About Joy

Christ the King Chapel, Franciscan University of Steubenville. Happy Solemnity of Christ the King! This is an image of the altar of repose for Holy Week, for a time when Our Lord is quietly laid in the tomb of the tabernacle. This is a time of a solitary, silent song of Jesus as He trusts that the Father will not abandon us among the domain of death.

"Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice! Seek the Lord and His strength, seek His presence continually!" -Psalm 105:3-4

    When was the last time you were so happy that you could literally sing for joy?

    In Biblical times, that situation seems to happen relatively often. We find many times where Moses, Miriam, Judith, Hannah, David, Mary, and others are filled with such joyous awe in the glory of the Lord that they cannot help but break into song. I wonder what these songs would have sounded like?

    Hopefully, they would have been on key. Here at the Josephinum, all of the new seminarians have been taking a voice class to learn how to sing hymns and chant prayers. It can be quite painful at times, especially at the beginning of the year when some of us were practicing hard to try and match one note on the piano. As we near the end of the semester, though, I can honestly say that I've appreciated the class very much-- my voice has improved a lot over the last few months, which has also given me a greater appreciation for musical prayer. There have been a few times where I will be praying with the psalms in an empty chapel by myself, and have thought: "Why am I just speaking the psalms to God, when instead I could sing them?"

    In fact, the excerpt from Psalm 105 that was quoted above is part of my "finals" for the voice class; it is the entrance antiphon used for the feast of All Saints.

    However, I digress. Why did those saints of the Bible break out into song? Usually, it was rejoicing because God had worked victories for them. At the great Exodus from slavery into the promised land:

    "The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has  become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise Him, my father's God, and I will exalt him... Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider He has thrown into the sea." -Exodus 15:2, 21

    This was Moses and Miriam, respectively. Then there is the song of Judith at the defeat of the Assyrians:

    "I will sing to my God a new song: O Lord, you are great and glorious, wonderful in strength, invincible." -Judith 16:13

    Sometimes, the song was less of a jubilant blast of the glory of God, and more of a heartfelt melody in thanksgiving to our loving God. Hannah and Mary gave very similar songs of this nature:

    "My heart exults in the Lord: my strength is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation." -1 Samuel 2:1

    "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden." -Luke 1:46-48

    David gave many songs to the Lord. Some of them were songs of despair (such as Psalm 88 or 51), but almost all of them are psalms of joy, even if it is only sparks of joy through great adversity.

    I bring up these examples to show this: when someone breaks into song to the Lord, it is always genuine. This is a great human gift: one can usually tell when art is not genuine, when it has no true desire for beauty or expression of the heart. A prayer of song is a prayer of great exposition of the heart to God, it is a pouring out of one's entire soul. It is does not feel possible for the singer to describe these songs in simple words of emotion and feeling: joy, gratefulness, happiness, hope, despair, longing. These prayers become a giving of your entire self to God in times when words are more of a stumbling block than a stepstool.

    Are you picking up what I'm laying down? If not, that's okay. This is an experience that is very organic-- it must grow and blossom in your own heart if you are to understand what it means. It also is as unique and evolving as the experiences of your life, in the ups and downs that weather and shape us over the years. We will never stop learning about God and ourselves in these moments of song, and we will never fully understand them until heaven.

    The saints can break this down much better than I can.

    Saint Augustine gives some instructions for how this song of joy can arise in a soul:

    "But how is this done? You must first understand that words cannot express the things that are sung by the heart. Take the case of people singing while harvesting in the fields or in the vineyards or when any other strenuous work is in progress. Although they begin by giving expression to their happiness in sung words, yet shortly there is a change. As if so happy that words can no longer express what they feel, they discard the restricting syllables. They burst out into a simple sound of joy, of jubilation. Such a cry of joy is a sound signifying that the heart is bringing to birth what it cannot utter in words." -St. Augustine

    See how before the spontaneous song of praise can erupt in a soul, there must first be the practice of "sung words?" This is simply the practice of the written prayers of the Church: the sacraments, Sacred Scripture, the Pater Noster, the rosary, novenas, and much more. These prayers are our physical and necessary reminder for our minds that God is near, and that His grace is abundant. These open our souls to the reception of His grace, and these slowly teach us to recognize the voice of our shepherd in every moment. But prayer does not stop there-- we receive the relationship that Jesus wants to have with us in these written prayers, but eventually our hearts come to follow the rhythm of love that is radiating Jesus' Sacred Heart, and these written prayers become true songs of our hearts. As we acclimatize more and more to true relationship with Jesus Christ, we find our hearts joyfully singing in ways that words cannot express, and every kind of prayer becomes a song of the heart. In this way, the Church receives and returns the love of her bridegroom.

    Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music, might have never touched an instrument in her whole life. Though she is commonly depicted with a violin in her hands or the keys of an organ at her fingers, we have no proof at all that she ever was a proficient musician... except for the organ of her heart. (Get it?) Saint Cecilia had made a vow of virginity to God, though she was forced into a marriage with a fellow named Valerian. After the miraculous intervention of her guardian angel, however, Valerian converted, and the couple lived a josephite marriage, preaching the Gospel until their martyrdoms-- St. Valerian was killed first, and St. Cecilia was executed only after a few miraculously failed executions. The reason that St. Cecilia is known as the patron saint of music is because it is said that while the musicians played wedding music at her marriage to St. Valerian, she sang a song of love in her heart to Jesus, her true and eternal bridegroom. The Lord heard the hymn of complete and utter love poured out from her heart, and He safeguarded her so she could give her whole life, death, and eternity to Him.

    Our Lady never ceased Her song to the Lord. Her delight was in the law of the Lord, and She pondered it in Her heart by day and by night (See Psalm 1 and Matthew 1:19). The Queen of Heaven wishes you to know the joy of the Lord, that:

    "It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your merciful love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy." -Psalm 92:1-4

    Wow! That was a lot to read- thank you for reading all the way down to the end of what I have to write. There is so much joy that God desires for us. I encourage you to never cease praying for God to lead your heart in constantly rejoicing to be in His presence, in His will. Ask our Lady for help, for She knows the immensity of love with which God loves you, and She cannot wait to make this love of Her son known to you.