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Fr. Roy Cimagala .

CHRIST has told us about this formula. Let’s closely follow the kind of equation he presented to achieve this true and complete joy. “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.” (Jn 15,9-11)

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In other words, joy can only be an effect of love. And the true, complete joy, not the fake, shallow and deceptive one, can only come from a genuine love that in its turn can only come from Christ.

As he said, “My joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.”

This genuine love that produces the true joy is a matter of keeping the commandments of God, both the old and the new, as kept and lived very faithfully by Christ and as Christ himself gives it to us. Let us not be deceived by another source of joy. It can only be fake and harmful in the end.

How can we describe this true, complete joy? To be sure, it is not something confined exclusively to what is sensibly pleasant and sweet, emotionally uplifting and exhilarating or intellectually stimulating. It is not just a matter of sentiments. It is not just a fair-weather type of joy.

It is a joy that covers all the possible situations that we can be in, including what are opposed to what is sensibly pleasant, emotionally uplifting, etc. It can thrive even in the harshest of our human condition.

It is a joy that while it can be felt sensibly, emotionally, intellectually, is first of all spiritual and supernatural. It is a gift from God that while freely given needs to be merited by us precisely by keeping the commandments of God.

We need to make the pertinent adjustments in our understanding of the nature, character and source of joy. It should not just be a function of material and temporal factors. We should not rely on these factors which, unfortunately, many people today consider as the main causes for joy.

True joy has to be understood from the point of view of our Christian faith. It has to be pursued and developed by our active relationship with Christ, always activating our faith and making our faith the main guide in our reactions to things and in our general behavior.

Joy should be a constant and permanent feature in our life. Yes, it has to be worked on, but as long as our life in general is inspired by faith, this true joy that Christ gives us will always be with us.

We need to outgrow our tendency to understand joy in merely human, natural, material and temporal terms. Toward this end, we have to closely follow the example of Christ who was willing to suffer and die for our sins. Yes, it is a joy that is compatible with pain and suffering, with ‘blood, sweat and tears.’ It is a joy that will always give us peace and a sense of confidence even in the midst of trials and difficulties.

We have to actively spread this good news about true joy, and help teach everyone how to be truly united and identified with Christ so as to attain this joy. Let’s remember this sure-fire formula of joy.

Let’s hope that we can create a culture and an environment that is marked by this kind of joy, so that in every corner of the world, where man is found, this joy can be seen irrespective of the circumstances of anyone’s condition. It should be such that joy becomes a living and active feature in the world, always capable of spreading more and more widely.

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Our Amazing Creativity. Music hath charm, they say. And its charm is so indescribable it defies reason and rhyme. It can mesmerize us and can bring us to places, moments and conditions that are way beyond what our imagination can provide. It can take us into flights to fantasy land or to heaven itself. And to think that it is at bottom composed only of a few basic musical notes!

It’s truly amazing that with just a few notes, we can create a practically infinite number of beautiful songs and music, bringing us to a borderless range of feelings and all kinds of considerations! The possible combinations of those notes to produce music are simply numberless.

In the same way, it’s indeed also amazing that with only 26 letters in our alphabet we can produce all kinds of words and ideas that can bring us to all kinds of situations, and even to the very doorstep of eternity itself!

Of course, we know that due to the fact that we are not by nature simply material and biological but also and more importantly, spiritual, we have the power to transcend the limitations of the material things we use. We have the capacity for creativity, productivity and fruitfulness. We can bring these material things to another dimension.

It’s good that we give due attention to this fact of life and be left deeply grateful for this reality. Let us be thankful to God, since it is actually he who shares his creativity with us, since we are his image and likeness. Let us be aware of the many possibilities that it provides and that we can take advantage of. In fact, we are supposed to be responsible of taking advantage of these possibilities.

And let’s be reminded also that given the way we are, or given the way God has made us, we are empowered to actually make use of small things to accomplish great things, even things that are actually beyond our human capacity to attain. Together with God’s grace, even the small things we do, give or contribute in any endeavor can acquire an eternal and supernatural value.

Remember those gospel episodes of the miraculous catch of fish (cfr. Lk 5,1-11) and the multiplication of the loaves. (cfr. Jn 6,1-14) The common lesson that we can learn from there is that as long as we do or give the little that we can at the instance of God’s will, great things can happen and what we gain is a lot more than what we give and what we can imagine.

Our creativity, productivity and fruitfulness are truly a participation in the creative power of God. This is a truth of faith that we should not forget. In fact, we should remember it because it can greatly motivate us to be as generous as we can be, even if we can only do, give or contribute a little.

Christ has assured us that we can accomplish many big things in spite of the meager ‘investment’ we put into following God’s will. “Well done, good servant, since you have been faithful in very little thing, you are to be in authority over ten cities,” he once said. (Lk 19,17)

In another occasion, he told his disciples, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these…You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (Jn 14,12-14)

Let’s take comfort from these very reassuring words of Christ. Let’s not be bothered by our limitations and by the little things that we can only manage to do and to give. As long as everything is done to give glory to God, it will always be creative, productive and fruitful, even if in human standards it may appear to have little or no effect at all.

E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com

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