What is joy? The catechism offers several explanations, sources of and impediments to joy; however, there isn’t a definition, at least one that I could find, of what or who it actually is. Mother Teresa’s definition below is awesome and one I’ve started to intentionally pray.
As we approach Lent, what is your disposition? Are you a glum Catholic counting the cost of sacrifice? Are you counting down the days until you can get on facebook, eat chocolate, check your phone whenever you want, text while driving, or break an intentional time of silence? We do not go to the desert for the sake of the desert. We go knowing it is the path from exile to freedom. We go in imitation of Christ.
I love to travel and if you asked me ten places I’d love to go. I can guarantee the desert ain’t in the top 50. That being said, I have to come to love the journey through the desert of the spiritual life. I love it not because it’s where I want to end up. Nor do I love it because it’s easy or comfortable. It’s neither. But if we let it, it is transformative, life giving, and beautiful.
In the beauty of the desert I have learned it is in enveloping darkness that the Light shines most brightly. It is in the resounding silence that we hear whispers that echo. It is in the emptying and stripping from harsh conditions that we cling to Our Protection, Our Lord and Lady. It is in the midst of the coldness where we hover around the fire of the Holy Spirit and it is in the midst of this unknown territory where we come to depend on our guides, the Holy Family and saints. Joy is the proclamation in the wilderness that the desert yields abundant fruit.
As we journey this Easter along to the way of the Cross, let us remember we embrace the cross because it leads to new life. “Pier Giorgio was not afraid to die because he knew that death is, ‘a very simple path,’ as he once said, ‘between life and Life, which must in any case never frighten us.” (Blessed Pier Giorgio: An Ordinary Christian, 100). It has been said that making a good Lent can be a storehouse of graces for the year. Let us let Him make us new and whole. Let us become joyful apostles who live bold hope and joyful courage.
Let us dare to dance in the desert.
Verso l’alto, K.G.R.C.
Dance, then, wherever you may be
Shining in the dark, I will follow you
We can Trust Our God. He knows what He’s doing.
How do you wait for Heaven?
“Joy is prayer – Joy is strength – Joy is love – Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. God loves a cheerful giver. She gives most who gives with joy. The best way to show our gratitude to God and the people is to accept everything with joy. A joyful heart is the normal result of a heart burning with love. Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of Christ Risen.
We all long for heaven where God is, but we have it in our power to be in heaven with him right now – to be happy with him at this very moment. But being happy with him now means: loving as he loves, helping as he helps, giving as he gives, serving as he serves, rescuing as he rescues, being with him twenty-four hours, touching him in his distressing disguise.” Mother Teresa
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