 All right, so good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for coming. You all had to climb up the staircase to get here. So I appreciate your coming here. A little bit about myself. My name is Norman. I'm a convert from 70 Adventism. So most likely, as a result of my conversion, that's the reason why I'm standing among giants like Dr. Scott Hahn, Matt Fradd. I never imagined I'd be speaking here. Usually, I'm reading their books. I'm listening to their podcasts, watching them on YouTube. But today, I'll be sharing a little bit about joy. Oh, sure. OK, I'll be speaking a little bit about joy. Part of the reason for that is when I was a 70 Adventist, I didn't really feel much joy in where I was in my denomination, partly because I felt like I had so many questions, questions that I couldn't find the answers to. For example, one of the questions that was bugging me, and you might think this is an odd question, but one of the questions that bothered me was I couldn't define beauty. How do you define beauty? And we might think that this is not really an important question, but it matters because look at the kind of songs that they play now, popular culture, the kind of songs that are so popular, the kind of movies that are so popular. Those are the things that people find beautiful. So being able to say what is the beautiful so as to be able to measure what makes for good music, what makes for good movies, what makes for good art. Do you see what I'm saying? Another question I had was what is a human being? How do you define what a human being is? And I think all of us know in today's day and age, right? It's especially important what makes a human being human. So these were some of the questions that I had. And until I could answer them, I did not have peace. I did not have joy. And it was in studying these questions, trying to find the answers to these questions that I found my way to the Catholic faith, right? That I found my way to the Catholic faith. And part of the beauty of the Catholic faith, a lot of maybe cradle Catholics might not appreciate this, but the Catholic faith is confident enough to say, we know what the beautiful is. We can tell you what is the beautiful, right? St. Thomas Aquinas had a definition of what the beautiful is, right? Something which is whole, has integrity, has clarity, right? That's, you know, so the Catholic church has some understanding of the beautiful. The Catholic church is confident enough to say what a human being is, right? Catholic church is confident to say, a human being is someone made of matter, of soul, right? And our soul possesses intellect, we have will. The Catholic church is confident to define what a human person is. The Catholic church does not shy away from questions of truth. So I think it was the confidence of the Catholic church in answering these questions that helped bring me into the Catholic faith. But in any case, and I'd like to think that I have more joy today now. I'm not by nature a bubbly person. I'm not extroverted, I'm more introverted. So doing something like this is, you know, I'm usually the kind of person who prefers to read and, you know, just write. So, but I think I have more joy now. My wife will probably tell you that I have more joy now as a Catholic than I did, you know, than I did before. But in any case, before we get into the topic, I'd like to invite Blessed Mother to pray for us and pray with us. So let's pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, amen. St. Francis, pray for us. St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us. St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. So I like to talk about joy. If I recall yesterday, Curtis Martin, right, he talked about the fact that as Catholics we live in the, you know, he compared being Catholic to living in this castle, right, to living in this castle. And even the worst day in that castle is better than the best day of someone who lives in the village, right? Now, if we're trying to invite someone into that castle, however, if people see that we're miserable inside the castle, maybe they're not gonna really wanna get into that castle, so to speak, right? So, which is why today I wanted to talk about joy, not as the be all and end all, because, you know, I think it is very important that we know our faith. It is very important that we master our faith. But joy is, and to be able to answer and defend our faith, right? But joy is kind of that gateway. Joy, I think, is that kind of gateway. And part of the reason for this is when you see someone joyful, right, filled with life, with joy, you can't help but wanna be like them, right? You wanna know what the secret of that joy is. When someone is so joyful, you wanna be around them, right? Because their joy, you know, is so contagious. So you wanna be around them. And so there's this winsomeness about someone who is joyful. And so that's why today I wanted to talk about, you know, what does joy consist of, really? Is it just happy feelings, right? Because if it's just happy feelings, then joy can come and go, right? And so, is joy just feelings, or is it more than that? Can joy go together with suffering and difficulty, right? Can joy go together with suffering and difficulty? And I also wanted to draw a connection between joy and truth, right? I wanted to draw a connection between joy and truth. So another kind of example, anybody here watch basketball? No, not really. So I come from Southern California, right? The Wrong Coast. And I support the Los Angeles Lakers. Kobe Bryant was my favorite basketball player. And, you know, growing up, Kobe Bryant was my favorite basketball player. And so it's difficult to support any other team other than the Lakers, okay? Now, having said that, after Kobe Bryant retired, there's been kind of a void in my life, right? And I have to fill that void somehow. And so the way I chose, and what I found was there's this guy in San Francisco, his name is Steph Curry. I don't know if you know Steph Curry, right? He plays with so much joy. I mean, every time he takes a shot and, you know, he makes it, he's, you know, running around, he's laughing, he's making jokes. I love the way he plays the game. And because of that, you know, even though I'm a Laker fan and everything in me says, I should not like the Golden State Warriors, I can't help when I see Steph Curry play. I'm rooting for him. So there's something about someone who is joyful that's just so contagious and makes you want to be around them, right? And so that's why, again, I wanted to explore what joy really is about, right? And so in Philippians, if you have your Bibles, Scott Han famously said, he said something about, that means the convert or the Protestant next, you know, turn to the convert or the Protestant next to you, you wanna, which is sad because the Bible is actually a product of the Catholic faith, right? It's the Catholic church that compiled the Bible, translated the Bible. So this idea that, you know, Catholics don't care about the Bible, that's so unfortunate. And, you know, part of my conversion journey, when I learned that, I was mind blowing, you know, learning that the Catholic church reveres the Bible. I mean, we even read portions of the Bible every mass, right? So in any case, let's turn to Philippians four verse four to five. And this is what St. Paul said. Rejoice in the Lord sometimes. Yeah? Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Isn't that strange thing to say? Rejoice in the Lord always. A couple of months ago, I think this was one of the first readings at mass, or second readings at mass. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. And I remember Bishop Barron saying, it's strange that St. Paul almost commands us to rejoice. And he says we should rejoice always. Meaning we should have joy always, right? Should I have joy when I lose my job? Right? Should I have joy when my wife is in the hospital? Right? Should I have joy when I lose a loved one? And yet the fact that St. Paul here says rejoice in the Lord always suggests that joy is somehow able to transcend all of these circumstances. That joy is beyond these circumstances. And when I say rejoice when your wife is in the hospital, that's something that happened to me in November. My wife was pregnant last year. And in November, she was diagnosed with severe preeclampsia. Right? So if any of you know that condition, your blood pressure shoots up. And our baby, our daughter, was 27 and a half weeks in the womb. And so the doctors were telling both of us that her life is at stake. The baby might have to be delivered soon. And if the baby is delivered soon, the chances of her, we knew she was a girl, she's a girl, the chances of her making it might be, there's not 100% chance that she might make it because she's born premature. Was I supposed to feel joy at that time in my life? I mean, I was staring at the fact that I could be losing my wife and daughter at the same time. Right? And yet I'm supposed to be feeling joy. Now, if I was going through this when I was 70 Adventists, I think I would have just been destroyed. Right? I would have just been destroyed. But it was my Catholic faith. You know, the prayers of, you know, being around the blessed sacrament, the prayers of holy parishioners, that got me through. Right? That helped me to know what this true joy is about. Right? The good news was my wife made it. And then two months later, my daughter, Esme, came out of the NICU. So, you know, that's something I'm grateful for. But yeah, thank you. Praise God. Praise God. So, yeah, it's a strange command, right? To rejoice always and again, and to say again, I say rejoice. So what this suggests is that joy can transcend challenges. Joy can transcend suffering even. You could suffer. You could be having a miserable time in life, not feel particularly happy and yet still be joyful. And I think that's a beautiful Christian secret, right? Because in our world today, I would say we have the cult of happy feelings. Right? A lot of young people today, I especially think that Jesus is there to solve all their problems and make life feel good. Right? And as long as Jesus makes me feel good, I'll be faithful to him. But the moment the chips are down, then maybe I give Jesus up because then my joy goes, so to speak, right? Because life is about happy feelings. But what this suggests, what St. Paul seems to say is, no, even if life is falling apart around you, you can still have joy, right? You can still have joy. And that's, I think a Christian, a mystery that only those who worship a God who is crucified can understand. You know what I mean? Only group of people that worships, that dares to say that we worship a God that was crucified can understand the secret of that joy, right? Can understand the secret of that joy. So yeah, that's one thing. And another thing I wanna point out from scripture too, all right, another aspect of joy, this is the first time the word joy appears in the Bible, all right? The first time the word joy appears in the New Testament, sorry, the New Testament. In Matthew chapter five, Matthew chapter five, verse 12, well, verse 11 to 12. This is what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad. Well, usually when someone says bad things about us, right? When someone doesn't like us, are we tempted to rejoice? No, we're gonna feel miserable, right? To test that, just try imagine with your friend right now, imagine if your friend next to you decided to give you the silent treatment for the next half hour, right? How would that feel? You feel pretty miserable, right? And so Jesus says, rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you. So there's something again about rejoicing and suffering, rejoicing and facing challenges that you could be going through the toughest times and still have joy. How is that possible? All right, how is that possible? A couple of days ago, if I recall, Father Lewis, maybe in the previous conference, Father Lewis, you know, he's from Haiti, Father Lewis Merozny, he's gonna be giving us, he's gonna be doing adoration later tonight. He shared about how in Haiti several years ago, the earthquake destroyed much of his town, right? A big earthquake destroyed much of his town. People were left sleeping outside, right? People were left sleeping outside. The ones who had tarps were able to sleep under tarps, but otherwise they were just exposed to the elements. And yet he said, on Sunday morning, they got up bright and early, they got dressed and they went to mass in their Sunday best, right? That is joy, right? That is joy. The ability to stay faithful and stay rooted in God despite going through the worst situation, right? For most of us, not, let me, losing our house, losing our livelihood, that would be pretty devastating. That might make you not wanna go to church, right? I mean, I'm pretty sure, and how do I say again, yeah, my faith, I don't know if my faith is as strong as that, where if I lost everything and then come Sunday, whether I'd feel like going to mass. And yet, he says, that's what they were doing. I'm also reminded of St. Lawrence, I think the deacon. If you recall, he was, you know, during the time of Christian persecution, he was taken in for offending the king in some way and they roasted him, right? They roasted him. And what did he say? Turn me over. To have a sense of humor when you're burning to a crisp? I mean, boy, that is again, true Christian joy. So joy is not just based on good feelings or vibes, right? Joy transcends feelings, right? Joy, you can still experience joy in the midst of suffering. You can still experience joy, even when life seems to be crumbling around you. Which seems to say to me then, that I remember Dr. Sree's talk yesterday, right? About being virtuous, right? About being virtuous, having prudence, having fortitude, having temperance, prudence, fortitude, courage, temperance, yeah. Sorry, justice, yeah. Without the virtues, I don't think we could have joy, right? Because it takes fortitude in order to go through suffering, right? It takes fortitude to go through suffering and not complain and not give up, right? It takes wisdom to be able to face temptation and to realize what it is that our lives are ultimately ordered to and not succumb to temptation. So it appears that, you know, to make a connection with Dr. Sree's talk, in order for us to experience joy amidst trials and challenges, we gotta be virtuous people, right? We have to develop the virtues. Here's another Bible verse about joy that makes a connection between joy and suffering. This is from James. And the same Greek word appears here as well, kairete, kairete. So this appears in Philippians, it appears in the verse in Matthew, and it appears in James as well. James 1, verse two to four. Count it all joy, my brethren, when you become rich and famous and powerful. Is that what he says? No, he says, count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials. Count it all joy when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. So it's almost like in the Bible, what the apostles, what our Lord seems to be saying is, one necessary precondition for joy is suffering, trials, right? Usually when we experience trials and suffering, what do we wanna do? We wanna run away from it, right? Or we pray to God, God help, like please let this pass quickly, right? Let, you know, I want it done like that, right? And yet Jesus says, or yet James says here, count it all joy when we experience suffering, almost like we should thank God for our suffering. Thank God for the pain that we're going through. And there's, again, that we can experience joy in the midst of that, that's a Christian gift. And here's the thing too, here's the thing. I think what that recognizes is the fact that everyone experiences suffering, that part of being human, because our world is so sinful, means that suffering is inevitable. No amount of money, right? No amount of money that we have can prevent and stop suffering, right? It might forestall suffering for a bit, but it will never prevent suffering. No amount of fame that you have will prevent suffering, right? Famous people get sick, not so famous people get sick, right? Really wealthy people get sick, not so wealthy people get sick. Everyone suffers, right? That's a human reality. But the Christian message here and the gospel message here, and this is why it's such good news is we can still have joy in the middle of suffering, right? We can still have joy in the middle of suffering. And so how is that possible, right? How is it possible that we as Christians can have joy in the midst of suffering? If joy is not just about good feelings, if struggle is a necessary component of joy, what then is joy, right? And again, many people are misguided perhaps and this is why they resort to drugs, right? This is why Matt Frad just now was talking about the little things that we do to give us, to help with our emotional instabilities, right? So people resort to drugs, to alcoholism, to pornography, to maybe being slothful and just binging on Netflix, whatever it is, right? We do things, we think we can find joy in these things. And yet, what usually happens, I teach at a high school in Riverside and one exercise I like to do to ask my kids, ask my students is, even the most delicious food that you get to eat, right? And think about this, right? The most delicious food that you get to eat, the most delicious food that you get to enjoy. How long does the pleasure from that meal last before you feel hungry again? An hour at the most, right? About an hour at the most. And then on to the next one, right? When you watch a really good movie, right? The most entertaining movie that you could imagine. How long before that entertainment wears off? Also, right? Probably quite fleeting, right? Quite fleeting. So if we are seeking joy in these temporary evanescent things, we will never find joy, right? If we're seeking joy in drugs, in alcohol, in entertainment, right? In pleasures of the world, prestige, fame, we will never find joy in these things, right? Fame, if we think that fame lasts, right? One minute, think about this, right? One minute you could be the most popular person in the world, everyone could like you. But are people's opinions usually very stable, right? One minute you could love someone, right? And then they say one wrong thing or they do one wrong thing that annoys you and then what, you hate them, right? I mean that public opinion can be like that. Fame is fickle, fortune is fickle. So if we try to find our joy in these things that don't last, we're gonna be so disappointed, right? And we're gonna keep chasing different pleasures, different drugs, so to speak, right? Until we find our true joy. This is why Saint Augustine famously proclaimed in confessions and he knew this, right? Because he lived a life of sin, right? He lived a life of sin, hedonism, seeking pleasure. He tried to find his joy in power, right? In political power. He tried to find his joy in all these things and he was still unhappy, right? And this is why he wrote in confessions, at the very beginning of confessions, he says, you created us for yourself, oh Lord. And our hearts are restless until they rest in thee. Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee. And so to tie in with, again, now let's, to tie in with where our joy is found. This is how Dr. Scott Hahn in his book, Joy to the World, this is how he defines joy. If the Lord is our joy, our joy cannot be taken away. It cannot be lost, right? If the Lord is our joy, our joy cannot be taken away. It cannot be lost. And let me give you the theological reason for that, right? The theological reason for that is we don't just serve a God, we don't just worship a God who is crucified. We worship a God who is crucified and resurrected, right? And in his resurrection, that is where we find the lastingness of our joy, right? That is where the lastingness of our joy can come from because that joy cannot be taken away because it is rooted in the joy of the resurrection, right? It is rooted in the joy of the resurrection. We are an Easter people, St. Pope John Paul II proclaimed, right? And that joy is eternal. That joy is lasting, right? This is another thing in the book that St. Scott Hahn, maybe one day, Dr. Hahn says in the same book, the world offers countless pleasures but no lasting joys. Think about that, yeah? The world offers countless pleasures but no lasting joys. What Jesus Christ gives is joy even in the midst of hardship, sorrow, even persecution, flight and exile, right? Even persecution, flight and exile. Because the Christian messages, Jesus Christ on the cross was the happiest person, the happiest person because he was perfectly doing God's will on the cross. So even the cross can transcend suffering, right? Joy can be found on the cross. And so joy can be found even in the midst of each one of our crosses today if we unite it to Christ, right? So how do we find joy? Joy comes from abiding in Christ. Joy comes from abiding in Christ. Being rooted in the scriptures, right? Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ, right? Being rooted to the scriptures, being rooted to the sacraments, being rooted to the sacraments, that is what gives us our joy. The joy that comes from feeling forgiven after having received absolution at confession. That is a powerful, powerful joy, right? We've been talking about jubilee, right? Liberation, being freed from slavery. I don't know how many of you have paid off either mortgages or student loans, but imagine how, I'd imagine how that feels, right? When you've paid off all your student loans, right? Imagine having paid off your mortgage, that feeling that you get, right? Of being liberated from debt, right? That's the joy that comes from confession. And again, that comes from being, that comes from abiding in Christ. The joy that comes from receiving the Eucharist, receiving our Lord, body, blood, soul, and divinity. The joy that comes from adoration, right? And think about this. I mean, yeah, this thought came to my mind. Either us Catholics are the most insane, deluded people, or we are the most sane people. And here's why, okay? Because we're gonna be doing adoration later, right? Just compare us, compare being a Catholic to compare that with the Hindu or the Buddhist, okay? The Hindu and the Buddhist, they worship statue. They actually worship the statues, right? They worship, they pray to those images. But if you ask any Buddhist or, you ask any Buddhist or Hindu, they'll say, you know, any sort of sophisticated Buddhist or sophisticated Hindu, they'll tell you, no, no, it's not the statue we worship. There's like, we worship the spirit behind, you know, the spirit, the entity that's beyond the statue. Do you understand what I'm saying? So that statue or that image is a symbol of the God that we worship, okay? So it's a total misunderstanding of God, but okay, I can understand, it makes sense, okay? But us Catholics, either we're insane because we are kneeling before either a biscuit or the God of the universe. Have you thought of that, right? We are either kneeling before a biscuit, in which case, if we're just kneeling before a biscuit, then we're insane, all right? But I struggle to think, I cannot think that we're insane because this same group of people, right, that kneels before what looks like, you know, something ordinary, is the same group of people, the same institution, the same church that builds universities, right? Universities that study science, that study philosophy, that study mathematics, right? It is the same institution that gave, you know, that is the source of a priest like George Lometra, who is the founder of the Big Bang Theory, right? The same priest adored the Christ and the Eucharistic host, right? The same priest, and yet, right? He's also, you know, some very scientifically minded individual, right? The same church gave rise to someone like St. Thomas Aquinas, right? So, you know, we really have a gift, and again, and I know it sounds flippant, but this is actually one way I like to challenge my Protestant brothers and sisters, see? Either we're insane or that really is God, right? That really is God, and judging from almost most Catholics I know, judging from how the saints are, I can't help but think that we have something, we have something special, right? And that's where true joy lies. That's where true joy lies. And by the way, right, the saints, saints like St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. Thomas Aquinas, what sustained them? What sustained them was the Eucharist, right? They went and received the Eucharist every day, right? That's what gave them purpose and strength for their mission, right? And so we draw our joy, we draw our strength from staying close to the sacraments. We really have a gift, right? The God, the creative, the universe who died for us, who rose again for us, is the same God who is available, and he is the source of our joy. So our joy comes from abiding with Christ, being rooted in Christ, right? Staying close to Christ, right? That's where joy comes from. No other joy, you won't find lasting joy from anyone else, right? And then here's where I wanna tie in joy and truth, because I think that the connection has not been made between joy and truth, because right, people wanna feel good and they wanna do whatever it is they want, right? Whether or not it's something good or not, they just wanna have the freedom to live however they please, as long as it gives them good feelings. But here's another sort of, how do I say? This is another sort of, we're here to defend the faith. This is a move we can make, a theological, philosophical move we can make, right? To justify our Catholic faith. If joy is found in Christ, right? If joy is found in Jesus Christ alone, how does Jesus describe himself? He describes himself as what? I am the way, the truth and the life, right? I am the way, the truth and the life, and that's a highly unusual thing to say, right? Because if you are a religious teacher, what should you say? If I'm a religious, if I'm a good religious teacher, I should say, I know the way, I know the truth, I know the life, right? This has been said several times, someone like Buddha never claimed to be the truth, right? Buddha said he knows the path to truth, right? He was wrong, but he claimed to know the path to truth, but he never said that he is the truth, right? Muhammad never said I am the way, the truth and the life. He says, I know the way, right? I know the truth. He doesn't, right? But he never dared to say that he is the truth himself. Jesus Christ dared to say that he is the truth, right? That's a big claim, right? And so here's the thing, if Jesus Christ is our joy, and if Jesus is the truth, there can be no truth, there can be no joy without truth, right? There can be no joy without truth, which means if we want joy, we have to accept several truths, the truth that there is a God, right? The reality that God exists. As long as we behave as if there is no God, we will not have joy, right? As long as we behave that there is no God, we will not have joy. I'll give you an example. Anyone of you heard of Frederick Nietzsche, German philosopher, right? One of the famous things he proclaimed was what? God is dead, okay? And he actually explored the implication of proclaiming that God is dead, and that actually drove him mad to despair because he said, God is dead, therefore the only purpose to life is, he called it the will to power, the will to power. So he said such things such as love, friendship, goodness, kindness, he called all of that illusions, he called that a weakness, okay? So he said the only, in light of the fact that there is no God, the only way to live is to live for yourself, okay? The only way to live is to live for yourself, no such thing as love. So he said we should exploit others for our use, and he said the person who could live the will to power to its fullest is the ubermensch, from which we get the term Superman, the Superman, right? The Superman is the one who can live according to this will to power, who uses others for his purposes, uses others for his pleasure. Think about this, how long do you think a friendship can last if both live according to this maxim? Pretty long, yes, no? Not longer than a week, I'd imagine, right? Once you figure things out. How long can a marriage last if both parties live according to this will to power? I marry you so long as you're rich and wealthy, I marry you as long as you're beautiful, and you can give me some, give me some, I can derive some pleasure or prestige from being married to you. How long do you think that marriage will last? As soon as that prestige goes, as soon as that wealth goes on to the next one, right? Which is perhaps why so many Hollywood, Hollywood celebrity marriages last so long. Paying attention, it's good, right? So think about that. The implication of rejecting the truth of God leads to madness. The kind of madness where people exploit and use one another for their own purposes, right? Which is why there can be no joy without belief and acknowledging God, right? Without belief and acknowledging God. And you can even point to Nietzsche to justify that, right? You can point to Nietzsche to justify that. It means accepting the truth of the reality of the person of Jesus Christ and his church, right? Making Jesus Christ the Lord of our life. As long as we do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Lord of our life, we will also be cut off from joy, right? And again, ask ourselves the question, is Jesus Christ really the Lord of my life? What that means is, is he the Lord of my relationships, right? Before I enter into any relationship, do I seek his will first, right? Is he the Lord of my entertainment, right? The movies I watch, the music I listen to, right? Is he truly the Lord of my life? Is he the Lord of my social life? The people I'm friends with, right? Are they really, do they also, are they pleasing to him, right? That's the test of whether you acknowledge Jesus Christ truly as the Lord of your life. Is he the Lord of my finances, right? These are all the tests to see whether Jesus Christ is the Lord of our life, because if he is not the Lord of our life, inevitably we will slide into despair, right? Eventually, right? It means accepting the truth of what it means to be human, right? What it means to be a human person, which means that we are, you know, we have souls, but we are also bodies with particular sexuality, right? So that we can tell what a man is and what a woman is, right? Because once you reject that truth of what it means to be human person, also depression, despair, right? They did a, I think they did a study of, they did a study of teenagers, right? Who had sort of these sex change operations performed on them, right? Or these surgeries, a lot of them were depressed. Many regretted their decision, right? Lifetime of heartache regret, right? Cause that comes from denying the truth of what it means to be human, right? And as soon as you cut that truth off, cuts off joy. The truth of human sexuality, right? The truth, it means accepting the truth of human sexuality and how it is ordered to marriage, right? To sacramental union and to being fruitful, right? As soon as we cut off sexuality from that truth, also heartache, right? Also misery, loneliness, alienation. When we cut off joy, when we cut off truth from human sexuality. So joy and truth go together. As soon as we cut off truth, joy goes with it, right? Joy goes with it. And this is why I think our society today needs to hear about truth, right? What is the truth about God? The truth about the church, the truth about the human person, the truth about human sexuality so that our society can experience true joy. Cause otherwise we're left bickering and fighting one another, right? That's where dissent, all kinds of disorders come in. So it seems like there are grounds for further evangelistic consideration here, right? About the good news bringing joy, right? The good news bringing joy, but that only comes if we accept truth itself as well, right? That comes if we accept truth itself. Now another thing I wanna add about joy, right? Another thing I wanna add about joy, sort of the lasting. This is something that united two saints who couldn't be more different, right? So this is part of the reason why at the beginning I said Saint Teresa of Calcutta pray for us, Saint Thomas Aquinas pray for us, right? These two saints probably, you couldn't think of two more different saints, right? And this is how they both thought about joy. So for Saint Thomas Aquinas, he writes that joy is an act or effect of charity, right? An act or effect of charity. So it is the result of love. Joy is the result of love, okay? According to Saint Thomas Aquinas. Saint Teresa of Calcutta describes joy as the net of love by which we can capture souls. Isn't that beautiful? The net of love by which we can capture souls. A joyful heart is the normal result of a heart burning with love. You wanna experience joy? Try love, right? And not just the love of strong emotions, not the love of feelings, but the love of giving of yourself. The love of pouring out your life for someone else, right? The love of willing the good for the other as other. You wanna experience joy? Joy can only come with love. And again, this love is sustained by going to the sacraments precisely because Jesus Christ is the source and fountain of that very love itself, right? Jesus Christ is the source and fountain of that very love itself. But the one who loves as Christ loves has joy, right? The one who loves as Christ love has joy and that kind of love is truly irresistible, right? That kind of love is truly irresistible and it's the kind of love that draws others in. It's the kind of love and joy that draws others in. Any one of you watch It's a Wonderful Life? Most of us have, right? At the end of the movie, right? I remember George Bailey as he goes through life. He has all these misfortunes. He wants to travel. Other people seem to be enjoying life, right? And he's stuck in the same old town but he does so much good, right? And at the end, he says what? I'm the richest man in the world or something like that, right? But in the end, it's implied that he has lived the most beautiful life. He has experienced the most joy. And why? Because he has loved the most. He has the most joy because he has loved the most. Look at all the people in the town that he touched, right? All the people in the town that he touched, right? He had a lot of joy because he had a lot of love, right? He had a lot of love. And so if we want to be joyful people, we have to be a people of love, people who are unselfish, a people who give of ourself. And that is a kind of love that is different from the love of the world, right? Because the love of the world is what? The love of the world is me, me, me, right? Worshiping at the cult of the self. And that is no love at all and no joy at all. But the love of Christ is the kind of love that pours itself out even unto death, even unto death. But it is in dying to self that we are born again. It is in dying to self that we experience the joy of the resurrection. So to recap, right? To recap, joy draws others in, right? Joy draws others in. There's something contagious about joy. We want to be around joyful people. We want to be around them. We want to emulate them. We want to follow them. And joy and mastering something often go together, right? Some of the most joyful people I know are experts in their field, right? Part of the reason I wanted to study theology and philosophy is because of people like Dr. Scott Hahn. Look when he goes up to speak about the Bible, just how his face lights up. He comes alive, right? And all of us, look at thousands of people who come wanting to learn from him, right? Because of his passion, his love for scripture, right? That's the kind of contagious joy that I'm talking about, right? So mastering our faith is also compatible with joy. Second, joy transcends even suffering, right? We can experience the worst suffering, right? Life can be falling apart, but still have joy because that joy is rooted in abiding with Christ, right? That joy comes from abiding with Christ. Next, joy cannot be severed from truth, right? Joy cannot be severed from truth. The moment you cut truth, no joy, right? No joy. Finally, joy overflows with love. Joy overflows with love. So challenges, try that and see if your life is not more joyful, right? So hopefully we can be truly an Easter people, a people of joy. So with that, thank you and I'll open up to questions. What is your favorite saint or favorite couple of saints that you would recommend that maybe had methods for developing their joy? For developing joy. I suspect one might be, for me, Saint Therese of Leziah, the little way, right? The little flower, just doing little things with great love. So that's kind of doing the dish, I mean, I'm a husband, I'm a father, right? And changing the diapers, changing the diapers with great pouring all my love and soul and changing that diaper, right? Pouring all my love and doing the dishes. Oh, that can help sort of nourish joy. So I like, there's something about the little flower, Saint Therese of Leziah that I like. I guess another one, I know this might not seem so evident or obvious, but for me, someone like Saint Thomas Aquinas is someone joyful because he loves the truth so much. Look at all the voluminous books he's wrote, right? Because of his love for truth. So again, there's something joyful in that, being willing to study and dedicate so much time and learning the faith. So there's just different ways to, I guess, cultivate joy within our faith. Saint Pope John Paul II, oh man, someone who's so joyful, right? Even to the point of being willing to forgive the person who shot him, right? And everywhere he went, just people couldn't help but be drawn to him. He exuded great joy. So I'd say, I mean, this is not limited to them. Another one I can think of, yeah, Saint Lawrence, right? He had the sense of humor, if I recall, when the emperor said, bring the treasures of the church, he brought the poor and said, you know, someone with that kind of sense of humor. And then after that, so yeah, then say, turn me over, sorry? Saint Thomas Moore, yeah, that's another one too. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I hope never to find out whether I have that kind of sense of humor, but I would like that sense of humor. So yeah, I guess in some sense, all the saints had that kind of joy, you know? A good glass of Napa wine. I don't live in Napa though, so. I live in San Bernardino, which is maybe worse than Nazareth, so. Any other questions? Does that help, sir? Okay, yes, sir. Just like some people might say that what they enjoy is relative, people might say that the definition of joy itself might be relative, different person to person and culture. How would you tackle something like that? Yeah, which is why I would say joy and truth are inextricably brown, because precisely because joy is rooted in truth, and there is such a thing as, how do I say? There is such a thing as the truth of the human person, which means that there is a good that we ought to do and good, and vices that we should avoid, you see? So based on that, I'd suggest that joy is, and because joy is not just feelings, you might have good feelings that come from our happy or pleasant feelings, let's say, that come from doing something bad, right? So I'd suggest this notion, exploring this theme, this connection between joy and truth, I think has something to say against that kind of sort of relativism, right? Where yeah, joy just depends on the individual. Yeah, I mean, we do have our own unique gifts and likes and dislikes, but there are good things that bring joy, right? And there are bad things that deceive us into thinking that it makes us feel good and actually it's harmful. So this is why I think the connection between truth and joy is so important and truth is grounded in objective. Truth is when we conform ourselves to reality, right? Not forcing reality to conform to ourselves, to our will, so I maybe sort of explore it along that lines. That makes sense. Yes, Father. As a spiritual condition or as a virtue of fruit and pleasure and emotion. Yes, yes, yes, this thing. What's the distinction? Yes, did you want to say that out loud, Father? The distinction is what Scott Hans said. Yes. The world provides many... Pleasures, yeah. Joy and truth. Yes, yes, yes. Good. Yes. Is there a reason? Yes, yeah, there you go. So that's a technical distinction, yeah, that I should have mentioned, yeah. Those feelings are emotions, yeah? And they can be good, but they're not lasting in spiritual condition, yeah, which is the virtues. Yes, true, not true. Oh, yeah, thank you, Father. Oh, thank you, thank you. Humility, yeah. Yes. It seems to me that joy and peace is to have joys also to have peace. Yes, joy and peace, yeah. True joy, right, brings lasting peace, yeah. Yeah, the shalom of the Old Testament, absolutely. Joy, oh yeah, that's right, joy and peace. Thank you, Father. I'm still trying to wear joy on my face or I'm trying to get more joy in my face because I want that desperately, but I'm beginning to discover and thank you for your insights that I easily distract myself or let myself be distracted. Listing to too much world news is not, to me is the opposite of hope, it's despair. And Jesus is the truth and he offers us real hope. To dwell on the negative is to dwell on something that leads to despair. And I have been involved in much of that. I'm just watching too much news. I'm trying to figure out what's going on in the world and that just drags me away from the truth. Don't make the TV to say Vincent the Po. Amen. I guess, and we could always pray for, if that helps, if you still like watching news and praying. I would just like to suggest to more saints that I thought of with joy when you were talking about drawing people in through joy. St. Philip Neary, who is known as a joyful saint and then also St. John Bosco, patron of Catholic educators who drew the students in through his joy and his silliness. So I just wanted to throw those two out there. Absolutely, thank you. Yes. So I guess in evangelization and like talking to people who might feel like they do have joy and they are happy and they don't really understand that there might be more and a deeper joy. How would you convince them that there is deeper joy than what they're experiencing in worldly pleasures? I'd say what Father had suggested with distinguishing between the emotion of the feelings of the moment or even the emotions that come from whatever it is that they're doing or experiencing with this other more deep, how do I say with this more deep condition, right? Which is part of your very being. If it's emotional, it comes and goes, it fluctuates, it even can be affected by hormones or your body, right, chemical reactions in your body. But if it's a lasting condition within you, it's part of your very being, then it's more permanent. But yeah, I perhaps maybe start by just asking if you're gonna try to evangelize them, right? And let's say they find their joy and pleasure. Just asking the question of where it is that they find their true joy, why they think their true joy is in this activity and whether this thing or this activity can really fulfill their every human need, so to speak. Because for one, God created us, how do I say God created us already with this desire to seek him and to love him, right? So as long as we find our joys so-called in these contingent things, we're gonna be hopping from one to the next. If they think that that pleasure or this joy comes from one person being with this person that they love so much, even that person will not be able to fulfill their every need. So maybe just asking the question first, getting them to examine their hearts more might be a good start. But there's a number of saints that he uses as an example among Mother Teresa, Saint John Paul II, and it explains their lives and how they persevered in their lives and what brought them joy. But I would highly recommend, I don't know, how many of you know Ralph Martin? He's a very good author and he wrote many books. The last one, probably a lot of you know The Churching Crisis, Path Forward. That's another, it has also joy in it because he shows the path forward, not just, whoa, what's going on in the world now? It's just going on, he shows the way forward though. Okay, thank you. Can you talk a little bit about joy versus personality types? Because maybe I'm a little bit like you. I'm a melancholic and I feel like I don't exude joy. In fact, frequently I get told to smile by strangers. So, I feel, I've been looking back at my diary. I've been struggling with this for 10 years, like how I feel like I'm not being attractive to the faith because I'm not, like I look at Cardinal Dolan and he exudes joy to me. Oh my gosh, I mean he's such a big personality. But that's a more temperament thing. So can you address temperament and joy? I mean, I'm not a, so I'm not a psychologist, but yeah, like you said, that's a temperament thing. I'm introverted, so I'm more sort of drawn within. I get energy more from being alone, from reading, from praying by myself. But that doesn't mean that I have maybe any less joy than the extroverted person because that again, is temperament, right? Because joy is rooted in, let's say, how close are you to Christ? How much do you love? And for that, only you can answer, right? But how much do you love God? How much do you love others? And how much do you show that love to those around you, to those in your immediate surrounding? So, and I know for an introverted, like I'm just using the introvert extrovert for myself. For someone introverted, it's easier to maybe show love, maybe to the people closest around me first. But yeah, maybe try showing great love in your little interactions, just with the closest people around you first, and then kind of like the virtues, right? It builds baby steps towards how we interact with maybe others, but just, yeah, people have told me I need to smile more too before, you know? So I can definitely empathize with you there, but that's what maybe, that's one thing I'd say. Yeah, temperament and sort of this condition of the being, the spiritual condition is more than just temperament, yeah. Yes, sir. I think I struggled with the same thing too. And I think the answer is, that's the reason I'm here, because I feel like I don't exude joy, right? But I think like what Norman was saying, that joy comes, it's a, it's, I think it's, the evidence of joy is through suffering. I think we witness joy when we go through suffering. And I think the world confuses happiness with suffering. And you know, when people are smiling and all people think that, oh, if you're not smiling, I don't smile very much too, but I sometimes have that question, right? Do I witness, do I have exude joy? Do people see Christ in me when they encounter me, right? And that's the reason why I'm here, right? I'm just like saying, well, is there something wrong with me? Do I exude it? But I think we, by living our lives out, day in and day out, the hope that we have that we carry, other people recognize that. I think that's what I'm trying to say. I think I struggle with that too. I think Father wants to say something. In which the church celebrates joy, those two Sundays are on the seasons, melancholy, suffering, the church puts the two, right in the middle, the third Sunday of Advent, the fourth Sunday of Lent, because the connection between melancholy and suffering and joy is real. The church calls us to have joy even in the midst of sadness, even in the midst of suffering. Yeah, you can. And we can always, I mean, love, you can always love, right? Whether you're in the midst of suffering, whether you're in happy times, you're in good times, easy times, difficult times. When I have to wake up in the morning and feed my daughter or let's say change a diaper and wake up early in having to change to the crying baby, I'm not feeling terribly happy at that moment, let's say, but I still love her and I can still love her at that moment, right? So you can always love, right? That's the thing. You can always show love and demonstrate love even in the most difficult circumstances. And so if you can love in the most difficult circumstances, you can have joy in the most difficult circumstances. That's one. Thank you. So two comments. I made a sarcastic comment earlier about avoid near occasions of sin by which I meant watching the news, okay? And but there's a seriousness that too much of that does take our joy and too much of that is wrong. We have to control what we're putting in our mind and what we're letting ourselves see and 15 minutes of headline news might be appropriate. Three hours of talk TV might not be, depending on the individual. The other thing I would say because I'm a melancholy kind of person myself, sometimes there is a degree of me, fear and timidity and other kinds of things. And obviously not right this minute, okay? But and sometimes just relax in who you are and who God has called you to be because you are a daughter of the king and he has empowered you to do the work that he has given you. He wants to use you to show his love to others and that's in you, that is in you. And that's gonna come out and it's gonna come out when you're not trying to make it come out. When you try to make it happen, it doesn't always work, okay? But it will come out when you're not looking for it. So I would just encourage you and I'm preaching to myself, you know, just relax in the spirit. I wish I had an exact quote on this but I believe that Padre Pio was accused of maybe not smiling enough or something like that and we all know how much he suffered. But yet you know he had joy and you know that he had great love because things like getting the hospital for the children that he had, you know, he wanted to be taken care of the sick children and things like that. I'm an extrovert, but you know, like it would just help if maybe we sometimes weren't so hard on the people who maybe didn't always smile as much or something like that. But I do know suffering and if you have people to bear that with you, it does help, yeah. Were you first or who was, I'm the size of, oh, she had her. I just wanted to comment on really appreciating the connection with virtue that you brought back in and the virtue of not only cultivating those virtues for ourself but that joy we find in others. The last couple of years I've been going through very devastating experience that I cannot control. I can't turn the news off. This is something 24 seven and I have noticed and I think really noticed during this experience with your talk and then others that the strength of virtue has allowed me to feel more joyful even in the last day, which is, you know, which really speaks to me to feeling that strength of God and that truth. So I want to thank you for that and others. I would like to encourage people not to worry about whether your face is smiling or not. The Bible says that an adulterous generation seeks signs, but it also says signs and wonders follow them that believe. If we go back to the scriptures that you used, rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. Don't worry about whether you're smiling. Concern yourself with whether you're rejoicing in the Lord. Concern yourself with your relationship to Him. Ask Him how to receive a fullness of joy but don't worry about what's on your face. God can show that you have the joy of the Holy Spirit to people. I worked with a woman since 1973 and little did I know that last week in a Bible study she was going to say, your joy has led me to become a better Catholic. I don't think I was smiling all the time for her. I was studying God's word. I was struggling, but I was asking God to help me be the person He wanted me to be. I will think, I am not an introvert and my wife will attest to that, but I know to me joy, when you have joy you have confidence, okay? Because you know what makes you happy and it helps me and this is how it works for me and I can't say that I'm always joyful. I struggle with that in my journey but I think that I am who I am and I don't have a lot of filters but if you don't smile, that's not your problem, it's theirs, okay? Unfortunately, we live in a world full of judgment and to me if I don't smile they're judging me. So you be who you are because if your faith is strong then you have joy and just like you said, when you would do joy and you just live your faith, people will get attracted to you. I just wanted to say thank you for being a high school teacher. It's not an easy job but it's very, very needed job and I just ask everyone to please pray for, I know high school teacher, he's leaving his teaching job because he's decided to go to the seminary, his name is Gabe, please pray for him, thank you. Please pray for Gabe, okay? Thank you. And this is the godmother of my second daughter who was telling you about, so yeah, please. Thank you. Yeah, I love, I'm an avid reader myself. I have a big collection at home and my sons want to get rid of it because they have so many books and I said don't you dare touch a book, not one because they're all treasures, they're all books on the saints, on learning our faith and everything. But so when I would read my books on the saints, I would always find out that the one thing that they always saw was that they could see Jesus in others and I always thought how do they see Jesus in others? Because like what some of the people were saying, I'm melancholy, I'm this way, I'm that way and it's hard to see Jesus in people that are not a lot of times mad or sad or, and it's hard to, so I thought to myself, how do they see Jesus in others? Well, I'm old and I've gotten to the point because I learned to have self-control over my emotions and that is because I've had a difficult life and so I found that I was getting angry on the slightest thing immediately and when I was watching Mother Angelica, she says learn to control your emotions, control your emotions and so I started practicing on that and I've always been a very happy, go lucky child in my childhood and my sisters are totally the opposite and one of my older sisters told me, she goes, I asked her, why are you so, always so mad at me? And she goes, you make me angry because you're always smiling, you're always, well we're all always falling apart with our nerves and this and that and it just makes me mad that you act like you don't have a problem in the world. Well, she was my problem, so which I was afraid to tell her and so now I think back about the books that I've read about the saints and I said, I wanna see Jesus in others. Well, more and behold, it was when I stopped thinking about myself and started thinking about the people in front of me and thinking when I look at a face, I think how beautiful that person really looks, not from the outside, but there's something that tells me that there's a grand beauty in that person and now I can see Jesus in other people and that brings me joy. Thank you. Any other questions? Well, again, thank you so much. You've been very gracious. God bless you and enjoy dinner.