Invincible Joy

First Things published a lovely tribute to “The Smiling Archbishop of New York” the other day, in light of the transition currently underway in the Archdiocese: Timothy Cardinal Dolan’s resignation was accepted by Pope Leo a couple of weeks ago, after more than 16 years of worthy service as Archbishop. His successor, Bishop Ronald Hicks of Joliet, Illinois, was appointed shortly thereafter, and will be installed in early February.

The hallmark of Dolan’s leadership, the piece notes, was his invincible joy. He was a man “larger than life,” free (and loud) in his confidence in the Gospel. “The smile and the laugh,” the article says, “were literally disarming to many.”

And many needed to be disarmed. In the wake of Vatican II, and again in light of the sex abuse scandals, confidence in and love for the Church were waning at the time the Archbishop was appointed. But not in the heart of figures like him, who noticed the moment, and who set themselves to the task of “more effectively, more winsomely,” presenting the faith to a world still so much in need of it.

The First Things piece isn’t a bad one to read this time of year – and not just because the Cardinal is a person worth honoring, at this significant moment for the whole American Church. Sunday is the great feast of the Epiphany, and there’s no small connection to be drawn there. The Church has spread across the face of the earth in ways unlooked for, and in times and places where no one would have thought it would – times and places even more remote and even more turbulent than New York in the back half of the twentieth century. Indeed today the Christian faith is more widespread and diverse than ever before, with serious populations on every continent. And, astonishingly, it’s made its unlikely way not mainly through force of arms, but by way of missionaries, witnesses, and people (like the Cardinal) of confident joy.

By all accounts such a faith shouldn’t have spread so far or so persistently – a religion that preaches “turning the other cheek” and loving one’s enemies shouldn’t have found a foothold among so many cultures. And yet it has, in a manner prophesied thousands of years ago, by that visit of a few men from ancient Mesopotamia to a poor child in a stable. They were a sign of what the Christ Child could mean, for every human heart, from every and any corner of the world – from Bethlehem to Mesopotamia to New York City.

So as Cardinal Dolan’s service as Archbishop draws to a close, it’s worth taking the lesson and meaning of his witness to heart. For it’s a lesson that reaches as far back as that encounter between a baby and three unlikely men: that this infant’s promise of salvation is worth staking our whole lives on – it’s worth risking ourselves for. For the joy to be found in meeting him is manifestly, invincibly, world-changingly real.