I can’t believe it’s almost the middle of April. Lent is over and we just celebrated our Lords resurrection on Easter, the weather is warming up, flowers are blooming and new life is everywhere. This is the season of joy so what better time to explore the fruit of joy for our fourth installment of our “Fruits of the Holy Spirit series.”
The Greek translation of Joy is Chara, derived from the word Charis, which means Grace. Joy is often confused with happiness, but they are not one and the same. Happiness is an emotion dependent on an external situation and is fleeting and transitory, whereas Joy, as the etymology suggests, is of Divine origin, a grace seeded within us, flourishing in good times and in hard times. It does not waiver, for it is Spirit given and is the fruit of trusting God. When we trust in the Lord and in his ways, St. Thomas Aquinas states in his Summa Theologica that “the charity (love) of God is poured forth into our hearts by the Holy Ghost producing joy within us.” True joy is calm and peaceful, steady, energizing, life giving, and contagious. To sustain and cultivate joy, we must do as Jesus tells us; love one another as He has loved us.
Joy blossoms through acts of charity, selfless giving, and sacrifice. As Christians our prayers and sacrifices do not end because lent is over. We are called to continually offer ourselves in the service of God for the salvation of souls. Our daily sacrifices do not need to be grandiose. I think St. Thérèse of Lisieux offers one of the best ways to live out daily life and be filled with spiritual joy even in the face of suffering. She calls it the “Little Way” and is a simple approach to the spiritual life that seeks to do ordinary things with extraordinary love.
St. Thérèse had a burning desire to be a saint but when she compared herself to other saints, she knew she could not accomplish what they did. Instead of being discouraged, St. Thérèse trusted in God and believed that it was in her “littleness” that she could become a saint. In her autobiograhy she writes “I concluded that God would not inspire desires which could not be realized, and that I may aspire to sanctity despite my littleness. For me to become great is impossible. I must bear with myself and my many imperfections; but I will seek out a means of getting to Heaven by a little way—very short and very straight, a little way that is wholly new.”
St. Therese’s little way is the heart of the teaching in the Gospels. She took Jesus seriously when he said that we must be like children to get into heaven, completely dependent on Him and His grace. The two pillars for the little way are humility and trust. It guides us to accept and embrace each present moment as it is, encouraging us to immerse ourselves in our immediate surroundings, to offer up our small and mundane tasks to God, and to interact with those around us with kindness, compassion and understanding. St. Theresa made it a practice to not even defend herself when she was wrongly accused, accepting that God sent her accuser for her own sanctification and so the she could pray for her accuser. When we embrace each moment and all that it holds with humility and trust in God and when we are constant in our prayer life, go to mass and receive the sacraments, we will be filled with the joy of the Lord and on our way to sainthood.
“Holiness,” she said, “consists simply in doing God’s will and being just what God wants us to be.” -St. Therese of Lisieux
“Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God,” she said. “Do all that you do with love.” -St. Therese of Lisieux