May 26th, 2025
Gaudete et Exsultate blog series: Chapter 4
Onward and upward! We're now on to Chapter 4 of Gaudete et Exsultate, "Signs of Holiness in Today's World". And since this is the 4th of 7 total posts in this series, we're officially more than halfway done! Thanks again for reading along. Sorry that this post is delayed a week - we had both a medical situation, as well as some family stressors, which required my patience and yours.
Key Themes
After the last chapter focused on the timeless, scriptural wisdom of the Beatitudes, in this chapter Pope Francis writes about some spiritual attitudes that go above and beyond the obvious - rather than just discussing, e.g.going to Mass and receiving the Eucharist, here he talks about how to respond in a holy way to the world we live in today.
- Challenge: "A sense of anxiety, sometimes violent, that distracts and debilitates"
- Response: Perseverance, patience and meekness
- Challenge: "Negativity and sullenness"
- Response: Joy and a Sense of Humor
- Challenge: "The self-content bred by consumerism"
- Response: "Boldness and Passion"
- Challenge: "Individualism"
- Response: Life in Community
- Challenge: "All those forms of ersatz spirituality – having nothing to do with God – that dominate the current religious marketplace"
- Response: Life in Constant Prayer
The first part, regarding anxiety, provides the key to the rest and was deeply relevant for me. Pope Francis reflects on how we can respond to trials, rejection or other stressful situations. We must, he says:
recognize and combat our aggressive and selfish inclinations, and not let them take root. ... When we feel overwhelmed, we can always cling to the anchor of prayer, which puts us back in God’s hands and the source of our peace. (114)
He contrasts inner strength with violence. Self-control might look foolish to those who are seeking raw power, but being able to control myself is a truer measure of my power than controlling others. He discusses how control over my tongue, and even the critical or judgmental faculties of my mind, is a prerequisite for charity. (116-117)
Just like I endure the pain of a workout in order to gain physical strength, so I will need to accept humiliation as the means to gaining humility, which here means not thinking more highly of myself than others. If I think too highly of myself, I'd lash out in response to pain, failure, etc. (118-119) To be sure, this meekness does not mean complete assent to suffering, like the Pope has said before. It's not that I should want humiliation, but I can knowingly accept it, both from God and from people. (120)
The next 2 responses are linked to the first. Living in God's peace, and limiting my egotism, will allow me to open myself to both "supernatural joy" (125) and to truly enjoy the real pleasures and happinesses that God provides as gifts along the way (126). And removing fear of failure and fear of looking stupid will make me bold and free me from the need to cower in various safe havens, like addiction, isolation and rigidity (134). The Pope proposes a vivid image:
True enough, we need to open the door of our hearts to Jesus, who stands and knocks (cf. Rev 3:20). Sometimes I wonder, though, if perhaps Jesus is already inside us and knocking on the door for us to let him escape from our stale self-centredness. (136)
The Pope also encourages me to fight back against consumerist self-use and use of other people by living in community - that is, deliberately living close to others, especially those who are weak or in need (145), and creating structure of mutual dependence. Community means sacrificing goals based in my pleasure or ego for relational goals (146).
Lastly, the Pople passionately reproposes the ideal of constant prayer as the means to all of the above. Prayer is "openness to the transcendent" (147). He encourages a practical means to this ideal: "Gazing on the face of Christ" (151), and thinking about his life, death and resurrection. If this reflection on Jesus' face isn't sparking movement towards healing and grace right then, he suggests imagining his wounds, and the loving heart that would accept that kind of pain for my sake.
Some thoughts of my own
A related thought on humility and humiliation
In his wonderful short book "Humility", Fr. Andrew Murray reflects on how we often think of being humble as something I need because I sin - as if I could be independent of God if only I kept the law! Instead, Murray reminds me, since sin is separation from God, "it is not sin that humbles most, but grace, and the soul...occupied with God in His wonderful glory as God, as Creator and Redeemer, that will truly take the lowest place before Him". In other words, being united with God requires letting go of my clinging to any exaltation other than him.
When reflecting on the last chapter, I found it helpful to reframe "mercy" as bigger than "forgiving sin". Similarly here, I find it's helpful for me to reframe "humiliation" as bigger than "having my sins and faults exposed". In fact, humiliation is anything that reminds me of my smallness, or my lack of control - even where I'm not at fault at all for those facts. I will, of course, need to accept some shame, since I am a flawed person. However, I can also be "humiliated" without any shame, for example when I accept my need to ask God for grace in order to pray. I'm moving forward as I let go of other sources of security or peace than God (121).
Prayer as a state of mind
With St John of the Cross and other saints, Pope Francis reminds me that I can pray throughout day-to-day activities - while eating, talking with others, serving their needs, or while doing anything. (148) Of course, there are also activities which are more traditionally associated with prayer, like the Rosary or Lectio Divina.
It seems to me that just as I can pray without speaking to God, I can also speak to God (or read about God) without praying! Prayer isn't an action, it's a state of mind, or more formally a "disposition". The way this disposition is defined is by openness - openess to God's love and the Spirit's active word.
Evangelism and the family
Pope Francis refers to boldness as parrhesia, which he describes as "freedom of a life open to God and to others" (129). It strikes me that within a community, having many who start a family is one of the signs of this boldness. After all, doesn't it go together, to say on the one hand, "God has told me his good news and shared with me his good gifts, and I want to share those with you", and on the other hand, "I want to fall in love, make new people, and share all the good gifts I have with them"?
Sincerely,
David Smedberg