The Importance of Joy in the Spriitual Life

Writer H.L. Mencken described Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” And G.K. Chesterton once famously remarked about puritans:

"In America, they have a feast to celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims. Here in England, we should have a feast to celebrate their departure. "

Those fears of religious faith haunt secular people even to this day, and I think in some sense they haunt the religious believer as well. Here's the saddest part of the whole story for both the non believer and the believer, its not true. Here's a passage from the book of isiah about heaven, but also about the Kingdom of God in man's soul now,

"On this mountain the LORD of hosts
will provide for all peoples
A feast of rich food and choice wines,
juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.
On this mountain he will destroy
the veil that veils all peoples,
The web that is woven over all nations;
he will destroy death forever.
The Lord GOD will wipe away
the tears from all faces;"

St. Teresa of Avila famously commented, "Lord save us from sour faced saints," All the great saints knew that the devil is so angry about a joyful soul, because a joyful soul has great trust in God. We're called to give up on Gossip, pettiness, envy, anger. We are not called to give up on fun, and in fact fun can help us in the spiritual life, because it keeps tempations at bay. Think about it, when were sad or stressed, those are the moments when we can fall into sin the easiest.

So go out and enjoy life, and have fun, do you think God created this massive world of unbelievable beauty so that we should not enjoy it?