Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!
…And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
(Philippians 4:4,7)
After charity comes the first fruits of love: joy and peace.
St. Paul tells us that we are to rejoice always.
Really?
What about sorrow for sins?
What about where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn”? (Matthew 5:4).
And besides, is it possible to always be happy?
Life throws a lot at us, and sometimes we are up and sometimes we are down.
We can’t simply force ourselves to be happy.
As we have noted before, scriptural commands are addressed to our wills.
This means that we can decide to rejoice, according to Paul’s understanding.
Thomas Aquinas notes that Christian joy is one of the effects of love: we are joyful when we possess what we love.
Since Christians are in possession of the greatest good possible— God himself— whatever we may be feeling at the moment or whatever may be happening to us, our possession of God is an objective reality that doesn’t change based on feelings.
Our joy in possessing God resides in the depths of our souls, growing as our love of God grows.
When we are sad or discouraged, we must remember God’s reality and his goodness, recalling the truth that he is living within us.
As we stir up our love for God, joy takes its place as a foundational pillar for our lives.
That is why Nehemiah told the Israelites: “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:4).
We may not be able to feel happy all the time, but we can learn to live with a deep current of joy due to God’s presence, a spring of life that keeps us from the ravages of sadness and despair.
While the command to rejoice speaks to our wills, it is also good to try to be as cheerful as we can.
Our emotions grow stronger or weaker as we express them or stand against them.
Making an effort to be cheerful around our wives, children, or our colleagues at work is an act of charity toward them.
It is also a way to allow true joy to gain a deeper foothold within us.
The second fruit of love is peace.
Some believe that peace is the absence of all conflict and the cessation of all desire.
That is not the peace Jesus gives.
Instead, he brings union and peace with God in heaven, the greatest of blessings.
He establishes peace among those who follow him, the “sweet and pleasant” gift of union (Psalm 133:3).
He gives increasing peace to our inner being, as the fleshly parts of our nature are brought under the rule of Christ.
Yet given a fallen world, the closer we are to God, the greater will be our conflict with rebellious humanity.
Jesus is the Prince of Peace who came to bring peace that the world cannot give (John 14:27), but he also insisted that he came not to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34).
He calls his followers to “fight the good fight of faith” against the devil, the flesh, and the world (1 Timothy 6:12).
To be a peace-maker is blessed by Jesus as an act of charity.
We are called to be men of peace, not conflict.
We must seek to maintain the “unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3), while remaining unafraid of conflict when the issue at stake is the Kingdom of God.
Who doesn’t want more joy and peace?
The way to see these two fruits grow is not by trying to manufacture them.
We need to go to their source.
Joy and peace are the spiritual fruit of the love of God.
They will grow stronger in us as we keep our eyes fixed on Christ and deepen our love for him through prayer, asceticism, and fraternity.
In your time of prayer today, fix your gaze on God and ask him for a greater measure of his peace and joy.
