“What can bring us happiness,” many people say.  Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord.

These words, from one of the ancient Jewish Psalms which are also part of our Christian prayer, often come to my mind as I reflect on my own Christian journey and on what I might share with you as we travel the journey of our life and faith together within our Catholic tradition.

“What can bring us happiness?” This question, and the search for happiness which it highlights, is really at the heart of all the major decisions we make in our lives, both for ourselves and for others. The decision to marry, for example, and the openness to new life which is at the heart of every Christian marriage, are both at their heart a desire to give and to receive happiness, fulfilment, and joy.  They are decisions made in hope and with love. The determination of parents to have their children baptised and brought up in the Christian faith is the result of a desire to give their children the joy of knowing God and belonging to a community of Christian faith. The search of young people for a career and a pathway in life is the answer to their need to find meaning, to find contentment and fulfilment in life. The choice of some in our Catholic tradition to enter a seminary or a Religious Congregation is a response to a call they have experienced to make God the source of their joy. The list could go on, but behind every decision we make is the desire for what we perceive will be good for us - for what we believe will satisfy and fulfil us.

As each one of us looks back on our own journey of life with honesty, we will recognise that at times some of the decisions we have taken and the choices we have made have, in fact, not brought us happiness but rather the opposite. We will understand, too, that these decisions have also often brought suffering and disappointment into the lives of those we love, and into the wider society in which we live. Our search can go astray; our priorities can be confused; decisions can be destructive rather than life-giving.

For the Jewish people the answer to the question of what can bring us happiness was very clear and was framed in the form of a prayer: let the light of your face, O Lord, shine on us. In a way that those who in ancient times asked this question could never have imagined, God answered this prayer, and continues to answer this prayer, in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. As Jesus, standing in the upper room on the night of his resurrection, made Himself known to His disciples, the light of His face shone on their darkened and deadened hearts, and their despair was transformed into an unimaginable happiness. Tonight (today) the same Risen Lord stands at the door of our hearts, knocking. If we open the doors of our hearts and allow ourselves to see the light of His face dispelling of the darkness of our lives, we too will find the happiness for which we have been searching.

This has been, in ways known only to them, the experience of those among us who will tonight be baptised, received into full communion with us, or have their journey of faith in our Catholic community completed through the Sacrament of Confirmation. Somewhere, somehow, they have caught a glimpse of the light of Christ and have found the courage to follow that light until it led them here. They are, each one of them, a special gift to us tonight.

For all of us, no matter how long or short, how tranquil or troubled, our journey of life and faith has been, the Risen Lord’s gift of peace which he offered to His disciples is tonight offered to us.  It is a peace born of fidelity, a peace born of trusting faith, a peace born of our desire and our willingness to put Christ at the heart of our lives, not in order to push other things aside but to see everything - our loves, our joys, our challenges, our hopes and dreams, and yes, even our failings and mistakes - through His eyes, as the light of His face, the face of the Risen Lord, shines on us.

For tonight he looks into our eyes and says, “Peace be with you. Do not be afraid. I am with you. I have called you by your name. You are mine”.