Gaudium

A Small Joy

This is Panther. Panther is a small cat that has become a source of joy for our family. He is a brave cat. This morning he took up a defensive position and protected our home against a small dog. We were impressed. VVV

The Root of the Matter

Today was a rough day.  The news is not good and one can easily become discouraged.  It seems the center is collapsing and the Barbarians are winning.  The Pope is under attack for offering mercy to wayward sons of the Church.  A life destroying American politician who claims to be Catholic is received by Benedict XVI and he is attacked for both being too kind and for being too harsh. 

American Catholic Mass attendance has been at 31% for ten years - the lowest level on record. The American economic system has lapsed into socialism and no one seems to agree on who is at fault.   Rates of marriage and the number of children born to married parents continues to decline as the lands that once comprised Christendom continue their demographic suicide. 

Could things be worse?  Yes, honestly, they can be.  And, they might yet be worse. How do we live with so much that is wrong in the world?  We need something other-worldy, it would seem.  We need joy.

This blog is about joy.  I am not speaking of any kind of joy but of a special joy: the joy of Our Lord Jesus Christ!  He made promises.  One of His promises is recorded in the Gospel of John.  Consider the following words of Jesus:

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.  This I command you, to love one another.  "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.  (John 15:10-19 RSV)

There it is!  Jesus wants us to have joy!  What's more he wants us to have His joy!  Not only does He offer His joy, He offers a joy that is full! 

So it is resolved.  In spite of the difficulties in the world, in the culture, we are free to consider all things in view of joy - the gaudium - that Our Lord wishes us to have.  Everything is about Him!  Everything.  The Church is His.  The entire universe, the Holy Scriptures, Israel, theology, canon law, the precepts of the Church, the moral law, the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Saints, everything is for Him and for our joy.  This is the point of this journal. 

This journal is for Him and the gaudium He wants us to have!

Mother of God, pray for us.  St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle! 

VVV