Joy in the Holy Spirit

According to faithless ecclesiastical “leaders” joy is to be found by abandoning clear teaching on doctrine and morality and the spiritual life, so that joy is found in lackadaisical liturgy, not striving after excellence with love. But Jesus said: “If you love me, keep the commandments.” Instead, we hear: Ignore the commandments so that you are tolerated as politically correct, and that self-absorbed sterile Styrofoam conformity subservient to browbeaters will be your joy.

That is not joy. It has nothing to do with Jesus, nothing to do with love, nothing to do with truth. And that’s not joy. That’s misery. That leads to depression, despair.

Joy is to be found in taking up our cross, all the effects of original sin and our own, weakness of mind, weakness of will, emotions all the hell over the place, sickness, death, and, meanwhile, following Jesus by way of being drawn up by His grace to be one with Him, so, being in His strength, so our lives are expressions of His goodness and kindness, His truth, His life.

Realizing that we cannot follow the commandments on our own, that we, on our own have no chance at all of keeping the commandments frees us to depend on Jesus and His strength, and we can do all things in Him. He’s the One, the only One. Once we get that, as it were, on the other side of the Cross, that’s when we meet up with joy in the Holy Spirit. Jesus is our Savior!

And we rejoice when He says, “If you love me, keep the commandments,” because we know that in His strength, united with Him, we can absolutely keep the absolute commandments, laughing at weakness as it shows us how strong Jesus us. Yes, we can still sin, so weak are we, but look at His the power of His love. Thank you, Jesus.