That Your Joy May Be Complete

“Brothers and sisters, those who are led by the Spirit of God, are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery, to fall back into fear. But you received a spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, Abba, Father.  The Holy Spirit Himself, bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with Him, so that we also may be glorified with Him.”   This feast of the Holy Trinity leads us to the very ultimate of all reality.  And it’s the grace that we have, to be invited to enter into that ultimate of all realities, that the words sound very simple, but it’s the greatest of all realities.  And it also reveals the ultimate mystery of who you are, and the sense of your own life.  And it’s at the Last Supper in His last hours before He died, that Jesus gave His most extensive teaching to His apostles, in the Gospel, about the Trinity. And He speaks about the Trinity in very simple language, but He also speaks about our own participation in it.  For instance, that passage I shared with you a couple of weeks ago, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, abide in my love.”  And then right away, He says, “these things I have spoken to you, so that…” what, why did he speak those things to us, He says, “these things I’ve spoken to you, so that,” remember what He says?  He says, “so that my joy may be in you.”  “My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”  And He at that Last Supper, He comes back and numerous times, to the joy that He wants His disciples to have.  He says, “Until now you have asked nothing in My name, ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be full.”  And then when He prays to His Father, in the great prayer we have at that moment, He says, “Father, I am coming to You now. And these things I speak in the world, so that they may have My joy fulfilled in them.”  So, Jesus wants us to have His joy.  And so, you might be saying, Well, where is that joy?  That joy seems to be kind of in short supply a lot of time.  I don’t know if any of you have an overdose of joy in your life right now.  And think of when Jesus is saying this, He’s saying that, right as He’s about, just hours from His passion.  And he knows what is about to happen.  So Jesus is very realistic about the situation.  He’s not speaking about someone who is just painting everything rosy.  It’s precisely at that moment, as He’s about to enter into the intensity of His passion, that He’s thinking about joy, and wanting to share joy. The Letter to the Hebrews says Jesus, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him, for the joy that He would experience and the joy that He would give.  Jesus knows the suffering that is coming, but He also knows that, that suffering will pass and then there will be only joy and He is not just thinking of Himself, He’s thinking of you.  And so another part again, again, another passage where in that same moment, the Last Supper, He says, “Truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament, you will weep and lament, and the world will rejoice.” So the difference between what His disciples were experiencing, weeping, and the world rejoicing, you will be sorrowful, He is saying that very clearly.  But your sorrow will turn into joy.  And St. Thomas Aquinas teaches on this passage.  I want to share with you what he teaches.  I won’t give you all the quotes, he gives a lot of scriptural quotes, I won’t give you all those.  But his teaching on this passage of Scripture, I think, is kind of shocking for us today, because it can sound very negative.  So he focuses on three points.  According to what this passage says, first of all, when Jesus says, “the world will rejoice,” he says, “This is the sign of the foolishness of the world.”  And he said, it’s foolish, because this time, the present time is not the time of rejoicing, but of weeping.  And he sites Ecclesiastes, where it says, “A time to weep, and a time to laugh,” and he says, “The time of weeping is put first to indicate the present is this time, it’s a time of weeping.  A time to laugh is added afterwards to signify that the future will be the time of joy, for now, indeed, is a time of weeping and of mourning over sins. So that’s the first thing that the world is, he said, the world is foolish, because this time is a time of weeping.  And he says, this place, this world is a place of sadness, not of joy.  That’s pretty, that does sound kind of shocking to say that today this world, but that’s often experiences world is a place of sadness, more than joy.  What do you have more in this world, more sadness or more joy?  And he says that the evil ones take joy in evil, takes joy in evil.  And so that’s it.  He says, the foolishness of the world when Jesus says, the world will rejoice. And then he says, “The second point you will be sorrowful,” and he says, “this is a sign of the wisdom of the saints.”  When he says, you will be sorrowful, he says, that’s a sign of wisdom, and he quotes Ecclesiastes that says, “The heart of the wise, is in the house of mourning,” morning, to mourn, “you are in the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.”  And he says the wise are sad for three reasons.  Because by sadness, the evil of man is corrected.  So there’s something good that comes out that sadness.  By momentary sadness, the second point, man escapes, eternal torment.  So man has corrected, he has the sadness helps us escape eternal torment.  And he says, by a small measure of justice, they acquire eternal joys.  And he quotes St. Paul who says, “For our light, affliction, which is but for a moment,” that is St. Paul says that our affliction in this world, which can be very painful, but is light and short, compared to the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.  So that this, the wise are mourning in this time.  But from that mourning comes a lot of good fruits.  And then he goes on to say, the third, the most important point, the future psalm of the saints, when Jesus says, “your sorrow will be turned into joy.”  So the present sorrow will become eternal joy. And he quotes the Gospel, “Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh.”  Isiah says “the ransom of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs of everlasting joy upon their heads.”  So St. Thomas is saying that the Friends of Jesus experienced sorrow now, but joy forever.  And Jesus goes on to say in that same passage, “When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a child is born into the world.  So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”  So Jesus is giving us realistic expectations about this life, and then hope for the future.  So this doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong if you’re experiencing joy now.  That’s great. Thanks, thank God for all the joys because God does give us joy.  And so thank the Lord for all the joys that he gives us.  And it doesn’t mean that you need to go looking for suffering. It doesn’t mean that if you’re if you’re feeling joy, that you should stop feeling joy and try to feel suffering.  No, if you don’t look for suffering, it comes, there’s enough of it that comes on its own.  So give thanks for the Lord, and enjoy the joys He’s giving you. But this is helpful, because a lot of people are experiencing suffering, sorrow, sadness.  So it helps to realize that that doesn’t mean that they’re doing something wrong.  On the contrary, St. Thomas is saying, that can be the wisdom of the saints, because there’s something wrong with this world, and so it’s hard to be to joyful in a world that’s very dominated by satan.  But suffering for those who follow Jesus becomes a transformation, a part of our transformation, into the joy of the Trinity.  So Jesus says, and Jesus, what He’s about to do with His passion He is about to live, He says, “it’s so that His joy can be in you.”  Jesus wants His joy, that’s the reason He came, was so that His joy could be in you, His infinite joy of the Father’s love for Him.  St. Agustin says that in the Trinity, we have the lover, the source of all love, the Father, the One who has loved the Son, and the love that they share, which is the Holy Spirit, the lover, the loved, and the love.  You know that a lot of times when you hear families today, we hear dysfunctional, dysfunctional families.  But in the Trinity, there’s not, it’s a family that has nothing that’s dysfunctional. The love, forgiving, the union, the understanding, the tenderness, and joy is full.  And Jesus wants that fullness to be in you.  It begins with our Blessed Mother, that He wants it to be shared, with all of us.  He already, the image of the Divine Mercy, recalls the risen Jesus and then in His vision, and His resurrection, He is already in that fullness of joy.  But He wants you to be in that, too. And not just to have joy, not just to taste joy, but He says, “so that your joy may be complete.”  Not just to taste joy, but to have the fullness of joy, to be so full that you can’t have any more joy.  Can you imagine that?  That joy, that is so much that you couldn’t be any fuller of joy.  And so that’s what this world, this time on this earth is, it’s preparing us.  It’s like stretching us so that we can receive more joy.  That stretching is painful, but it’s for joy.  Nobody but the Lord can give that, nobody can give you the fullness of joy, except the Lord.  The devil can promise us some pleasures, some worldly pleasures, worldly advantages, but they don’t last very long.  Nobody but the Lord can give you the fullness of joy. And that’s why the Lord created in you an infinite capacity for joy, an infinite capacity.  And that He Himself is the proof, in His resurrection. That sounds too good to be true, but in His resurrection, He proves His truthfulness.  He is the truth and He loves you and He is all powerful.  And He said what He wants to do, He wants to give you complete joy, the fullness of joy.  And we already have in our Blessed Mother, and then in varying degrees, in the angels and saints, those who are already experiencing this joy, this fullness of joy.  We can already have authentic joys on this earth.  And that’s already a foretaste of heaven, a little foretaste, and in our longing for a family, for love, for unity, for intimacy, for beauty, for peace, for justice, for victory, for glory, for joy, is a sign already in us of what He is preparing for us, complete joy, that never stops, that has nothing lacking.  There’s nothing you will say, oh, but I also wish I had this or that, nothing will be lacking.  We can’t imagine that.  It never reaches its limit.  So all the disappointments that we experienced on this earth, all the frustrations, for those who believe in Jesus, those are only temporary, and they can be preparing a greater joy.  So this gives us something to hold on to now, when there are so many disappointments and so many heartbreaks, so many hopes that we have to let go of, it seems like it’s never gonna happen.  This earth is difficult.  You know, there’s the ancient prayer of the Hail, Holy Queen, and in that prayer, maybe you’ve prayed it before, it says to Our Blessed Mother, “we cry, poor, banished children of Eve,” poor banished children of Eve, “ to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears,” mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. That’s very strong language, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.  We are still in the Church militant. Tomorrow we celebrate Memorial Day, and we are still in the Church militant.  The Church which is still in battle, and the battle is very painful.  And that’s the pain that we’re suffering right now. And right now the time that we’re living is the time on which that battle is intensifying.  And it’s looking so difficult, so many people are giving up or losing hope, because of the battle.  The battle we’re seeing in our country, the battle that we’re seeing in our Church, the battle that we’re seeing in our families, the battle we’re seeing all around, so many people falling in this battle, so many people giving up in this battle.  It looks often so, so hopeless, like the cross, the crucifixion looked hopeless.  That’s this battle that we are in.  But Jesus knows what is beyond. He is the victor, He is triumphant.  And He is promising us joy if we follow Him into battle, which is what we are doing.  And that’s why it’s so hard. We will follow Him.  If we follow him into battle, it’s very difficult, but we are sure of the victory.  Even if it looks hopeless.  We know that Jesus is the victor. And if we are with Him, despite our own weaknesses, and despite our own sinfulness, if we hold on to Him if we trust Him, we also will share His glory. That’s what St. Paul said at the very beginning, “If we share His suffering, so as to share His glory.”  Right now we are sharing His suffering, so that we can share His glory.  So sorrow now, joy forever.  Sorrow now in the battle, infinite joy forever, the infinite joy of the Trinity.   “That My joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete,”  By our faith in Jesus, we are on the path for the fullness of joy, so that His joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.  Amen.