In how many ways can we be happy about the totality of life?

Thoughts about the thousand faces of joy

Submitted by Csermely Péter on

 

 

1. Our "own" pleasures. In everyone’s life the moment comes at different times and in different ways when he starts to feel something about that he lives in the middle of a huge ocean of love – that he has not noticed so far. Realizing this is an unutterably big source of joy. It is a beautiful feeling when already here, in our Earthly lives sometimes we can feel or experience something about the Holy Trinity’s loving relationship. The joy of the archetypal woman is an immanent joy that discovers the infinity of God in the heart’s innermost totality. The joy of the archetypal man is a transcendent joy that is poured out and discovers the infinity of God in the beauty of the whole world. Both of them start from the same place and arrive at the same place. Just in different ways. This is one of the miracles of the creation. We can also experience the joy of God’s persistence during our Earthly lives. Mutual commitment, the joy of faithfulness; serenity: the joy of safety and understanding; hope: the joy of Providence and working of the Holy Spirit all are such silent joys that are much deeper and much more complete than the joys of individual events flaring up. (If you would like to read about this more, please, read my essay published here.)

 

2. The joys of Totality’s foretastes. Among the joys of encounters with God’s love the joy of God’s Word stands first. The Word of God is not a dead letter. The Word of God speaks in the depth of our souls by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Word of God always fulfils what it has declared. (It is worth thinking about this sentence for a while. The most important events of our lives depend on whether we understand this sentence or not.) When our encounters with the Holy Trinity’s love get more regular, we become more and more capable of seeing ourselves and everybody around with the gracious eyes of God. When these meetings will get even more regular, we will see the Face of Jesus in front of us. The Face of Jesus is not a precisely seen image but a radiation. It is the beam of the Glory of God projected on us in Christ. We delight in it, and we bathe in it. Peace, love and serenity fulfills us that we all radiate in our surroundings. This is the joy of being blessed. (If you would like to read about this more, please, read my essay published here)

 

 

 

3. The joys of Totality. In the Kingdom of God the boundaries of the individual disappear. All that we have been guessing "by the mirror obscurely" so far (1Corinthians 13:12), we will see and know. God, the persistence of the world’s essence, is not noise but Silence. He is not a range of galloping events but timelessness. He is not a set of bonds but undistorted purity. God’s timeless, pure Silence is not empty. This Silence is full of love and the energy radiating His love around. God’s Silence is filled with the Glory of God. The highest level of joy is bathing in the Glory of God and spreading It all around. (If you would like to read about this more, please, read my essay published here.)

 

 

 

Introduction. As I wrote in my first essay in September, I will go along a whole course of a spiritual retreat with my essays until summer. With the Christmas post we have arrived at the end of the first week of the four weeks’ long spiritual retreat: Christ may have been born within us, we may have been given places in the House of God and we may have realized that we were the Children of God. My four essays covering the second week of the spiritual retreat confronted us with our sins. Both our community sins and our own personal sins have been examined, we have thought about the conditions of our good choices, and we have answered the question what is the most important decision of our whole lives. Until the coming summer we will go along the second two weeks of the four weeks’ long spiritual retreat: praying throughout the whole earth life of Christ, our Lord.

-----------------we reached this point in our prayer--------------------------------------------------------

 

1. Our "own" pleasures

 

Between the greatest joy of Christ’s resurrection that changed the whole life on Earth and the unlimited fulfillment of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, what else could be my topic now than the thousand faces of joy. Let me start by some types of our "own" pleasures. The one who can feel the beauty of the Holy Spirit's fruits can realize that behind each and every of our "own" joys there is the unmeasurable love of the Father poured on us in every moment and His power creating happiness.

 

Joys of understanding. In everyone’s life the moment comes at different times and in different ways when he starts to feel something about that he lives in the middle of a huge ocean of love – that he has not noticed so far. Realizing this is an unutterably big source of joy. The same thing happened when the Emmaus apostles had realized that they were talking to the resurrected Jesus (Lucas 24:31). (Mentioning a personal memory, it was the same to me last year when Jesus made me realize that my childhood’s "imaginary  friend, Peter Cold" for ten years was not anybody else – but Jesus Himself.) For being able to feel the real power of the joy of understanding, let’s imagine ourselves into that screaming and overwhelming joy (that is such an intimate secret of God that it is not even mentioned in the Holy Bible) when Holy Mary noticed her resurrected son, Jesus.

 

 

Joys of the Holy Trinity’s loving relationship. It is a beautiful feeling when already here, in our Earthly lives sometimes we can feel or experience something about the Holy Trinity’s loving relationship. The Creation had taken place for this gift to us, and Jesus had come down to us to the Earth in order to open the Paradise for us again, to open the Totality of being together with God. It is a wonderful thing in how many ways we can experience the joy of this loving relationship. The joy of the archetypal woman is an immanent joy that discovers the infinity of God in the heart’s innermost totality. The joy of the archetypal man is a transcendent joy that is poured out and discovers the infinity of God in the beauty of the whole world. Both of them start from the same place and arrive at the same place. Just in different ways. This is one of the miracles of the creation. The joys of cleansing, being redeemed and getting rid of our bonds (i.e. attaining the real freedom) are joys felt at the level of our own individualities. Mercy, good deeds, being together, the happiness of others felt because of us and the joy of other’s joy felt in Christ are the joys of our communities formed by the Holy Spirit.

 

The joys of the order. God is persistent and eternal, remaining identical with Himself forever. God is the God of reinstating the best order possible. All this does not mean that the world would not be changing at all. God’s Holy Spirit always sets the Creation and the Life on new and unexpected paths again and again. God’s order is not a frozen world but the persistence and safety of the essence. We can also experience the joy of God’s persistence during our Earthly lives. Mutual commitment, the joy of faithfulness; serenity: the joy of safety and understanding; hope: the joy of Providence and working of the Holy Spirit all are such silent joys that are much deeper and much more complete than the joys of individual events flaring up.

 

 

2. The joys of Totality’s foretastes

 

"For I am sure that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor might,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
(Romans 8:38,39)

 

Saint Teresa of Avila in her book titled "The Interior Castle" calls those presents "foretastes" which our souls are often given unexpectedly showing what the joy of Totality looks like. Let me list some of these foretastes here.

 

The joy of encounters. Among the joys of encounters with God’s love the joy of God’s Word stands first. The Word of God is not a dead letter. The Word of God speaks in the depth of our souls by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Word of God always fulfils what it has declared. (It is worth thinking about this sentence for a while. The most important events of our lives depend on whether we understand this sentence or not.) Our souls’ expansion shows the extent of our closeness to God. In such case our hearts are able to embrace the whole world. Our intellects experience the feeling of fulfilment. Our souls may exult so much that they want to jump out of us to run to God. This is the most beautiful pain we can ever experience. Sometimes there can be an unusual intensity of the Holy Spirit’s visit in our lives. In such case we may get into a huge waterfall, a wonderful typhoon, an all-purifying rebirth.

 

The joy of vision. When our encounters with the Holy Trinity’s love get more regular, we become more and more capable of feeling others’ happiness. We become more and more capable of feeling the joy of the Holy Trinity, Virgin Mary and the saints. We become more and more capable of seeing ourselves and everybody around with the gracious eyes of God. This is already a foretaste of the incomprehensible and inexpressible joy of face to face vision (1Corinthians 13:12).

 

 

The joy of the Kingdom of God. When our meetings with the Holy Trinity’s love will get even more regular, the joy becomes permanent in us. No matter that we go with our eyes closed or not: we can see the Face of Jesus in front of us. The Face of Jesus is not a precisely seen image but a radiation. It is the beam of the Glory of God projected on us in Christ. We delight in it, and we bathe in it. Peace, love and serenity fulfills us that we all radiate in our surroundings. This is the joy of being blessed. Radiating the serenity mutually is already the taste of the Kingdom of God (that can be found in us: Lucas 17:21b).

 

These were only a very few of the thousand forms "foretastes" we may receive. I wish the Reader a number of other types of these experiences, since each of us has a unique path, which has its own treasures.

 

 

3. The joys of Totality

 

"Whom having not seen, you love:
in whom also now, though you see him not, you believe:
and believing shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorified."
(1Peter 1:8)

 

 

The face to face vision is the joy of Totality. In the Kingdom of God the boundaries of the individual disappear. All that we have been guessing "by the mirror obscurely" so far (1Corinthians 13:12), we will see and know. Although the Totality reaches us but we will neither be "overloaded", nor tired. The joy of Purity, Silence and Timelessness. God, the persistence of the world’s essence, is not noise but Silence. He is not a range of galloping events but timelessness. He is not a set of bonds but undistorted purity. At the same time this Timelessness, this pure Silence is not a powerless floating. God is able to be concentrated anytime and anyhow. He is able to appear in time and step out of the Silence at His discretion. But upon He has completed His task He is able to return into the timeless, pure Silence anytime and anyhow. The joy of the Glory of God. God’s timeless, pure Silence is not empty. This Silence is full of love and the energy radiating His love around. God’s Silence is filled with the Glory of God. The highest level of joy is bathing in the Glory of God and spreading It all around.

 

 

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