This is the time of Great Joy

In the face of challenges like the pandemic, climate change and racism, large numbers of Americans are reporting symptoms of anxiety, depression and exhaustion.

Things certainly feel bad, but focusing on doom-and-gloom stories often crowds out the more positive ones.

For instance, poverty has been drastically reduced thanks to the generous provisions of the American Rescue Plan.

The passage of the Infrastructure and Jobs Act has paved the way for the country to begin repairing its crumbling roadways, bridges and transit systems.

And the approval of vaccines for children and the announcement of an effective new antiviral therapy from Pfizer may finally allow society to recover from the pandemic.

As the Advent season reminds us, the Christian tradition has always insisted that the way we see things – others, ourselves, our world – has moral, spiritual and even cosmic stakes.

In a 1966 essay titled “The Time of the End is the Time of New Room,” Thomas Merton reflected on a single detail in Luke’s infancy narrative: Mary gives birth to Jesus and lays him in a manger because “there was no room for them at the inn.” Packed with travelers rushing to register for the Roman census, the inn in Merton’s telling becomes a mirror image of modern mass society, “where every day’s disaster is beyond compare.” Such a world, awash in distraction, cannot help failing to notice Christ’s nativity: “There is so much news that there is no room left for the true tidings, the ‘Good News.’ The Great Joy.”

This joy – the fact of the Incarnation, which we celebrate at Christmas – is the alternative to anxiety and despair.

It announces a different kind of “end times,” marked by the fulfilment of hopes and the definitive arrival of freedom.

This is what Pope Francis has spent much of his pontificate trying to get us to see.

Moving forward starts with allowing ourselves to dream of a more fraternal world, one animated by solidarity rather than anxiety.

The pope’s decision to inaugurate a world-wide synod in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic ought to remind us that this is not the time to turn inward or surrender to our fears.

What those in pain need from us is neither judgment nor false optimism, but a listening ear and expanded access to care.

The trials many people in America and around the world are suffering are real and they should not be minimized. There will always be bad news. But it need not overwhelm or deter us. Merton said it well: it is into this grim, broken world, “this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, that Christ comes unbidden.” We just need to be ready to recognize and welcome him. Though we do not always realize it, we are free to choose where and how to direct our attention. As Christians, we’re supposed to see things differently. That is how, I believe, we need to proceed.

Father Magnano shares pastoring of the Skagit Valley Catholic Churches.