UPON JOY AND SADNESS.
As the blessedness of the life to come is called joy in Scripture, Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord, so also—it is in joy that the happiness of this present life consists. Not, however, in all kinds of joy, for the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment,[1] that is to say, lasts but for a moment.
It is said of the wicked that they spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to hell,[2] and that mourning taketh hold of the end of false joy.[3]
True, joy can only proceed from inward peace, and this peace from the testimony of a good conscience, which is called a continual feast.[4]
This is that joy of the Lord, and in the Lord, which the Apostle recommends so strongly, provided it be accompanied by charity and modesty.
Our Blessed Father thought so highly of this joyous peace and peaceful joy that he looked upon it as constituting the only true happiness possible in this life. Indeed he put this belief of his into such constant practice that a great servant of God, one of his most intimate friends, declared him to be the possessor of an imperturbable and unalterable peace.
On the other hand, he was as great an enemy to sadness, trouble, and undue hurry and eagerness, as he was a friend to peace and joy. Besides all that he says on the subject in his Philothea and his Theotimus, he writes thus to a soul who, under the pretext of austerity and penance, had abandoned herself to disquietude and grief: Be at peace, and nourish your heart with the sweetness of heavenly love, without which man's heart is without life, and man's life without happiness. Never give way to sadness, that enemy of devotion. What is there that should be able to sadden the servant of Him who will be our joy through all eternity? Surely sin, and sin only, should cast us down and grieve us. If we have sinned, when once our act of sorrow at having sinned has been made, there ought to follow in its train joy and holy consolation.
[Footnote 1: Job xx. 5.]
[Footnote 2: Job xxi. 13.]
[Footnote 3: Prov. xiv. 13.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid. xv. 15.]