Joy, the Fruit of the Holy Spirit
Cheerfulness is a sign that we are united to the Spirit.
(This is another post connected to my major post on what to do before starting spiritual direction.)
St. Paul exhorts us to be guided by the Holy Spirit, to allow Him to transform us. Self-knowledge is difficult, however. It’s not always easy to tell when the Spirit is within us, or when we’re in a state of grace.
In his Letter to the Galatians, St. Paul describes some indications that the Holy Spirit is actually within us:
Gal 5:18-23: But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love (charity), joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (chastity). Against such there is no law.
These fruits of the Holy Spirit are consequences that arise in our soul when the Spirit has entered our hearts. They grow in the presence of the Spirit as a fruit blossoms on a healthy tree. They are always present when the Spirit is present within us, unless we impede their growth through our sin or by resisting His work in our hearts. They are delightful, as fruit is delightful.
Thomas Aquinas believed that the order in which St. Paul lists these fruits of the spirit matters. Joy follows upon charity (agape). “The necessary result of the love of charity is joy, because every lover rejoices at being united to the beloved,” says St. Thomas (Summa Theologiae I-II.70.3).
Charity is loving God more than all other things, including ourselves. The Holy Spirit, who is Himself the gift of Love, by dwelling in us gives us the ability to love God for His own sake and to love our neighbors because God does (cf. Rom. 5:5: “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”). As long as the Spirit is with us, we are filled with charity: 1 Jn 4:16 “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.” Love, the primary fruit of the Spirit, unites us to God.
That’s why the presence of the Holy Spirit in our souls makes us joyful: we love God and want Him to be with us—and He is! If the Spirit is in us, if we’re in a state of grace, we both love and possess God, and this leads us to rejoice.
Peace (the third fruit of the Spirit) perfects our joy, continues St. Thomas. If we believe we are in danger of being separated from what we love, our anxiety makes our joy imperfect; while if we are certain that nothing can separate us from our love, we are at peace and our joy is perfect. If we have charity, if we love God more than any other thing we love, then our joy is perfect says St. Thomas, because “if a man’s heart is perfectly set at peace in one object, he cannot be disquieted by any other, since he accounts all others as nothing.”
That meanst that if we’re not at peace, if we have anxiety that reduces our joy, it’s a sign that our love for God is not pure. If we find our hearts to be restless, it’s a sign that we don’t have something that we love—either that really we love something other than God (and so we lack charity), or that we’ve committed some sin that separated us from God. St. Paul insists that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ except our own sin (Rom. 8:38-39), and so only sin can destroy our joy.
On the other hand, if we love the Lord with all our heart, if we let the Spirit guide our souls, we will be filled with joy and peace. So cheerfulness and joy are not optional for the Christian. Which explains why St. Paul speaks to the Phillipians in the imperative: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice!”