December 12, 2004

"While there is life there is hope," was a proverb coined by Cicero a century before the first Christmas. The fact that we are here proves Cicero's point, and the fact that Cicero was there proves God's point: "Let there be life." Hope comes from God and so it is a theological virtue. The Third Sunday of Advent rings out "Rejoice!" ("Gaudete") because of the gift of life. Christ came into the world in Bethlehem to die on a cross so that by his resurrection we might live forever. Life gives hope and hope gives joy. Joylessness comes from hopelessness and hopelessness comes from lifelessness. If a population declines, so do hope and joy.

Giddiness is the substitute for joy when there is no hope. A joyless culture cranks up artificial smiles and spends a fortune to amuse itself as a remedy for its vacuousness. The 1960s and 1970s promoted an illusory happiness which has had ghastly social consequences. Today the faded "LUV" banners and "Smile" buttons mock that social fantasy. "LUV" never did match up to the first chapter of St. John nor did the Smile button successfully replace the solemn joy on the face of Christ Our Saviour, as depicted in our new icon above the high altar. This deeply threatens those who, as Thoreau said, lead lives of quiet desperation.

The radical cultural war which now engages all spheres of life engenders resentment and even hatred from those who still live in the self-absorbed "Me Generation." Their ultimate weapon-logically nothing more than a water pistol — is to mock as "fundamentalists" those who maintain nature's laws and worship nature's God. Instead of following the saints in the pilgrimage to the Heavenly Jerusalem, they stomp their little feet and threaten to emigrate to Canada. They are a sad spectacle, evidence that, as St. Thomas Aquinas taught, "Sadness is an evil or vice, caused by a disordered love for oneself, which is the general root of all vices" (Summa Theol. II-II, q. 28, a.4, ad.1).

David Brooks has written in the New York Times (Dec. 7) that hopeful people promote life. He calls them "natalists" who defy the selfish dying culture of the industrialized world. On the Great Plains and in the Southwest fertility rates are higher than in New England or along the Pacific coast. While recent political events have gratified some and traumatized others, the family movement is essentially spiritual rather than political. "The people who are having big families are explicitly rejecting materialistic incentives and hyperindividualism. It costs a middle-class family upward of $200,000 to raise a child. These people are saying money and ambition will not be their gods." As we hear the death rattle from Europe and post-Christian cultures, there still are voices singing "Gaudete!" And where those voices are, there you will find the true Christmas.

Fr. George W. Rutler