In brief, a true Christian must not live in a way as though Christ had never spoken the words, “Blessed are they that mourn,” but even less in a way as though He had not also said to His disciples, “Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is great in heaven.” The Christian knows: “Pain and suffering are only there for the sake of joy.” (Father Heribert Holzapfel, O.F.M., “Freude”)

The tissue of a Christian’s life must be interwoven with threads of true joy and threads of true sorrow alike, because we have not yet arrived at the point “where God shall wipe away all tears.” But it is joy that must have the primacy: for, after the lumen Christi has brightened the world, even on earth there is incomparably more cause for bliss than for sorrow. Joy must be the deeper, the decisive element, the form of our life, as it were. For that which warrants our joy is the supreme reality, the ultimate word in the universe. The sufferings of this world are essentially transitory. Happiness, eternal and indestructible, awaits all those who follow Christ.

However dark the griefs and terrible the sufferings a Christian may know, over and above them soars the triumphant luster of joy. This is the spirit of the Liturgy. With all its mournfulness, Passion Week leads up to the definitive and ultimate reality of Easter: the soaring beatitude transcending all time; and from the latter is derived the keynote of the Liturgy of the whole year. The seasons of alleluia far outweigh those in which alleluia is not sung. Even during the time of Advent and of Lent, a ray of hope, and with it of joy, is never absent.

To the Church, which sees everything in the light of eternity, joy is the superior and consummate reality. “So also you now indeed have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you” (John 16:22).

17. Holy Sobriety

17

Holy Sobriety

Therefore, let us not sleep, as others do;
but let us watch, and be sober. (I Thess, 5:6)

IF WE examine the lives of the saints we shall find that—notwithstanding their fervor, notwithstanding an intoxication with Jesus—they also possess a trait that may best be described as holy sobriety.

Their hunger and thirst after justice, their obsession with God, their overflowing charity towards God and their fellow creatures, their unlimited confidence in God—these traits are apt to make them appear fools in the eyes of the world. However, they are far removed from illusory exaltation and bloodless idealism.

Holy sobriety is marked by genuineness and simplicity