Fight with Joy

originally: FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2010

Fight with Joy

"It is so dark in life. There seems to be no God at all. " I hear similar words echoed over and over in the letters people write me from all over the world. It might be experienced missionaries who have served for 20 years in a place, only to be disillusioned by their seeming lack of fruit. It might be a young guy struggling through family or spiritual wounds in life -or a young lady desperately trying to discern a vocation in darkness. But spiritual struggle comes to all of us sooner or later. Eventually when God sees that we are mature enough for unselfish love -pure love -real, sacrificial love -He hides His Face so that we can learn to search, to desire, to let go of all and everyone else in our quest to find Him and make Him our heart's first love. But in the midst of such darkness within the soul, when God hides His Fatherly Face, how are we supposed to react in our lives?

God does not want us to give in to the darkness, saying 'Woe is me!' Instead He wants us to look at His Faithful Love through the eyes of faith and hope -believing when we cannot see and hoping when we cannot hear -He wants us to rejoice in trust. I think that the greatest weapon God gives us in the midst of deep darkness within the soul is the gift and virtue of Joy. No, maybe we don't feel 'happy' in our emotions in such a state. But He wants us to allow the Holy Spirit (Who we cannot know by our senses, but Who we invite to live quietly within us) to birth forth His spiritual gift of Joy. And as He offers this gift to us, we have to use our little wills to go along with Him.

Joy is an 'act of Charity' as St. Thomas Aquinas would explain. And because Love is an act of the will and Joy comes from Love, then being joyful is something we can simply decide to live on earth, even in the Cross -especially on the Cross, the Epicenter of Love.

Did the people dying with St. Maximillian Kolbe feel happy and that is why they sang as they waited for death in Auschwitz? Or did they look in faith toward heaven and trust in the hope of the conquering Love of God and simply through this faith and hope decide to rejoice as they accepted the pains life dealt them? I think the latter is true. Although sometimes God gives miraculous graces to feel joy in the midst of suffering, most people are called to rejoice with Jesus on the Cross despite their contradicting feelings. And this decision to rejoice in trustful love is what makes Joy a powerful weapon. It says to God, 'I will forget myself and how I feel inside, and I will trust You and love others anyway.' It says to satan, 'No matter how you tempt me to despair, I'm happy because I'm God's.' St. John Bosco used to say, "The devil is afraid of cheerful people."

My brother Mike taught me early on during my time at Notre Dame (when I struggled never finding my place, not really having many real friends) that Joy is a decision. I needed to wake up every morning and decide to be happy and joyful. And as a Christian it is easy to do when we remember the Love of God that is always with us. "For what can separate us from the Love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?... For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35,38-39)

In the midst of great darkness the act of Joy can become a great light to others. In the midst of the greatest interior struggles in my life, I have learned to smile at Jesus and yell 'alleluia' even out loud -just to make the devil mad and to confirm in my own will that I want what Jesus wants -period -and I trust Him. The 'saints of joy' are my examples in this -for no matter how they suffered, they found a way to bring people joy because they loved. And when you walk into a room where there is a person who is sad or needing love -and you feel squashed within your own heart -but you decide to be joyful and force yourself to smile and speak kind words to them, somehow the Joy gives you a glimpse of the Light in your own heart as well. For Joy comes from the Holy Spirit -and when we are joyful, we are tapping into His presence singing within our hearts.

So, fight with Joy. The next time you feel steeped in depression in life or darkness in the spiritual life -look at God, wink at Him (even though you may not be able to 'see Him' clearly but through faith) and smile. Try to force yourself to be a happy person -it is a beautiful way of saying 'Fiat, Father -Fiat, Jesus -I decide to love and trust in You.'

And who knows, you just might make someone else happy along the way. +

(He made me really happy...)