God is a God of joy. And if Christianity is a religion of joy, it is essential because it directly shares in the joy that dwells in the Holy Trinity. Joy is like the air that reigns in God. We used to say that God is mercy, love, and peace. Under certain life circumstances, a person can understand the divine attributes that have been revealed to us with his heart. He experiences, for example, the paternal goodness of God, who takes care of his personal needs, or the mercy of Jesus Christ, who forgives his sins.
To enjoy joy, we must immerse ourselves in the atmosphere of the Holy Trinity. May God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit experience complete and perfect joy together thanks to the love with which they love each other. The perfect love that exists in God results from the mutual self-giving of the persons of the Holy Trinity. Because as soon as there is a gift, there is potential joy. In God this gift is complete, so his joy is complete. The Father is the joy of his Son when he gives himself completely to him. The Son is the joy of his Father when he also gives himself completely to him. They are each other’s joy. And to be able to imagine it, we can say that the explosion of love between them is the person of the Holy Spirit.
Despite the noble doctrine, the Holy Scriptures do not despise the simple joys of life. He knows the joy of a rich harvest or vintage, the joy that we are among brothers and can glorify God together, the joy of the birth of a child, and the joy that springs from the admiration of creation. Perhaps we are little aware of it, which is why the statement of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is still valid: “You all seem to me to be little redeemed people.”
Christian joy presupposes a person capable of naturally rejoicing. Human joys are pleasing to God. Let’s not forget to offer them to him to purify, sanctify, and intensify them. However, the discovery of true joy presupposes that we will be able to advance higher, that we will not stop at the horizontal level of the joys offered, but that we will find a vertical direction in them.
Because Christian joy is primarily spiritual joy. It is normal for it to radiate into all-natural and emotional joys. It is she who makes natural joys the true joys of the human heart. He who stops at human pleasures, however uplifting, without trying to connect them with their source, only verifies their transitory character. His desire for authentic joy will not be fulfilled.
Man is a being who desires, therefore he can know joy. He cannot live without her and is looking for her with all his might. Very often it is the desire for joy and happiness that inspires his actions and life decisions. However, man is primarily a spiritual being. God created him to live in union with him, therefore no joy can satisfy him. His heart will be filled only when he receives true joy, which the world cannot give, but which God gives to those who ask for it.
