167. The secret of joy
167. THE SECRET OF JOY
As St. Thomas says, “no man can live without joy” (II-II,35,4). All seek joy. But can it possibly be true that there is a single, simple secret of joy? that love (charity) always and infallibly brings you joy rather than sorrow? Isn’t that impossibly simplistic?
The joy of charity . . . has no admixture of sorrow, according to Wisdom 8:16: Her conversation hath no bitterness. . . .
A twofold joy in God arises from charity. One, the more excellent, is proper to charity (alone) , and with this joy we rejoice in the divine good considered in itself. This joy of charity is incompatible with an admixture of sorrow, even as the good which is its object is incompatible with any admixture of evil; hence the Apostle says (Phil 4:4): Rejoice in the Lord always.
The other is the joy of charity whereby we rejoice in the divine good as participated by us. This participation can be hindered by anything contrary to it, wherefore in this respect the joy of charity is compatible with an admixture of sorrow in so far as a man grieves for that which hinders the participation of the divine good, either in us or in our neighbor, whom we love as ourselves (II-II,28,2).
One can prove the truth of this “simplistic” philosophy of life simply by experiment. Live a life of love, especially the love of God, and observe the joy of it. Live a life of lovelessness and observe the joylessness of it. The experiment has a 100% success rate. If anyone doubts its infallible conclusion, he infallibly shows that he has never really performed the experiment.
In itself, charity has no admixture of sorrow. Insofar as it is charity, it is joyful. And this refers to charity toward God but also toward neighbor. Sorrow comes from other sources, never from charity.
The essence of charity is not supplying others’ needs. If that were so, we could not have charity toward God, since He, being perfect has no needs. The essence of charity is the will’s affirmation, or “yea-saying”, of willing the good of the other, whether the other already has it (as is always the case with God) or whether they do not (as is the case with men). The will both desires the good when absent and rejoices in it when present.
However, there is an “on the other hand” also. (No surprise!) Creatures’ participation in divine good is always finite and often mixed with its contrary (harm, evil, pain, or sin). Insofar as the objects of our charity (the ones we love) experience evil, our love experiences sorrow as well as joy, since we love them “as ourselves”, and therefore we internalize their sorrows as well as their joys. We multiply both our sorrow and joy by two factors: the number of people we love and the intensity of our love for them. Not only is love compatible with sorrow, but it makes sorrow inevitable. The only way to avoid sorrow is to avoid love.
And we can’t avoid sorrow by loving God only and not our neighbors, for two reasons. (1) If we love God, we must love our neighbors, since that is God’s absolute command. (2) Since God became incarnate, God became one of our neighbors—in fact all of our neighbors: “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).
This principle—that love of neighbor multiplies sorrows as well as joys—is the reason why the sorrows of Christ on the Cross are infinite, and of infinite merit in paying for all our sins. He experienced all the sorrow that we deserved, and more. Even though God qua God has no needs and no vulnerability, God qua man has them. By the Incarnation, God, the Second Person of the Trinity, the single divine Person Who took a human nature into His person without losing His divine nature, only His divine privileges, is enabled to experience sorrow and pain by His love. Eternal Divine love does not change in its own essential nature, but it now experiences the same foreign element (pain) added to it that our love does.
This principle is also the reason why we have only two choices in life: (1) embracing both the agony and the ecstasy, the bitter and the sweet, the depths and the heights, by living a life of charity, or (2) avoiding both and crawling into the safe little “control freak” cave called the ego. That is also called Hell.