winter does not have the final word in God’s design for us.

For Christians, as the sun begins its ascent, God the Son is born in Bethlehem.

And the result was “joy to the world.”

We need a little Christmas, don’t we? Murders, wars, violence, death, sickness, struggle can get us way down. We can’t give up. God sure didn’t give up on us: into all of this, on that “silent night,” His Son was born to show us the way back.

So we all become kids again, full of good cheer and warm thoughts. Those who aren’t are for once in the minority, today’s Scrooges, the “sourpusses” the Holy Father spoke of.

If we people of faith wonder why folks are leaving our churches and synagogues, we might recall that nobody likes being with a group of crabs. People want happiness, now, and in eternity. You’d think they’d find it in religion.

As the Jesuit scholar Pierre Teilhard de Chardin observed, “Joy is the infallible sign of God’s presence.”

The joy we relish now — from love, family, friendship, beauty, sharing, art, food, song, and drink — is but an antipasto of what God has in store for us for all eternity.

Pope Francis also reminds us that joy comes, not from what we have or even what we do, but from who we are: a child of God, made in His image, destined for an eternity with Him!

Listen to the Bible: “Rejoice in the Lord always! I say it again, rejoice!”

It’s time for sugarplums, not sourpusses!

As the great theologian Karl Rahner, remarked, “It’s Christmas! Light the candles! They have more right to exist than the darkness. At Christmas, God says, ‘I am there! I am with you! I am your life! Do not be afraid to be happy!’”

A blessed, joyful Christmas!