Joy

Joy is the second component of the fruits of the Spirit.  But what is joy?  We could define it as harmony with oneself, the discovery of feeling satisfied.  True joy is a state of the soul, a spiritual reality connected to our spirit, to our interior, that gives a sense to our living.  True joy, if it is true and profound and also diffusive and is not able to remain hidden, shines from the eyes, from the face and is sensed by whoever is near.  It can also be defined as serenity of soul and it distinguishes itself from passing and false joys.  Joy does not depend on social class or cultural level, but can depend on the revelation received.  Joy pervades all of Scripture because ours is a God of joy.  Let us rejoice then in the Lord that is in us and that is an inexhaustible source of joy, regardless of the circumstances that we face.  Joy is the gigantic secret of the Christian (Chesterton).  With Jesus joy entered into the world.  John the Baptist leapt with joy in the womb of Elizabeth upon encountering Jesus in the womb of Mary.  The angel says to the shepherds: “I bring you news of great joy which shall be for all the people…today a Savior has been born unto you” (Luke 2:10-11).  During the three years of His public life, Jesus works miracles in order to give joy back to those that suffer.  At the Last Supper, Jesus says to the Apostles:  “You will have to suffer, but your suffering will turn into joy, a joy that no one will be able to take from you” (John 16:22).  The Gospel is totally pervaded with joy.

In fact, Jesus tells Luisa that the Word of God is joy and that he who listens to it but does not make it bear fruit with works gives it a black tint and soils it.  In John 15:11 we read: “I have told you these things so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be full”.  It’s obviously not about an external joy, but an intimate and profound joy of he who feels loved by God, a full joy, complete, a joy without end.  Again Jesus, speaking to Luisa, gives us a foretaste of this joy.  He explains to us how to find this endless joy: first of all, He desires that every creature be inundated with Faith, because trusting in Him, since He is Faith itself, He will lend Himself to help us according to our needs.  If the creature practices this Faith, almost swimming in it, Faith in return will infuse three spiritual joys in her heart:  the first is that she will penetrate the things of God with clarity and in doing holy things will feel flooded with joy, with such a bliss that she will feel as if saturated; the second is a boredom for earthly things and she will feel a joy for celestial things in her heart; the third is a detachment from everything and, through this, the heart will be inundated with a joy that emptied souls enjoy, who have their hearts so flooded with the love of God that the external things surrounding them make no impression.

In John 15:1-7 we read: “…He who remains in Me and I in him bears much fruit…If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you”.  What greater joy therefore exists if not that of obtaining everything one desires?  And we can, living as children of God.  Jesus even points out to Luisa that only one who lives in the Divine Will gives to God her kisses, her filial love, and God, for her, converts everything into joy, into defense, into her property.  He gives her, as her property rights, the infinite joy of His Paternity.  Therefore the creature, in feeling loved by God, experiences the greatest joy, honor, and glory.

This type of joy is not contrived, but it is the fruit of the Spirit that reigns inside of us.  It is a joy that illuminates even suffering, accepted as the Will of God: “I am overflowing with joy in all my tribulation” (2Cor 7:4).  Once again Jesus comes to our aid in clarifying this concept in Luisa’s diaries, speaking to us about the power of the Divine Will that knows how to change all things, where It shows everything as good and beautiful.  What’s more, with Its light, It beads together pains and shows them as rare and precious pearls, which enclose seas of joy and happiness.  So joy grows in the measure in which one participates in the sufferings of Christ.  Let’s imitate Jesus that, in the course of His Passion, didn’t feel tiredness in suffering so many pains.  In fact Jesus confirms that, during His Passion, each suffering would enkindle the heart to suffer more.  These are the ways of divine suffering:  in suffering and operating, one looks at nothing other than the fruit received from it.  Jesus, in His wounds and in His blood, saw nations saved, the good that creatures would receive; and His Heart, rather than experiencing tiredness, felt joy and an ardent desire to suffer more.  That is what helps us to understand that our suffering is a participation in the pains of Jesus: if we unite the suffering with the joy to suffer more, and if in operating, we don’t look at what we are doing, but at the glory that it gives God and at the fruit that we receive.

We can say that joy is a characteristic of the Kingdom of God, because (Rom 14:17) the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Spirit.  Jesus, always the great Teacher, happy to be able to communicate His happiness to the creature, in the diaries of Luisa indicates how to achieve it and says that one who lives in the Divine Will remains in possession of the perennial day that knows no night.  Everything is light for her.  Her properties are light, beauty, joy, happiness, because when the creature renders herself owner of sanctity and of divine happiness, all evils disappear and God has the joy of seeing the creature as happy as when she came out from His hands.  As the creature operates in the Divine Will, the three Divine Persons feel the happiness and the joy because they feel Themselves loved and glorified as They deserve.  The joy They experience is so great that They abandon Themselves in the arms of the creature and, squeezing her in Their arms, They rest in her and she rests in Them.  Blessed the creature that, living in the Divine Will, can make happy He who possesses the multitude of infinite joys and endless happiness.  A soul that loves God is His happiness because God feels the joy, the echo of His happiness in her and one who possesses the Divine Will as life is everything for God.  Joy, then, is born from love.  Naturally it’s about a diffusive love, from the Father to the Son and from the Son to the disciples; and one is a disciple of Christ when God can say to the creature: “She is our joy” because there is no joy more beautiful to God than the continuous love of the creature.  And what will not be the joy of the creature in being able to say:  “I am like my Celestial Father”!

Fiat!

Tonia Abbattista