Tuesday Week 3 OT Catholic Schools Week January 27, 2026
Fr. Alexander Albert Vermilion Catholic, Abbeville
“Then David came dancing before the Lord with abandon.” When is the last time you danced with abandon? The last time you got so excited about something you completely let loose and celebrated without caring about how you looked or what others might think? I don’t often let loose in that kind of way. I think of the first time I got a deer while hunting and I simply shouted with joy right there on the spot. I think of running down the sideline for the game-winning interception at last year’s championship. I think of a handful of times I got unexpected good news about a loved one. I suspect a lot of people would point to moments like that, moments of sudden victory or success, a kind of surprised by joy moment that flows immediately into celebration. Men who first find out they’re going to be fathers, parents who receive news that they’re about to become grandparents, military family members when their loved one returns from overseas… that kind of thing.
But King David? Not even becoming king makes him that excited. The one thing that rises above all others is this moment we’ve just heard about, the moment that God himself enters the city of Jerusalem. Not that it’s wrong to be excited about all that other stuff. Indeed, a healthy human being should joyfully celebrater all kinds of things. But it is an interesting thing to consider: are we more excited about unimportant things than about the important ones? I’ve heard women complain that their husbands were more excited about a superbowl than their own wedding or the birth of their first child. I’ve had some amazing encounters with God that made me weep with joy, but I’m not sure I’ve danced with abandon for them like for a state championship. Are these things a signs that we maybe care too much about good earthly things and not enough about better heavenly ones? Can we learn to celebrate the small human things a little and the big divine things even more?
King David, God tells us, is a man after his own heart. Indeed, the part of the story we don’t see today is that David’s wife sees his reckless celebration and mocks him for it, so God punishes her for mocking David’s joy. There’s something right about King David’s heart, something about his attitude towards God that makes his joyful celebration not only good, but sacred.
It’s the heart that matters here. No one who dances with abandon does that because they planned it. It’s kind of part of the definition of “with abandon” that you aren’t posturing or consciously choosing your actions. That kind of instinctive overflow of joy is more like a reflex. And that kind of reflex, the reflex of the heart? That is the result of a lifetime of conscious decisions so consistent they become instinct, second nature, character. David is a man after God’s own heart because he spends his whole life choosing the heart of God, choosing to set his heart on God. So, later in life when the ark of the covenant enters his city, decades of habit, decades of prayer, decades of lovingly studying and listening to God’s word bears fruit in an automatic, instinctive, and truly holy response to dance with joy before the Lord.
Look, I’m not saying we should all break into wild dancing at every Mass. Indeed, that would not be appropriate because there are different contexts for different kinds of celebration. But I am saying that, if you never feel joy over a sacred thing, if you never get excited about holy stuff… then you should re-evaluate your heart… ask yourself if you are a man or woman after God’s own heart.
Which, of course, is what Jesus is getting at in the Gospel. Who are my mother and brothers and sisters? “Whoever does the will of God.” Whoever does the will of God so consistently and for so long that they become like blood relatives to him, that their hearts start to share the same DNA as Jesus’ heart. Jesus’ heart? It weeps in the face of sin and rejection, it is moved with compassion at the sight of those in need, it is elated at the chance to share Passover with his disciples.
That’s it! That’s the goal of discipleship! That is the goal of a Catholic education. To form boys and girls into men and women after God’s own heart. To cultivate the habits and virtues of Christ so fully that they not only rejoice in all the natural goods of this life, but that they become the kinds of men and women who also feel genuine joy and celebration in the face of holy and sacred moments. Even if we never literally run around the church to celebrate, some part of us should get to the point where we are actually more excited about holiness than about championships… more excited about holiness than even something as profound as having a child. To love God with reckless abandon doesn’t mean we stop loving good things on this earth, it just means that we love God and the things of God even more.
St. Angela Merici understood all this. It’s why she rejected the offer to marry a rich man. Not that getting married would be wrong, but she preferred instead to give her life directly to holiness, to become a religious sister and dedicate her life to serving God by serving his people. She founded the Ursulines, who were the first group of religious sisters to become teachers. She and her fellow sisters gave their lives to the goal of Catholic education. Like the many sisters who have given their lives to this school and this community, Angela Merici sought to be a woman after God’s own heart and to form young girls into women after God’s own heart.
St. Angela once wrote that she wants us to “keep to the ancient way and custom of the Church, established and confirmed by so many Saints under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And live a new life.” We inherit that “ancient way and custom,” we walk in and continue that tradition of Catholic education. And the goal is the same, to live a new life. What’s new about that life? That we live as brothers and sisters of God himself in Jesus Christ, that we, through practicing virtue and steady spiritual education, become the kinds of men and women whose greatest joy in this life is like King David’s: the joy of receiving God himself into our homes, our lives, and our very hearts.