December 17, 2006

Although it was more than thirty years ago, I remember as if it were yesterday the first time I approached the walls of Jerusalem. It was evening and they looked golden in the spotlights shining on them. The antiphon for the First Vespers of the Third Sunday in Advent sings "Jerusalem, gaude gaudio magno" (Jerusalem, rejoice with great joy) which is why this Sunday is called "Gaudete." The earthly Jerusalem is a symbol of Heaven itself, its beauty and history pointing to the glory of eternity, and its unrest and tensions reminding that in this world we have no abiding place.

The relaxed solemnity of this week in Advent, with rose vestments instead of purple, encourages pilgrims on their way through life, anticipating the approaching celebration of the Incarnation of Christ, whose joy keeps "leaking through" the penitential preparation for it. Anything less than the joy that God gives will not last for long. St. Paul speaks of the "darkened mind" that results from seeking only extravagant wealth, luxury and power (cf. Eph. 4:18-19). Artificial happiness is only "gaudy" and substitutes various kinds of Tinsel Towns for the true Jerusalem. Dorothy Sayers' mystery novel Gaudy Night is about a university reunion, and such feasts in the Oxford of which she wrote are called that in allusion to Gaudete. All the nice Christmas customs and festivities are part of Catholic life, perduring in our culture in spite of puritanical inhibitions and hedonistic excess.

In New York we can appreciate the vivid diversity of "all the tribes that go up" to Jerusalem. The Church on earth is the world's most successful unity of diversity. Ninety percent of the growth of the Catholic Church in our own country in the last generation has been due to the immigration of Latino peoples who now are 41 percent of the Catholic population. This past week 30,000 people processed in Los Angeles in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who in fact is the official patroness of all the Americas, North and Central and South. Vietnamese refugees have recently given a new dynamic to our Church's culture. Fleeing oppression, they have brought singular industry and devotion, and while they are still just one percent of the Catholic population, they comprise three percent of the 3,500 seminarians now studying for the priesthood in the United States. All races and nations have their own ways of expressing the joy of the Gospel, but all can speak of Jerusalem as their true home.

Humans, of whatever color or language, are the only creatures that weep and laugh for they are the only creatures in this world made in God's own image, able to share the sorrow of Christ who wept for the earthly Jerusalem and who rejoiced in the Spirit who gives us a heavenly city that cannot pass away.

Fr. George W. Rutler