The Joy Arising From Truth

By Scott Ferrier, MJ • Phoenix, AZ

The Paschal Mystery is the definitive proof that God is love — for “he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (Jn 3:16). But the fundamental problem today is that we humans often personally remain unconvinced of the Father’s love — even the baptized Christian. Our view of God’s designs for us are overly marked by fear. Each one follows their own ‘definition of happiness,’ but eventually realizes that temporal goods not only do not satisfy our restless heart but yield instead sadness and misery. What is true happiness, beyond false appearances, and how do we find it? 

Our first parents, tempted by the devil, let their trust in their Creator die in their hearts and, abusing their freedom, disobeyed God’s command. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in His goodness (CCC, 397). Adam and Eve lost the grace of original holiness and became afraid
of the God of whom they had conceived a distorted image —that of a jealous and unmerciful God. 

Since then, mankind has been perpetually burdened with this falsification of the truth about who God is, as He “looks down from heaven on the children of men” (Ps. 53:2). He is regarded with suspicion and fear or simply outright denial. Our minds and wills falsify the absolute good for which we were created and freely give assent to the heart’s inordinate desires. This suspicion and lack of trust conceal from us what we need to know most fundamentally — the certainty of God’s love. 

The month of June ends the fifty days of Easter with the Solemnity of Pentecost in which Christ’s Passover is fulfilled with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The life of the Christian is the following of the Beatitudes, proclaimed by the Lord in His Sermon on the Mount. They are the promises of blessedness which guarantee that the path of life, whatever the hardship it entails, will lead to the very bliss of God Himself and give us “the joy of salvation.” But we cannot follow the Beatitudes without the accompaniment of charity and the grace of the Holy Spirit and His gifts. Without God, man is not capable of overcoming his earthly cares or the impurity of his thoughts. 

Saint Augustine says it so well in his Confessions: “Indeed, the happy life is joy arising from truth. For, this is the joy coming from Thee, who art the Truth, O God; Thou art ‘my light,’ the salvation of my countenance, O my God. This happy life all men desire; this life, which alone is happy, all men desire; the joy arising from truth all men desire” (10.23.33).