Tu Revista Latina Magazine

Living for the joy to come

After a long day of work, one evening, I stopped by a nearby restaurant to pick up a pizza. I was tired and in a hurry to get home. As I left, I saw a mother making her way inside with her four-year old son. It was obvious that this young man was excited and looking forward to the video games that awaited him. It was also evident that he had Down syndrome.

I was struck by the simplicity of the boy’s happiness. He was living for the moment without any other care in the world. I looked at his mother, however, and imagined the burden of her worries as her son grew older. I sympathized with her on the load she would have to bear as her son started school, the struggles growing up that awaited him and the emotional toll it would have on her.

The brief experience happened years ago, but it left a tremendous impression on me as I thought of the boy and his mother. Now, every time I feel I’m having a bad day, I think of that moment. It was one of the few times in my life when I felt what our culture describes as, “la tristeza de la vida” or the sadness of life.

I remember experiencing this same sorrow at a very young age as I outgrew the excitement of birthdays, holidays and nights on the town with family. I looked beyond the joy of the moment and realized happiness was temporary. Have we not all lived this experience? At one time or another we’ve obtained something we thought would make us happy, only to see that happiness fade.

Think back to your youth. Remember how eagerly you looked forward to your birthday, but at the end of the party when you had your cake, opened your gifts and played until you were no longer amused, you knew in your heart of hearts the experience did not quite live up to your expectations. For a time, you may have found joy in a new gadget that had every bell and whistle you could possibly desire...until you saw the features on the newest model. The fact is we all want to be perfectly happy, but we’ve found life to be a series of disillusionments and disappointments. We continue in this cycle spending our lives avoiding sadness while searching for contentment. Eventually, we find we’ve pursued life in one of three ways:¹

As the foolish person
This person continues blaming his circumstances for his lack of happiness. If only he had another woman, a better car, a new career. One possession begins to bore and his happiness now is in the pursuit of another.
 
As the mature person
This person realizes his childhood quest of happiness was silly. He understands that life offers temporary joy and remembers to take things in perspective. He learns not to expect too much and restrains his emotions.

As the Christian
This person, however, believes we would not have been born with a desire for eternal happiness if it did not exist. He understands that we thirst because there is such a thing as water; we wonder because there is such a thing as truth; a child seeks his mother’s embrace because there is such a thing as love. Therefore, would we crave perfect happiness if it didn’t exist? Yet, there is nothing in this world that satisfies this desire; it must be found in another place, namely Heaven.

Looking forward to the age to come is not a way of escaping present circumstances or even wishful thinking. It is what a Christian is meant to do. Living with this sense of hope is a divine virtue. The knowledge of that future reward helps us to look past the disappointments of present life and to the joy of the life to come.

“Be ready,” the Apostle Peter wrote, “to give an answer to everyman that asks the reason for the hope that is in you.”²

“The Old Testament prophets,” Saint Paul wrote, “were willing to suffer tribulation and death because of their hope in a, better country that is heavenly.”³

Just as that child looked forward to that place of entertainment and knew nothing of his mother’s worries, so too, can the Christian look forward to eternity and disregard the fleeting pleasures of this world.

Many Christians today, however, find it very difficult to want Heaven beyond the idea that it means seeing friends and family again. One reason for this difficulty is that every aspect of society tends to fix our minds on this world, but our earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy, just hint at and lead us to the real thing—eternity with God. “Do not become conformed to this world,”⁴ the book of Romans warns. “Set your mind on heaven and not the things of this world”, the Book of Colossians adds.⁵

If a book could speak it would say it was happy when being read and if a chair could speak it would say it was happy when being sat in. These were their created purposes. We were created for perfect happiness. That is why everything, short of God, disappoints. When you realize the intended meaning of your life, the pleasures of this world are less disappointing and the tragedies less tragic.

Bishop Fulton Sheen once wrote, “When we do not know why we are here or where we are going, then life is full of frustrations and unhappiness.”⁶ People live ten, twenty, thirty, even fifty years without a plan. No wonder they find their existence tiresome.

Life is worth living when we live each day to become closer to God. When you have said your prayers, offered your actions in union with God and continue to live as Saint Paul wrote, for that better country that is heavenly where we are told:

“…God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new….these words are true and faithful.”⁷

1 This is a summary of what C.S. Lewis described in his work, Mere Christianity
2 Written in the 1st Letter of Peter 3:15
3 Saint Paul describes the faith of the Old Testament saints in Hebrews chapter 11
4 The Book of Romans 12:2
5 The Book of Colossians 3:2
6 Noted in his work, Life Is Worth Living. First Series
7 These are the words written for the age to come and described in the last book of the Bible, Revelation 21:4-5

Winter 2012