Joy

“Jesus said to his disciples: ‘abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.’” (John 15:9-11).

The Resurrection of Christ (detail) (Bloch)

So many times in scripture, Christ tells us that the road will be difficult.  Never does He say, come and float on a cloud to Heaven without any challenges.  Instead, He says – very clearly – the road to Heaven is long and hard and narrow.  He says that the only way to Heaven is to pick up a Cross and follow Him.  In fact, when you consider what the Catholic Faith offers to its adherents, it is clearly a miracle – not only that it survived for twenty centuries – in that it has flourished…  After all, when you decide to become a Catholic and really live your faith, what you are really doing is promising to suffer – nobly and for the purpose of atoning for your sins – for the rest of your life.

And the only way such a suffering is possible, is with faith in the comfort of the Holy Spirit…  Because Christ also tells us – after telling us to take up our cross and follow Him, that we should not be afraid…  And we have nothing to fear because God (as in God the Holy Spirit) is looking after us and is with us and is guiding us…

“Jesus said to his disciples: ‘abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.’” (John 15:9-11).

And there in that passage, Christ promises something else.  JOY.  He does not promise happiness, but something far deeper and more significant.  He promises JOY…

When Saint Therese of Lisieux was a little girl, she became distressed to know that not all souls are afforded the SAME amount of Grace.  So, one of her older sisters explained that a thimble full of water and a bucket full of water are both full.  How could either experience less joy.  Both were made to handle a different capacity, and both can be filled in that capacity.

And I have been thinking about that today…

Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “Let anyone who comes to you go away feeling better and happier. Everyone should see goodness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile. Joy shows from the eyes. It appears when we speak and walk. It cannot be kept closed inside us. It reacts outside. Joy is very infectious.”For there is such joy to be found in the act of being a child of God.  And when I feel that the suffering is too great for me to bear, I stand a little straighter and rearrange my crown, for I am the daughter of the King and my life is in His Hands – He the one who loves me more than I could ever know and more than I could ever love myself – He who suffered and died for me, to show me the way to Paradise…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.