CHRISTIAN JOY: GOD IS WITH US! | KAIROS GLOBAL | APRIL 2022

Author: Fr Fio SJ

Intro: Fr Fio Mascarenhas SJ explains Christian joy through the example of Him who lived it best – Jesus.

The title of this article, as proposed to me by the chief editor of Kairos Global, is the very same title given by St Pope Paul VI to his Apostolic Letter, published on Pentecost Sunday in 1975. It was on that day too that this Pope officially gave a solemn welcome and blessing to the 10,000 participants of the first Charismatic Renewal Congress present in St Peter’s Basilica, Rome, and serenely singing in tongues in praise of God. The Pope then personally met 6 leaders, one representative from each continent (I was privileged to be the representative for Asia), and said these wonderful words in his speech: 

‘This Renewal ought to rejuvenate the world, give it back a spirituality, reopen its closed lips to prayer and open its mouth to song, to joy, to hymns, and to witnessing ... Those who do not belong to your Movement should unite themselves with you, so that they too might nourish themselves on the enthusiasm and spiritual energy with which we must live our religion. For today, either one lives one’s faith with devotion, depth, energy and joy, or that faith will die out!’ (L’Osservatore Romano, 29-5-75).

Fulfilling these prophetic words of the Pope, millions of people today are living a spirituality of praise, because they know (not just theoretically but from a lived experience) that ‘God is with us!’ On the other hand, sadly, millions of the baptised who have not lived their faith ‘with devotion, depth, energy and joy’ have in fact lost it completely in recent years, and opted out of the Church, joining the post-modern ‘secular citizens’ of our world.

Our own beloved Pope Francis, of the same mind as St Paul VI, keeps telling the faithful of today:

‘Any Christian without joy is either not a Christian or she/he is sick. There's no other type! He/she is not doing well, health-wise! A healthy Christian is a joyful Christian. Joy is like the seal of a Christian. Even in pain, tribulations, even in persecutions...’ (Morning Mass, 22 May, 2014). 

But please notice the reason why a Christian can continually possess an unquenchable inner joy: it is because she/he has a genuine and ongoing experience of God’s intimate and personal love for her/him. This was the case with Jesus himself, as Paul VI put it in his 1975 Letter, On Christian Joy: 

‘It is necessary for us to understand properly the secret of the unfathomable joy which dwells in Jesus and which is special to him. If Jesus radiates such peace, such assurance, such happiness, such availability, it is by reason of the inexpressible love by which he knows that he is loved by his Father: "You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you." This certitude is inseparable from the consciousness of Jesus. It is a presence which never leaves him all alone. It is an intimate knowledge which fills him; it is an unceasing and total exchange. For Jesus it is not a question of a passing awareness. It is the reverberation in his human consciousness of the love that he has always known as God in the bosom of the Father.’

For us too, the charismatic Baptism in the Spirit is the current of grace (this definition was given first by Cardinal Suenens and now again by Pope Francis) which enables each of us to know experientially that ‘God is with us,’ that ‘I am truly loved by God at every moment of my life,’ and hence our joy does not come from worldly success or earthly blessings but from God the Father saying to us too, as he said to Jesus, our Model and Co-heir, ‘You are my beloved son/daughter, in whom I find my delight.’ So, our joy is a Christian joy! Pope Francis again has pointed out, ‘Joy is like the seal of a Christian:  even in pain, tribulations, even in persecutions.’

To quote from my recent book, JESUS LAUGHED – A Fresh Look at the Human Jesus, we must all make efforts to correct our wrong first impressions, that Jesus was ‘a chronically grim person!’ On the contrary, since he was being continually affirmed lovingly by the Father, I ask, how could Jesus NOT be a happy and cheerful Person throughout his life and ministry? 

So we must take ‘a fresh look’ at Jesus as our truly human brother. Did he laugh? Did he cry? Did he get angry? Did he enjoy being with people? Did he reach out to the needy? Did he experience great fear – when, and where, and of what? Did he have friends – both female and male? Was he dim-witted or intelligent? What about his character – was it a weak one, or was he a trustworthy leader of excellent character?

In our quest for the real flesh and blood Jesus, let us look with new insight at the many Gospel passages which we may have read before, but perhaps only superficially. Let us read them again, contemplating the scenes and entering into the feelings of Jesus as he interacted with the different persons mentioned, and so capture the richness of each Gospel encounter. 

As I explain in my book, an effective way of entering and personally taking part in any Gospel scene is to use St Ignatius of Loyola’s contemplative prayer-method called ‘Application of the senses’ or ‘Imaginative Prayer’ (Spiritual Exercises, nos. 121-126), wherein the person contemplating starts by imagining, as vividly as possible, an interaction with Jesus and/or the other characters of the biblical scene, even becoming one of them. In this imaginative participation, the mind engages the heart. The aim of this mode of prayer is to make the events of salvation ‘present’ to us, and thus to attain a direct experience of God’s love. Thus we will grow also in abiding joy.

We must remember too that the early Christian disciples were told by St Paul that a very important fruit of the Holy Spirit is - joy! (Galatians 5:22). Moreover, Jesus too had promised his disciples: ‘I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete (John 15:11). And in the context of the new evangelisation, let us remember that there is nothing less attractive in today’s world than a humourless Christian, the type that is mostly tight-lipped, judgmental, unsmiling, puritanical, who views light-heartedness as heresy. That is not wholesome Christianity! That is why Pope Francis has named his major encyclical, The Joy of the Gospel. Pope Francis also teaches:

‘If one doesn’t have a sense of humor, it’s very difficult to be happy... A sense of humor is fundamental to be able to breathe, because it is linked to the capacity to enjoy life, to be enthusiastic... A sense of humor also helps us to be in good humor, and if we are in good humor it’s easier to live with others and with ourselves...  A sense of humor is like the water that springs sparkling naturally from the source; one perceives life, movement’ (from his book, God Is Young). 

To conclude, let me insist, Jesus’ continual and intimate God-experience is what made him a truly happy and joyful person! He himself wanted this joy for every disciple when, at the end of his life, he prayed to the Father: ‘that they may have my joy made complete in themselves’ (John 17:13). Jesus is the model of Christian Joy, and we must all sincerely ask the Holy Spirit to give us too a continuing God-experience and make us like the happy Jesus, our Model!

Fr Fio SJ has authored 18 books as well as hundreds of articles, and visited 80 countries to preach at clergy retreats, Bible seminars, and leaders conferences. He was Chairman of the Catholic Bible Institute in Mumbai, and Chairman of ICCRS in Rome for two terms.