A Message from Fr. Tony Cox
TO CELEBRATE WITHOUT GUILT!
We all love to celebrate. We have been doing it all our lives both individually and collectively and now, as we come to the end of yet another year of life at Penola Catholic College for 2022, our need is heightened. As we all have experienced and know deep down in our being, the very purpose of any celebration is to heighten and intensify the meaning of the event. (Birthdays, Weddings, major achievements, a Premiership, a Graduation, a Birth, a Death, the beginning and as we are soon to, an ending of an academic and relational year.) Each and every one of these occasions demand to be shared and their meanings broadcast all around.
But what does it really mean to celebrate? As human beings, yes, we do celebrate and often times It is to excess in certain areas and we pay the price later on but when we seriously reflect upon its meaning, to celebrate an occasion is to heighten it, to share it, to savour it, to enlarge it. On top of this, we celebrate in order to link or bind ourselves more fully to each other, to be even playful, to intensify a feeling of respect and appreciation, to bring ourselves even to a level of ecstasy in terms of life, living and relations and, possibly more acutely and commonly, just to unwind and to take a few deep breaths in and out to rest and appreciate the moment.
But being human and having endured great stress and grown through varying levels of angst and the like in the course of a day, a week, a month, a year.... perhaps it might be just the living and experiencing of the sheer delight of the occasion.......yes, the moment might overcome us as we celebrate. We have all fallen into this trap!
No matter what though, I think that there is one sector which we often forget in all of this! We are to celebrate all things in and of life. To help us along this way, we have a great example in Jesus, our Lord.
Jesus came and declared a Wedding, a feast, a celebration, at the heart of life. He actually shocked many people as much by the way he enjoyed his life as by the very way he gave it up. As we know, in the end, he was rejected as much for his message of enjoyment as for his message of level headedness and the sharing joyfully of life and relations. Generally, this is still true today. We do, don't we, or many people do, tend to read the Gospels selectively so as ignore Jesus' positive challenge to enjoy without feeling any guilt.
I think it is true to say that because we have never been and never are challenged religiously and in the name of Jesus, to enjoy, deeply and without guilt, the very human pleasures of our lives, our healthy, God-bestowed, need for pleasure and enjoyment tends to go and get buried underground. Yes, we still seek pleasure and enjoyment, but all too often we split it off from what is religious and holy and almost "rob God" rather than enjoy them purely, simply and religiously.
Like the many rich and lasting talents each and every one of us has been endowed with, let us individually and collectively, never forget the fact that God has given us permission to enjoy life and its pleasures. In a world that is increasingly becoming more and more individualistic (The "I"-phone era), this fantastic truth needs to become and always be a central part of our life and especially our religious teaching. Pleasure is God's gift to us all. It is not the forbidden red apple from the Garden of Eden!