Joy

10/21/2013 Beatific Vision , God's Will , Joy , Vocations 0 Comments

While discerning whether to enter seminary, I was told that one's vocation is found where one finds peace, joy, and fulfillment (credit: Fr. Daren Zehnle).  Today I want to write about the 2nd component, joy.

Many people today define joy with something like having pleasure in whatever we are doing.  However, this is a very temporal, passing kind of joy.  True joy is found in following God.  Augustine distinguished temporal and eternal goods – the former are things like cars, books, food, and technology, the latter like, well, God and I suppose things like truth, grace, and love.  We will only come to true lasting happiness through desiring the eternal goods.

Many times in my different posts I have connected following God’s will to joy.  But in life we sometimes don’t feel too joyful.  Day to day life isn’t always fun, we have to work, study, and otherwise do things we just don’t want to do.  Suffering, illness, persecution, even death, are part of our lives, and they aren’t any fun either…

Thankfully though, there is an answer in Christianity.  (Seen in the responsory for evening prayer the other day):

I shall know the fullness of joy, when I see your face, O Lord.

Wait a second you say, that is just saying that we’ll find joy once we get to heaven - that’s great, but I’m not there yet. - What about right now?  Being Christian, and following God’s will, can transform our hum-drum, tough, sometimes sad lives into ones of joy.  We aren’t called to be stoic and just tough it out, Christ actually transforms all these negatives of our life into joy.  Don’t think I am advocating the Gospel of prosperity; being Christian doesn’t eliminate hardship, but it does transform it.
 

Take a look at this picture (which was made from the shroud of Turin, and is incredibly close many artistic depictions of Jesus.)  Here we see the face of our Lord, ripped to shreds, spat upon, beaten to a pulp, and yet there is a serenity, a peace, a joy.  Certainly the crucifixion wasn’t fun (that’s beyond obvious), but joy never left Christ because He was acting out of love, out of service to God, out of complete self-giving.  In the midst of our often painful life, never forget to look upon Christ’s face and find His joy.  Don’t get me wrong, the fullness of joy, absolute bliss, true happiness, is only found in God, in heaven.  But in this life, when we are unhappy, despondent, poor, sick, or despairing, look to Christ.  Connect your sufferings with His.   Know that the Resurrection always comes after death (when we die to self, out of love for God and others), and that God always brings a greater good out evil.  “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” – Matthew 5:11-12
 

This post isn’t exceptionally deep, or philosophical, but I found myself wrestling with the question of what happens when one is following Christ and things don’t turn out the way we want?  Probably you already know this, but that this is exactly what the Resurrection is all about.  Everything went wrong for Jesus, His life and death were not fun, yet joy is still there.  We will find the true fullness of joy in heaven, but even here on earth joy can still be ours when we follow Christ.  Joy is found not in success, but in service (to Christ).  Christ transforms suffering into victory and hardship into a way to grow closer to God.
 

In conclusion, look at Mary.  Her life was full of difficulty, pain, even fear, but she was also full of joy.  “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” – Luke 1:46-47 Notice that joy comes from Mary being a humble servant of God; this is what we must also strive for. 
 

I have an idea for a follow-up post on how exactly we follow God, but that may take a few days to do (it looks like it will be a very, very busy week, so we'll see).
 

Thanks for reading!  Give glory to God in absolutely everything!