Are*****You******Joyful?******

  • Thread starter Thread starter anon64350612
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Reuben_J said:
Even great saints, like Mother Teresa, did not experience God for long spell in their lives but still they would persevere on.
Click to expand...
Even now, all these years after she left us, many people still seem to be unaware that, for the last forty-nine years of her life, Mother Teresa was operating in a dark place, spiritually speaking. She had not lost her faith, but rather her confidence that God existed, and felt that her prayers were going unheard out into a great, cold void. We only learned this with the publication of her diaries after her death. And yet she bravely struggled on, living life as she thought Christ wanted her to do, even though she was unsure of His existence. This is practically the definition of the Existential brief: to soldier on in utter darkness, convinced of the worth of life and morality even when you are all but convinced that there is no God. She was a great heroine.
 
+JMJ+

Actually you guys have it all wrong. Nobody can live without joy. It is an absolute requirement for living as a human being. The question actually is, where are you getting your joy?
“Man cannot live without joy. That is why one deprived of spiritual joys goes over to carnal pleasures.”

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II–II, q. 35, art. 4, ad. 2
Click to expand...
 
+JMJ+
Reuben_J said:
It is not about expressing it. Joy is within you. It is you, what you are.
Click to expand...
I completely disagree, but that doesn’t mean we must be smiling all the time.

Read the Scriptures, how do people there rejoice? They always act: they sing, they dance, they jump, they pray, they feast, and other things.

But then we were told to “Rejoice always.” That is why I interpret that to mean “make each and every conscious act be a rejoicing,” as I posted elsewhere. And this is my commitment to myself.

When I work, I make it a rejoicing. When I play, it is a rejoicing. When I clean up or make a mess, it is a rejoicing.

Every finger tap I make on my keyboard right now is a rejoicing.

Even just sitting down, or doing nothing, or looking around, or even breathing, is a rejoicing.

So far it has been filling my life with joy!
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top