Despite the horrible reception in my van, I put on the Christian radio station today. Between songs, the host made an inspirational one-liner, “When you’re feeling sad, start by making a happy face, and it will spread to your heart.” Or something like that.
It was cute. It’s always a good reminder to smile. There are perhaps moods and self-indulgent moments in the day when faking a little smile might actually force a different attitude. It’s a deliberate action where one can take a step in self-control.
But some forms of sadness don’t work that way. Some are deep in the heart, memory, or mind of a person. Traumas, losses, and mental health concerns can bring about “swords in the heart” that are hard to smile away.
One example from my life is the death of my father. Just writing those words brings a burning threat of tears. It takes me off guard and surprises me each time I find myself choked when talking about my dad’s death, which happened before I was old enough to even remember him. It is a loss and sorrow that I cannot seem to get over.
In an interview between Dr. Scott Hahn and Father Mike Schmitz, a question was asked: “Which Scriptures would you recommend for times of sadness?”
Father Mike recommended meditating on the joyful mysteries of the Rosary. At first I thought it was a bit trite. To tell a sad person that meditating on another’s joy would help? But his explanation totally surprised me. Some things are hidden right in front of us.
Father Mike began with the Annunciation. He said that we usually focus on Mary’s joy at being asked to be the mother of God. But we forget that as soon as she gives her fiat, the angel leaves, poof, no comment. She isn’t told how the pregnancy will come about (!), how she will survive the big reveal (an unwed mother could be stoned to death), or how she and her child will be provided for. The angel departs, and she, for a moment, must feel utterly alone. She does not despair but must surely face a moment of troubling loss. This is not a typical moment of joy.
The Visitation is encased in discomfort. Mary gets up “in haste” to visit her elderly cousin. There is no time to think or revel in the news of her own unborn child. She is assumedly tired, feeling at least slightly unwell, and sitting on a donkey for hours on end, for days. She is still a young girl, and her mother is not with her. She has no direction or promise of safety.
The Nativity takes place in the cold, the stink, and the dirt. They have no one, nowhere to go, no midwife, no certainty. The next part of the journey is running for their lives in the middle of the night. Someone wants their child dead, and they have only the words in a dream to guide them.
In the Presentation at the Temple, the prophets gather around them. In this moment of tradition and blessing, as they gaze happily down at their miraculous child, Mary is told that her son will cause unrest and upheaval. She is told that her own heart will be so broken that it will be as if it were pierced with a sword of sorrow. My own children’s baptism did not go this way.
The Finding of Jesus has a clearly joyful ending, as anyone who has misplaced a child will know. But that joy is wrapped in the doubt, guilt, and shame that you have lost the child to begin with. And what a child to lose! For three days they are consumed with fear. Is he lost, hungry, injured? Has the time already come for their son to redeem the world? And they aren’t with him?! Do they eat or sleep during those three days? I lost a child for 10 minutes at a Paris train station. Those moments were traumatic. When we talk about it now, I still get a tremor.
The joyful mysteries are, in fact, not quite as flat and happy as we might have been taught to imagine them. They are wrapped in sadness, confusion, doubt, solitude, and uncertainty. The joy is that God is there within them! His presence is contained in each moment of sorrow or loss. I think that this is perhaps a small step to imitate in times of true sadness: Mary and Joseph take God at his word, that he will not abandon them, and so they just keep going.
He will not erase all sorrow, but he will walk with them and bring them through it. They are told that they are needed, and so their struggles have purpose. His promise to bring them through a world of sorrow and into a world of endless light is what carries them. There is no quick fix to sadness, just the deeper inner hope of eternal joy.
Take God at his word. He loves you, he sees you, and he is with you. And you are needed.
