CHARITY AS JOYFUL LOVE
Faith is a personal encounter with the Risen Lord, and its center is the death and resurrection of Christ. The main external argument of believers in Christ’s resurrection are the appearances of Jesus to the disciples. For many believers, a rather convincing argument is the incredible change that took place in Jesus’s disciples: before the resurrection, they were very sad and scared; after the resurrection, they became incredibly courageous and joyful, that is, Easter People.
What is Easter? Easter means “to live from the resurrection” (Bonhoeffer), to live our life with courage and gladness. Truly, Easter is joy, a joy that - as Jesus said - “no one will take away from you” (Jn 16:22).
We imagine the two disciples of Jesus on their way back to Emmaus from Jerusalem: Jesus had died: they are deeply sad. They had a reason to be sad: they believed Jesus was dead. Therefore, the end of the story. Period. What is bad is that those who believe that Jesus rose from the dead are sad (J. L. Martin Descalzo).
Certainly, “There is little use telling people that Christ will bring them joy …, if our own lives are gloomy” (W. Barclay, In Jn 4:43-45). Christians who are sad, Bonhoeffer says, have not understood the Resurrection, the joy of the resurrection! “It is impossible to be sad in the presence of the Risen Lord” (Schillebeeckx). No wonder, the monk and theologian Evagrius Ponticus (4th century), following the Desert Fathers, added to the traditional seven capital sins, the eighth capital sin, that is, sadness, which is the contrary of joy.
We all know that the core of Jesus’ preaching is the Sermon on the Mount, and that the heart of the Sermon are the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are “eight forms of happiness” (J. M. Cabodevilla). Some love to add a ninth beatitude for us: Happy are those - Jesus says to Thomas -; happy are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe (Jn 20:29).]
Mary disciples of Jesus rejoiced when they saw the Lord (Jn 20-20). The joy of the disciples who witnessed the Ascension of Christ: “As he blessed, he left them, and was taken up to heaven. They fell down to do him reverence, then returned to Jerusalem filled with joy” (Lk 24:52).
The community of the first disciples rejoiced! The converts by Paul and Barnabas “were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit” (Acts 13:52). After baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch, Philip was snatched away by the Spirit and disappeared, “but the eunuch continued on his way rejoicing” (Ac 8:38-39). The jailer of Paul and Silas in Philippi rejoiced with his whole household after having received the gift of faith in God (cf. Acts, 16:33-34).
Following the apostles, the true disciples of Jesus through the ages believe in Christ’s resurrection, which is pure joy: Joy to the world; joy to you and me. All the saints are joyful: “The greatest of their gifts was their smile.” Thanks be to God, because we believe in the resurrection of the Lord. We are - we ought to be - joyful: joy is “the daughter of happiness” (Fray Luis de Granada); and the smile, an expression of joy - like the Alleluia.
How did the first Christian communities experience Christ’s Resurrection? The first Christian communities celebrated the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus through one whole night and the dawn of the following day. We are told that many nonbelievers were waiting for them in front of the place where the Christians celebrated the long Vigil and Easter Day. What for? To see the radiant expression of joy on the faces of the Christians. In fact, their boundless joy, St. Augustine tells us, converted many unbelievers to the Risen Lord.
We are God’s creatures, and God’s Creation rejoices: “The hillsides are wrapped in joy, the meadows are covered with flocks, the valleys clothed with wheat; they shout and sing for joy” (Ps 65: 12-13). Yes, Isaiah chanted, “the Lord is my salvation… Sing praises to the Lord… Sing for joy” (Is 12:2, 5-6). The prophet cried out to God: “Though the tree does not blossom…; though the flock is cut off from the fold…, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will exult in the God of my salvation” (Hab 3:17-18).
How may we, believers in the Risen Lord, not be joyful? Joy, or true satisfaction and delight, is an effect of charity. It is a quality in the lives of good people, of believers, in particular of authentic Christians. We believe that God is One and Triune, one God and three divine persons: God the Father is our creator and power; God the Son, is our saviour and redeemer (of the whole humanity), and God the Holy Spirit, our grace and advocate. Joy is one of the fruits and blessings of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22).
No one is as happy as an authentic Christian (Pascal). Are there many authentic Christians? I hope so. This is the reason why some of our brothers and sisters add to the Ten Commandments, the eleventh commandment: “Be joyful.”
I was in Rome and in the Vatican on February 14 to 24, 2013. I was able to attend the last Angelus of Pope Benedict XVI. From the window of his apartment, the then Pope told us - a crowd of around two hundred thousand people - to be faithful and joyful. In his last twit as Pope, Benedict XVI wrote: “May you all experience the joy of having Jesus as the center of your life.”
What is the main cause of Christian joy? God’s love: God loves us. In spite of our sins: God the Father loves us, God the Son heals us, and God the Holy Spirit strengthens us with divine grace and joy (cf. Lk 15:10). True love or charity – a share of God’s love in us - is the main source of real happiness and joy. Indeed charity – or love of God and of all neighbours - causes real joy, which is an effect of charity withy peace and compassion. Charity is rooted in grace, which is a limited but real participation in God’s divinity.
But, a difficult but: how may we be joyful when suffering comes to hurt us? Suffering is part of our life: we all “carry the wounds of Christ”; we all bear our personal cross. But suffering is not directly opposed to joy (someone said that the opposite of joy is resentment). However, dis-ordered or not well integrated suffering does hurt the lovely virtue or good habit of joyfulness or gladness.
We have to realize that the key word that gives meaning to our life is love, not the cross; and love is joyful. And love, which is patient, can make suffering bearable, light - and even joyful, although this is less common as the Saint of Ávila tells us. Disciples of Jesus through the centuries, when persecuted and martyred, were and are “full of joy” (Acts 5:41)
Like other saints, St. Catherine of Siena loved the cross, which she considered as the most perfect fountain of happiness: “May we suffer then with a great joy, because serving Christ is sweet.” St. Teresa of Avila rejoices in her sufferings – “sweet wounds,” she calls them. For a soul in love, a “dark night” becomes a “happy night,” and united to God in love she is in festive mood with a great joy from God, with a new song, always new and wrapped up in gladness and love”; ”being disturbed is never of any help” (St. John of the Cross). Our proclamation of the Gospel will be credible in the measure of the happiness we have (Martin Gelabert). The Acts of the General Chapter of the Dominican Order of (Ben-Hoa, Vietnam, 2019) proclaims: Our first testimony is our joy in God, in the Gospel and among ourselves..
In our life, joy and suffering are mixed. In the life of St. Dominic, for instance, his tears of joy and of suffering are mingled, but he always had spiritual joy. The way of the cross is the path to our resurrection: there is no Easter Sunday without Good Friday. Like Christ’s, our cross is a victorious cross. Jesus’ death on the cross was “a death of reconciliation and love, a death that leads to the resurrection and to life.” In a similar way. “The Christian does not die to stay dead, but to rise. Death does not have the last word” (José Antonio Pagola, Jesucristo).
We are pilgrims of hope on the way to our resurrection. Our life is a journey to our Father’s home, a pilgrimage of faithful, loving and joyful hope. St. Paul encourages us: Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer” (Rom 12:12). Faith, hope and love pray. The Oriental Master says: “Just show us your face and we will know if you are inhabited by joy.” We are Christ’s disciples. We are citizens of heaven.” “May we be faithful, like the laborers who received five and two talents and thus have joyful love here and hereafter: Come and share your master’s joy” (Mt 25:21-23).
The poet and mystic Rabindranath Tagore writes: I was sleeping and dreamed that life was joyful; I woke up and saw that life was service; I began to serve and saw that serving was joy
We Are Easter People and Alleluia Is Our Song. Alleluia, That Is, Praise the Lord
And to close. Saint Francis prayerfully sings:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace / Where there is hatred, let me sow love …/ And where there is sadness, joy. (FGB)