Cultivating Joy: Rejoicing Like Mary
Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance (James 1:2-3).
Joy has an elusive quality about it. A web search of the word “joy” typically produces photos of either weddings or Christmas. Intuitively, we know that there is more to joy than a happy moment in time, but we find it difficult to explain and even more difficult to attain.
C.S. Lewis describes it this way:
I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from happiness and from pleasure. Joy, in my sense, has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then joy is never in our power and pleasure often is. (Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life)
Lewis goes on to suggest that joy is similar to nostalgia – that pleasurable sadness in recalling our favorite memories – only in reverse. It is found in looking ahead to a future desire.
Cultural Joy Versus Scriptural Joy
Modern society tends to use the words joy and happiness or even pleasure interchangeably. But as we read in Lewis, we can create moments of happiness and pleasure, but conjuring joy is beyond us. We feel joyful in the aforementioned online photos of happy moments, but is feeling joyful the same as living in joy?
The opening lines of the Book of James tell us to “Consider it all joy” (James 1:2), ALL joy, even the difficulties, so that can’t possibly be equated to the moments of happiness we experience. But again we are commanded to: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!” (Phil 4:4), so this is not a suggestion. We are also promised that the fruit of the Spirit is joy (Gal 5:22) and that if we ask in His name, our joy may be full (John 16:24).
So what are we to do in our pursuit of this elusive, but deeply desirable joy? While we cannot create joy, we can cultivate it; that is, we can create an environment in which joy can bloom.
Mary’s Joy
We can look to our Blessed Mother as we search out ways to cultivate greater joy in our lives. Today we celebrate the birth of Mary. While every birth brings joy because of the hope we have in every new life, heaven rejoiced in a particularly profound way on this day as humanity drew that much closer to its salvation. We remember Mary’s prayer of gratitude, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior” (Luke 1:46-47). From where does this rejoicing come?
Consider the Joyful Mysteries of the rosary from Mary’s perspective. She was visited by an angel to tell her she would conceive a child out of wedlock (culturally, that would result in her being stoned); then she traveled across the country while pregnant to visit a relative; she had to give birth in a cave, in a strange land, away from her mother; her heart was pierced by the prophecy of Simeon at the presentation; and finally, she experienced the terror of losing her child for three days. From where I sit, none of those things were particularly joyful at the time, but Mary’s joy came not from pleasurable moments or happy circumstances. Mary’s joy came from that forward-looking hope that C. S. Lewis alludes to in his book. Our joy, too, must come from the same hope.
Cultivating Joy
The way my mother incorporates the word joy into her prayer life offers a glimpse of where to begin this cultivation. Jesus Only You. When we anticipate every moment, receive every moment, and embrace every moment through that lens, joy will flourish.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing” (Rom 15:13). We are filled with hope by God when we believe, when we trust, when we receive all things through His hands and stop grumbling against His providence. God will fill us with joy when we stop attempting to control the circumstances and push against everything He brings into our lives. When we fully surrender to Jesus alone and submit everything else to His authority, God fills us with true joy; the joy not of this world, but of a future hope and promise.
From our modern perspective, Mary’s joys appear on the surface to be suffering. What we now celebrate because our hindsight gives us understanding, she chose to celebrate in the moment because she trusted God’s goodness. We create an environment for joy when our focus shifts from our goals for this life to God’s goals for our eternal one.
Eternal Joy
Mary chose to receive her earthly sufferings as joy, which then truly became glorified joy with her Assumption into heaven and her coronation as Queen of Heaven! As C.S. Lewis said, “Who having tasted true joy would ever trade it for mere happiness or pleasure?” Mary was given the grace to experience that joy, and no amount of earthly suffering would convince her to abandon it. She pondered everything in her heart and held up each temporal experience against the backdrop of eternity, fully surrendered to God’s holy will.
As we strive to live lives that bring us joy and give glory to God, we should turn to our Blessed Mother and ask her for the grace she experienced. Mother Mary, turn our clutching and grasping efforts for happiness into palms open to receive the joy that comes only through our own submission to all that the Lord desires, trusting in His perfect goodness and our own eternal home with Him.
Laryn Weaver is a Catholic writer and speaker whose current focus is a ministry of availability and prayer. Her greatest joys are her marriage, her adult children, and her four grandbabies! Find out more about Laryn at larynweaver.com