Get Real about the Christian Life! It's not Candyland!

Joy, fear and suffering represent the trilogy of the Christian life. We would all love it, wouldn't we, if every moment of our lives found us bubbling over with joy? Maybe some people have that expectation about the Christian life. Surely the prosperity gospel reeks of it; but it's a fairytale! There is no happily ever after this side of the veil at least as the world defines it. Everlasting joy will come only for those who love the Lord and persevere until the end. But to expect Easter joy without the passion and cross here on earth in our daily life is a pipe dream. Unless, of course, we embrace God's will in all its fullness and come to recognize joy in fear and suffering. Some of the saints surely did that; but how many of us even come close?

Thought for Thursday: Embrace "Courageous Happiness and Inner Peace"

I'm reading The Tumbler of God: Chesterton as Mystic. I've barely begun, but even in the introduction there are gems to be mined. This caught my attention this morning:

One of the tests of sanctity is said to be a contagious happiness and inner peace. Chesterton had his share of sorrows and of illness and his darker moments; but more than most people he was imbued with a kind of unpretentious beatitude that tended to convey itself to those around him. The writer Franz Kafka said of Chesterton, "He is so happy one might almost think he had discovered God." Indeed he had, and he was doing his best to live in the light of that discovery. What was his "secret"? It was to love the splendor of the real, and to live in adulthood the innocence and wonder of the child who sees everything for the first time. The Gospel tells us we must become again like little children in order to enter the kingdom. Chesterton shows us how.

Thinking about Joy

Reading Evangelii Gaudium has me thinking about joy. And thinking about joy always sets me thinking about the theme of joy in classical music. Mozart, particularly, puts a smile on my face with his compositions of joy. Exultate Jubilate is one of my favorites.

Russian coloratura soparano Julia Lezhneva gives us an idea of what the angels in heaven must sound like as they sing praise to our wonderful God!

Exultate! Rejoice! Jubilate! Be glad!