All of us want to be happy. It is a natural human response to life. We spend a great deal of our time pursuing happiness. The sad reality is that sometimes that pursuit leads us to sin.
That is certainly the case with King Herod. He searched for happiness in power and authority. He pursued his brother’s wife thinking she would make him happy. When his birthday rolled around, he looked for happiness in throwing himself a festive gathering. Sadly, his power and authority, his brother’s wife, and his birthday party all led to the same end – grave sin.
God wants us to be happy. Question and answer number four in the Baltimore Catechism tells us this plainly. “Why did God make me? God made me to love and serve God in this life and to be happy with God in the next.” Happiness is found in loving and serving God, not in living for ourselves.
The last two days have also featured readings from the Book of Leviticus. This book of the Hebrew Scriptures is not the most interesting. It is filled with the prescriptions of the Law of Moses which God gave him on Mt. Sinai. The two readings we proclaim from that book contain the directions for celebrating their faith in various feasts and observances. These feasts were times of great happiness for the children of Israel. This is another indication that God is not a sober and dour God. God greatly desires our happiness but knows that true happiness lies in the pursuit of a life with God.
In coming to the Eucharist today, we come in the pursuit of happiness. Jesus is the answer. Jesus is the fulfillment of our deepest desires. John the Baptist knew this truth and proclaimed it boldly to Herod and all who were seeking their happiness in practices and habits that will not lead us to happiness. As the great Teilhard de Chardin said: “Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.”
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator