VATICAN CITY, DEC 22, 2005 (VIS) - Made public yesterday afternoon were the words pronounced by Benedict XVI at the end of a concert given in the Sistine Chapel on December 20 by the “Cappella Musicale Pontificia,” also known as the Sistine Choir.

“On the night the Savior was born,” the Pope told members of the choir, “the Angels announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds with the words: ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra Pax hominibus.’ Tradition has always held that the angels did not simply speak as men do, but that they sung and that theirs was a song of celestial beauty revealing the beauty of heaven. Tradition also holds that choirs of unbroken voices can help us to feel the resonance of angelic song. And it is true that in the music of Sistine Chapel, in the great liturgies, we can feel the presence of a celestial liturgy, a small taste of the beauty by which the Lord wishes to communicate His joy.

“Indeed, praise of God calls for song,” said the Holy Father. “For this reason, your contribution is essential to the liturgy; it is not some marginal adornment, quite the contrary, the liturgy requires this beauty, it needs song in order to praise God and to bring joy to the participants.”

The Pope concluded: “I would like to thank you with all my heart. The liturgy of the Pope, the liturgy of St. Peter, must be an exemplary liturgy for the world. You know that today, through television and radio, many people all over the world follow this liturgy; from here they learn … what the liturgy is and how it must be celebrated. That is why it is so important, not only that our masters of ceremonies show the Pope how to celebrate the liturgy well, but also that the Sistine Chapel should be an example of the beauty of song in praise of God.”

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light. … They said to him then, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, `Make straight the way of the Lord.’”

John I:6-28

The calendar is forever cheating us with false pserpectives. In the Sunday Gospels of Advent, so much stress is laid on the position of John the Baptist that we imagine him, in the back of our minds, as preaching already beyond the Jordan when the shepherds found their way to Bethlehem — Actually, he was only a child six months old. So short an interval was there between the world’s repentence and the world’s redemption.

What we are meant to see, dramatically, is the world at its best, not at its worst, when Christ came. The Baptist’s mission crowned, apparently, with success; all the social inequalities of the age being ironed out; food and clothing shared equally between rich and poor; taxes no longer exorbitant; public justice no longer tyrannous. … All that is the picture that emerges from St. Luke, a Utopia in the making. And the man who has so gripped the public consciece is not satisfied for a moment — All this is only a beginning, only a preparation for something higher yet, the Kingdom of Grace. To be content with this is to mistake shadow for reality.

Christ did not come into a self-satisfied world. The public conscience which responded, in Judea, to the Baptist’s appeal is reflected at Rome, at the very heart of things, by the campaign of the Emperor Augustus for a reform of morals. It is reflected in the State-inspired literature of the day, a passionate sighing for the primitive virtues. … In a world torn by civil wars for more than a century, people were longing for a clean slate.

Because they thought all was well with them, after John the Baptist’s purge, a multitude of his hearers missed the hour of grace. He had warned them, but they could not see it. A point to be remembered when so many of us are so deeply concerned to providing a clean-up of public morals, or of our own, with grace left out.

Most people would consider illogical the quotation of Richard Whateley, a teacher of logic in the University of Oxford in the 19th century: “Happiness is no laughing matter.” He makes much sense if you understand that he speaks of happiness as a blessing not to be trivialized or treated as nothing more than a passing feeling of pleasure. True happness, which is joy, consists not in having what we want but in having what we ought to want. So joy transports the souls even beyond laughter to ineffable serenity and radiance.

In Juadaism, moral good consisted in justice: in obeying the divine commandments and reaping the rewards for such obedience. In Greek philosophy, morality was the attainment of wisdom. Christ is the Just Judge desired by the Jews, and He is the Wisdom from on High desired by the Greeks. But He is more than that. He hmself is the source and object of our happiness. For this reason, Christian morality is primarily focused on happiness, more than behaving justly and wisely. This, as St. Paul attests, is why the Jews were scandalized and the Greeks thought absurd the Gospel of Christ.

A puritan may lead a wholesome life, but his moral life contradicts Christ if it desires anything less than eternal happiness. St. Augustine says that happiness is not attained just in fleeing evil, but in reaching God. There are no sad saints, but sadness is a contagion of puritanism and libertinism alike. To say that saints are not sad does not mean they are remote from suffering. Their heroic virtue subjects them to the deepest pain in a vicious world. But their focus on Christ is a ballast and balance in the spiritual warfare, and in their deepest desolation, they do not lose Jesus.

The Third Sunday of Advent is called ‘Gaudete Sunday’ because it bids the Church to rejoice: “Gaudete in Domino semper” (always rejoice in the Lord). Selfishness inevitably is degrading and saddening becauseit locates happiness in the transitory ego. St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Sadness, as an evil or vice, is caused by a disoredered love for oneself which … is the general root of all vices” (Summa Theologica, II-II, q.28, a.4, ad.1).

The approaching Christmas season inevitably evokes nostalgia and memories of loved ones which can sadden if the soul neglects Christ as the giver of all eternal life and unending joy. Cranking up Christmas carols out of season and wasting time and money in a frenzied social whirl are recipes for sadness, as they distract from the mystery of how Christ came into the world to save us from eternal death. In The City of God, St. Augustine describes the moral choice between eternity and truth and love, on the one hand, and self-gratification, on the other: “There is no good capable of making any rational or intellectual creature happy except God.”

Related stories: Gaudete Sunday; Lætare Sunday.