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Finding Happiness in 2009
January 3, 2009
Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus
Dear Singles of the Eucharist,family, friends and associates,
Wow, it is 2009. Aren’t we glad 2008 is behind us, with high gas prices and high emotions regarding the election and its issues? As everything, it all passes and we will encounter new struggles and challenges this year. Many have intuitions about what they need to do to make the whole year “merry and bright”. Many start with New Year’s resolutions to promote them to move closer to a goal. Maybe it was a goal they had for 2008, maybe a new goal, but the motive for each goal is to be happy. St. Thomas Aquinas was the first theologian to teach that “happiness” is the goal that all men seek. They may not know how to be happy or where true happiness lies, but all men seek it. Who can argue with that?
It seems appropriate to me at this New Year to share with you where true happiness lies. There is a story or parable that Pope John Paul II comments on in a document he authored entitled, Veritatis Splendor which means, “The Splendor of the Truth”. The story is one you may have heard about the rich young man who inquires of Jesus, “What good must I do to have eternal life"(Mt. 19:16)? Don’t we all wonder how to be good? But, do we tie being good to having eternal life? Jesus ties them together. After all, that is why he came; to tell us that the answer to have eternal life is found in a New Law. The Old Law, said, “love God”. The New Law says, “Love your neighbor”. Jesus ties them together. Pope John Paul II said they are “profoundly connected and mutually related”. You can’t love your neighbor without loving God because God is the one that tells us how to love our neighbor. God is the giver of the Ten Commandments that showed us how to be obedient to our Creator. But, His Son is the giver of the Holy Spirit which counsels the intellect and will which are faculties of our soul, on how to love our neighbor. But, before Jesus left so he could send the Holy Spirit, he showed us how to love our neighbor through his actions. Before he told us through the Sermon on the Mount and throughout the New Testament, we could not know how to love. So, together with the promptings of the Holy Spirit in our interior life with the exterior witness of Jesus Christ in his humanity, we have the model for loving God and loving our neighbor.
Now, the rich young man was tying “goodness” and its exterior witness to “eternal life”.
Is that proper to do so? Now, there has been a heresy in the past that we still see today. It is known as “Pelagianism”, which was a philosophy that all you had to do was good works and you would have eternal life. The Catholic Church has denounced this philosophy as good works are aluded to as only an exterior act. Without an interior disposition of love to do good for the Good, who is God, the works mean nothing. That is why the Gospel writers always tie love and works together. We can look at God’s plan of Salvation and see love and works tied together. Would God have sent His only Son to die a horrible death on the Cross if He didn’t love us? Christ was obedient unto death for love of us. Together Father and Son did the work of the Cross, so we would know love. So, now we can understand that to be “good” or to have “goodness” one must have love incorporated into their good works.
Our Pope John Paul II of beloved memory explained in Veritatis Splendor that when the “rich young man” was asking about “the good that he must do” and tying it to “eternal life”, he was asking “an essential and unavoidable question for the life of every man.” The young man sensed that there was some moral good that must be done to fulfill his destiny of living for all eternity. So, Pope John Paul II points out that his question is an inherently religious question. Because it is religion that teaches that there is a life beyond this world that is eternal and it is religion starting with St. Paul who clarified for us that the Natural Law “is written on our hearts” (Rom. 2:15). The Natural law was then pronounced and definitively revealed in the Ten Commandments and subsequently taught in the New Law by Jesus Christ, that one must “do good and avoid evil”. That is the universal theme and Truth to living a moral life. No one can deny that doing good and avoiding evil will lead to a happy life. But, Pope John Paul II points out that “only God can answer the question about what is good, because his is the “Good” itself. So, to ask about the “good”, he writes “ultimately means to turn towards God”. Goodness attracts us and we are obliged to it. This ultimate Good who is God by showing us through His Son how to be good is showing how to be happy, and at the same time, how to have eternal life.
So, when Jesus answers back to the rich young man about “the good” that he must do to have eternal life, he reminds him of the Ten Commandments. Has he followed these? “yes” he says, “what do I still lack?” So, even though his conscience has told him he has followed the demands in God’s law, "he still senses that there is something he still has not done". Pope John Paul II points out that Jesus is “conscious of the young man’s learning for something greater which would transcend a legalistic interpretation of the commandments.” Jesus’ answer puts the rich young man on the path to “perfection”. He tells him to “come follow me”. To follow Jesus is an invitation down a path which the meaning is not fully understood until after Christ’s Resurrection, when the Holy Spirit leads them to all truth.
We can understand that the question the rich young man has is everyone’s question. It is just that they don’t know where the answer lies and where to turn to for the answer. I hope I have pointed out that the answer to how to be good and how to be happy lies with religion and the especially the Catholic Church who makes it her role to discern the Gospel teachings for life lived for the good, because she has been given the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was not given to the whole world at the same time. The Paraclete came to a few men in the upper room (cf Jn 14:26) on Pentecost who then were sent out to Baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit so that by the intercession of other men, in Persona Christi of the risen Christ, they may be instruments in which Baptism would give the gifts of the Holy Spirit to everyone. So, we look to the Church to disseminate the Truth for us. Because she has Christ as her head and a unified Body, she is endowed with a special mission. The mission is to tell the world that the moral life of doing good and avoiding evil is way to the happy life, but to do it for God, with love for God and for neighbor and to do it with the last end in mind.
For, 2009 and for always, the “last end” our passing over to eternal life must be our ultimate goal. Primarily, because it glorifies God who we owe all our adoration and thanksgiving, but also because it is where our true happiness lies. It lies in the eternal vision of our loving God. No matter how hard we try to be happy in this life through whatever goals we set, daily, monthly and each year, none of them, however accomplished will give us the ultimate, perfect fulfilling happiness that we all seek. Perfect happiness lies not in the temporal things of this world, although, those things are good as they are created by God, they are not the “highest Good”. We all want the “best” and the “highest” don’t we? The “best house”, “best car”, “highest paid job”, etc. St. Augustine, commenting on the Psalms 133:3-6, explained that “‘the Lord is good’; good, that is, in the sense of that real good from which all other goods are derived.”
So, in 2009 let us reflect on the “real Good” who communicates to us through His Son Jesus Christ because it is through Him that we will find happiness in this life and in the next.
Peace to you in the New Year.
Theresa Marie Lynn
Theresa@SinglesoftheEucharist.org
