Come Holy Spirit produce the fruit of joy in our souls.
“Why are you downcast, O my soul….Hope in the Lord, for I shall again praise Him, my Savior, and my God” – Psalm 42:5
We’ve all heard it before, but joy and happiness are different. Everyone has their own explanation about how to explain this, but happiness is more fleeting. Happiness is largely connected to external realities. It’s not in a bad way, but it’s more emotional. It’s a bit more fleeting. It comes and goes with circumstances.
Joy though is deeper than that. Joy is fundamentally rooted in our relationship with God. It’s an interior peace. It’s a contentment that comes when we are right in our relationship with God and right in our relationship with one another—the people in our family, the people we work with. There’s this sense that everything is right. It’s ordered. Even when the world is disheveled. The Spirit produces joy.
The reality is that a person can have a profound joy, and again, this distinguishes it from happiness. A person can have a deep and profound joy in the face of great difficulty. We don’t generally hear somebody say, he was so happy in the midst of suffering. But, how often have we heard people say of a person who battled illness, “she was filled with such joy that it was beautiful.”
Pope Francis spoke about this time and time and time again. He said that we as Catholic Christians need to be filled with joy. He said we need to stop looking like we’re always returning from a funeral. He actually used the word “sourpuss.”
Yeah. Catholics need to have joy and be filled with joy, and there’s something profoundly attractive, especially as things get more difficult in the world, about joy. Something about an individual who is dealing with difficulties and suffering and whatever, and does that in joy—there’s something so countercultural to that.
What is it? What is it about you? Because in the midst of this, you can have joy.
Joy is so counter cultural that it elicits discussion. People are surprised when they see joy where there shouldn’t be happiness.
I see that now looking back, God planted a seed of joy in the darkest days of my life. At my father’s funeral, when my soul was devastated and heart shattered, with tears rolling down my face, I cried out my brokenness at the loss of my dad and hero. And, from Heaven itself, I found myself saying, “…but, I know I will see you again.” THIS is joy. God gave me a joy in that moment that stopped my pain and grew over the decades ahead into hope.
The gift of joy is evident in the suffering writings of many saints – my patroness St Faustina for one.
Do you walk through life with a sourpuss look? Do your words sound like Eeyore?
If so, pray doubly for the gift of joy.
This is a gift that can infect the hearts around you and change the world.