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The Joy of Life

Take your pick and choose which one is divine. Silly, humorous, comedic, happy, playful, or joy? You have six to choose from but unlike my Sunday sermon last week there’s not seven but six. So, take your pick.

It’s the sixth of my list, joy. Joy is heaven given and divinely sustained. It’s the cancer that eats away at your life and you find yourself amazingly embracing joy from God. Humor is what you share with friends so they don’t worry about you. Humor is our public face but joy beats away inside your heart.

“I never promised you a rose garden,” sings the song but God promises and infuses our lives with God’s unbending virtue of joy. If joy were a person named Joy, who would she be? Would she live far away and only visit you on holidays and your birthday? Or, would she be the renter living above you? Or, a welcoming neighbor with no fence dividing houses? 

Joy is the sunlight of a new day even after a sleepless night or days of cloudy weather. She’s the curling cat that only wants your attention and affection without knowing your problem or diagnosis. Joy is the person that carries you away from any ugly feelings that hold you down. Is your friend, Joy, the submission of angry feelings toward your health or is Joy the culmination of your life divinely living with you?

The last question is both/and. I only use cancer as an example because it gets our attention. Joy can apply to any of life’s situations. Humor sees us through another day and silly defines itself. Comedic and playful provide a perspective. Happy periodically shows up but can quickly evaporate.  

Then there’s that beautiful person whose name is “Joy.” She is indestructible. She cannot be bartered, possessed, bought, or sold. She can however, like a virus, be very contagious. Why? Because she lives and breathes through God and then lovingly resides within our sometimes troubled lives. 

Joy. It’s not from us but we get to enjoy, savor, and to live within her enduring quality. 

Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.