The perfect Joy
A path of conversion and holiness
For the Christian, joy is not only an option, it is a duty. The Apostle Paul says it emphatically: “Rejoice in the Lord always; I tell you again, rejoice always” (Phil 4:4). This is not mere advice, but a command.
Table of contents
- Achieving perfect joy
- All on the road to happiness
- Joy, dark night and depression
- God is determined to make us happy
- Different sadnesses opposed to happiness
- Joy and conversion
For more information, see the book: Antonio Mestre, La perfecta alegría. A path of conversion and holiness.
Obviously, this would not make sense if it were not for the fact that the apostle is convinced that joy is indispensable for a full Christian life. But it also means that joy has to be worked for, because the joy we are talking about is not something that comes spontaneously: it requires, on the contrary, all our ingenuity and will, a deep faith and love for God and neighbor, a great hope in the divine promises, an absolute trust in the power of God the Father. In short, it is the perfect joy that Jesus Christ came to bring to the world.
The following considerations, apart from being a contribution to joy, want to show that joy is an authentic path of conversion and that this conversion is also a genuine path to holiness. St. Dominic Savio rightly said that “among us one becomes a saint by means of joy”.[1] Joy is thus presented as a touchstone on the path of our Christian life.
Achieving perfect joy
I want to insist on this by saying that striving to live perfect joy is a concrete and demanding way of living the Christian faith. “Whoever recommends joy recommends holiness”,[2] rightly says a contemporary author. For this reason, committing oneself to live in joy demands a real transformation.
The very essence of Christianity is the call to live in joy; to respond to this invitation is to respond to Christ himself. “Let no one consider himself excluded from this joy, for the reason for this joy is common to all,” says St. Leo the Great in one of his sermons on the occasion of Christmas. And he goes on to say: “Let the just rejoice then, for he draws near to his reward; let the sinner rejoice, for forgiveness is offered to him; let the pagan rejoice, for he is called to life”.[3]
God created us for life, that is, for happiness, and this is man’s deepest vocation. Everyone wants to be happy and this is the deepest longing of the human being. In a famous page St. Augustine observed how deep down we are all seeking to be happy. “Ask two people if they want to be soldiers, and perhaps one will answer yes and the other no; but ask them if they want to be happy, and at once, without hesitation, they will both say yes[4]
All on the road to happiness
Everyone is in search of happiness, but not everyone knows where or how to find it. Finally, it seems to me to be of the utmost value for the Christian to remember that holiness passes through joy. Hence, if we lose sight of the joy for which we were created, we will also lose the direction of our Christian life. It is a catechism truth: “Happiness must fulfill all the aspirations of man”.[5]
Here we will speak of spiritual joy. It is a reality in the innermost part of the soul whose source is in God himself. Now, as in all things pertaining to man, the spiritual and the corporeal go hand in hand. So, normally, inner joy will be experienced in the body; but this is not always the case. There will be times when the body (due to exhaustion, hunger, sickness, psychological stress and many other causes), will not cooperate with our joy.
Joy, dark night and depression
The great masters of the spiritual life have recorded situations in which, sometimes inexplicably, desolation takes hold of the soul. St. John of the Cross speaks of the dark night of the soul and also considers it a necessary purification carried out by God with a view to our good. [6]
The medical condition of depression could also be included here. It is true that there are life circumstances that manage to weaken the psyche in such a way that they result in a clinically asthenia. The possibilities of suffering great sadness and a decline of strength to the point of marasmus are not to be excluded. Nevertheless, we say – even to those who suffer from depression – that happiness is a possible path of conversion also in their case.[7] It is, of course, an arduous path.[8]
What did God create us for if not to be happy? God created me to be happy. It is a certainty of faith that accompanies my own experience. I feel within me the longing to be happy. And faith tells me that it is God himself who has placed this desire in me.[9] “God is the God of love and brought us into existence because he finds satisfaction in being surrounded by happy creatures: he made us innocent, holy, upright and happy.”[10]
God is determined to make us happy
St. Claude La Colombière imagines man – with his sin – telling God that he does not want to be happy and God replies: “I cannot please you in being miserable. I will be so insistent with you until you please me. I have to make you happy.”[11]
When we are sad, we are not only having a bad time, but we are spoiling God’s plan for us. When I insist on being sad and angry, besides not solving my problems, I end up hurting the people around me and that usually means hurting the people who love me the most.
As much as it may seem to me a great virtue to live sorrowful and depressed on this earth with the idea that when I get to heaven I will be happy, I must understand that sadness is not pleasing to God. Heaven, I say it again, is the place of those who know how to be happy. And that is learned on this earth. So we can understand the words of St. Josemaría Escrivá when he wrote: “I am more and more convinced that the happiness of heaven is for those who know how to be happy on earth.[12] Indeed, if I don’t learn to be happy today, now, I won’t be happy later. There is always something unhealthy in wanting to be down and sad.
Different sadnesses opposed to happiness
We must distinguish between a natural and logical sadness and an exaggerated and bad sadness. When I speak here of sadness, I am referring to this disproportionate and bad sadness that takes hold of us like a deadly epidemic. It is precisely this sadness that is the enemy of joy. I must therefore do everything in my power to prevent this sadness from taking over my life and therefore I must strive to live joyfully.
While these reflections are intended to embrace joy as the path to holiness, we would fall short if we did not speak of conversion. Conversion to joy implies renouncing sin. As the apostle James says (1:25): the truly happy person finds joy in what comes from God and puts his commandments into practice.
Perfect Joy and conversion
In short, this path of joy presupposes an authentic conversion. It is about taking the Christian life seriously. It does not mean having to choose between a life of pure joy and a life of pure suffering, but of living in joy without fleeing from pain. This is only possible by trusting fully in the power of God.
I must emphasize here that the Christian life is not a sad life. Practicing the virtues, exercising charity, serving one’s neighbor and all the effort to imitate Christ is not torture. God wants me to be happy. “There are many for whom life weighs on them like a burden. Some find it almost unbearable. But for the virtuous man, the only thing that makes life unbearable is sin”[13].
These words of Father Lovasik could be paraphrased by saying that, for those who truly desire to fulfill the will of God, the only unbearable thing is to refuse to live in perfect joy. Let us convince ourselves once and for all that, as the writer Leo Bloy said, “there is only one sadness: that of not being saints”.[14]
If you like this text and want to know more, you can purchase the complete book, in Spanish, on Amazon.
Antonio Mestre, La perfecta alegría. Un camino de conversión y santidad (Mexico, NUN, 2023).
Facultad de Teología de la Universidad de Navarra
Notes on The perfect joy
[1] St. John Bosco, “Vida de Santo Domingo Savio”, pte. 1, ch. 18, in San Juan Bosco: Obras fundamentales, edition prepared by Juan Canals and Antonio Martínez, Madrid: BAC, 1973, p. 186.
[2] Joseph-Marie Perrin, The Gospel of Joy, 2nd ed., Madrid: Rialp, 1962, p. 191.
[3] St. Leo the Great, “Sermon 1, on the Nativity of the Lord,” n. 1.
[4] St. Augustine, Confessions, 10, 21, 31.
[5] Roman Catechism, I, 12, 2.
[6] Cf. St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel.
Juan Antonio Vallejo-Nájera on the subject of Suffering and Joy
[7] The renowned psychiatrist Juan Antonio Vallejo-Nájera said that the suffering of the depressed is terrible and incomparable. Those who have not suffered it have no points of reference. To a certain extent, depression-illness is inexplicable. This disease, in many cases, pushes the depressed to torment those who love them most, and even reach refined ways to achieve it, so it is important for others not to be enslaved by the depressed. Nevertheless, for those who have understood that spiritual joy is not a state of mind or a vigor in sensitivity, joy is lived as donation, acts of love for one’s neighbor, acceptance of one’s own condition; in short, an act of trust in the power of God. The depressed person must know that he is sick and does not see things as they really are. Cf. Juan Antonio Vallejo-Nájera, Ante la depresión, Madrid: Planeta, 1987.
Depression is not a sin
Being depressed is not a sin, it is a suffering. And like all suffering, one suffers. But one can suffer with supernatural faith. In these cases joy will not consist in a sensation, but – as it is in itself – in a conviction. It is not possible here to give guidelines for cases of depression (which are otherwise different from one to the other). As we noted in the introduction, our text is addressed to the most ordinary cases. In any case, let it be clear that even in the midst of depression it is possible to choose interior joy as a path of conversion and holiness.
[8] Vital Lehodey, El santo abandono, Madrid: Rialp, 1996, mentions cases of a profound desolation experienced for many years, but mysteriously compatible with interior joy. Those cited are St. Jeanne-Françoise de Chantal and St. Alphonsus Ma de Liguori.
[9] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1718.
[10] St. John Henry Newman, “Sermon 14,” in Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. 7, London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1908, p. 192.
[11] St. Claude de la Colombiere, De l’amour de Dieu, IV, 306. Quoted by Georges Guitton, Perfect friend, London: Herder, 1956, p. 270.
[12] St. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, no. 1005.
[13] Lawrence Lovasik, The Hidden Power of Kindness, Madrid: Rialp, 2015, p. 11.
[14] “Il n’y a qu’une tristesse -lui a-t-elle dit, la dernier fois- c’est de n’etre pas des saints”: Léon Bloy, La femme pauvre, Paris: G. Crès et Cie., 1924, p. 388.
