GERARD MAHONY CP RANDOM THOUGHTS ON JOY

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1 GERARD MAHONY CP RANDOM THOUGHTS ON JOY

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3 FOREWORD: This latest book from me comes to you on the Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple. This would have had to have been a joyful occasion as Mary went in to the Temple of God. Mary was 3 years old when her parents Joachim and Anne chose to bring their daughter to the temple to consecrate her to God. It is said Mary climbed the stairs of the temple with great joy, dancing and without looking back. This tradition of the Presentation of Mary originates from apocryphal gospel according to James -- writings date from the years So I have tried to capture this experience of joy that Mary had. It is clear that St Paul of the Cross had a great devotion to this feast of the Presentation. He named the first retreat of the Congregation in honour of it. In the time of Paul of the Cross, this feast was always preceded by a solemn novena. During the novena, Paul wished that the 66 th Psalm Cry out with joy to God be sung because it revealed God s goodness to him. I have used imagery from the garden to illustrate the joy of creation. The photos are meant to provide a source of reflection to accompany the quotes. Be joyful! Share joy! Gerard CP Gerard Mahony CP 21 st November 2016 Feast of the Presentation E: tonymahony22@hotmail.com Photo: Taken 25 th October 2016 (Aged 94 years and six months) 2 P a g e

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5 1. Consider it pure joy, my sisters and brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 2. It is so great to be an infinitesimal part of this immeasurable orchestra the music bursts the heart, and from this tiny plosion all the fragments join: Joy orders the disunity until the song is one - Madeleine L' Engle 3. It is the mark of a good person to look for the achievement of good. Sheer joy is God's and this demands companionship. - Thomas Aquinas quoted in Sheer Joy, Matthew Fox 4. Joy has no name. Its very being is lost in the great tide of selfless delight - creation's response to the infinite loving of God. - Evelyn Underhill quoted in Finding Deep Joy, Robert Ellwood 4 P a g e

6 5. Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. - Thic Nhat Hanh 6. To get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with. - Mark Twain 7. There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well. - Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember 8. Love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us. It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at the root of all creation. - Rabindranath Tagore 5 P a g e

7 9. Joy is prayer. Joy is strength. Joy is love. Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. God loves a cheerful giver. She gives most who gives with joy. - Mother Teresa 10. Joy lies in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involves, not in the victory itself. - Mahatma Gandhi 11. The one who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy. - Kahil Gibran 12. I've come to realize the joy that comes from little victories is preferable to the fun that comes from ease and the pursuit of pleasure. - Lawana Blackwell 6 P a g e

8 13. There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone's life. - Sr Mary Rose McGreedy 14. The joy of life is made up of minute fractions - the little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment. - Samuel Taylor Coleridge 15. Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us. Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing - sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death - can take that love away. - Henri Nouwen 7 P a g e

9 16. Joy is the happiness of love - love aware of its own inner happiness. Pleasure comes from without, and joy comes from within, and it is, therefore, within reach of everyone in the world. - Bishop Fulton J. Sheen 17. The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers but for the wide world's joy. - Henry Ward Beecher 18. Eat with the rich, but go play with the poor, who are capable of joy. - Logan Pearson Smith 19. When you feel a peaceful joy, that's when you are near truth. Rumi 20. The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness. - Friedrich Nietzsche 8 P a g e

10 21. We all need joy, and we can all receive joy in only one way, by adding to the joy of others. - Eknath Easwaran 22. I celebrate myself, the poet Walt Whitman wrote. The thought is so delicious it is almost obscene. Imagine the joy that would come with celebrating the self - our achievements, our experiences, our existence. Imagine what it would be like to look in the mirror and say, as God taught us, That's good. - Joan Chittister 23. Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ. - Thomas Merton 24. If a person is dying for want of bread, and you give him bread, is that to make him gloomy? That is what Christ is to the soul - the Bread of life. You will never have true pleasure or peace or joy or comfort until you have found Christ. - Dwight L Moody 9 P a g e

11 25. A thing of beauty is a joy forever. - John Keats 26. Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God. - Teillhard de Chardin 27. I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. - Rabibdranath Tagore 28. The joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. - Gaudium et Spes, Second Vatican Council 10 P a g e

12 29. Who is the happiest of people? The one who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though it were his own. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 30. Joy, rather than happiness is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. - Rollo May 31. The marvellous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse. - Helen Keller 32. I have committed myself to joy. I have come to realize that those who make space for joy, those who prefer nothing to joy, those who desire the utter reality, will most assuredly have it. We must not be afraid to announce it to refugees, slum dwellers, saddened prisoners, angry prophets. Now and then we must even announce it to ourselves. In this prison of now, in this cynical and sophisticated age, someone must believe in joy. - Richard Rohr 11 P a g e

13 33. Pray for your ability to share your joy with others and be a light in this world. - Kathryn Shirley 34. You have been my help and in the shadow of your wings I will dance for joy. - Psalm 63:7 35. Joy runs deeper than despair. - Corrie ten Boom 36. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened. - C S Lewis 37. Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. - Rumi 12 P a g e

14 38. There is not one little blade of grass, there is no colour in this world that is not intended to make humanity rejoice. - John Calvin 39. You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. - Psalm 16: The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within reach, is joy. There is a radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see, and to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look. - Fra Giovanni 41. Joy is at its keenest when contrasted with sorrow, courage at its height when it follows fear, faith at its noblest when it grows from doubt. - Alice H Rice 13 P a g e

15 42. The hurt you embrace becomes joy. Rumi 43. Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. - Joseph Campbell 44. Joys too exquisite to last, and yet more exquisite when past. - James Montgomery 45. To wholeheartedly rejoice in another's good can deliver us from the chains of competition. While polite congratulations may be socially correct, it is not liberating. It takes a wholehearted delight in another's accomplishments or good fortune to free us and enlarge our hearts. - Edward Hays 46. Joy is an intermezzo of gratitude that interrupts the routine motion of life. - Lewis B Smedes 14 P a g e

16 47. I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. - Luke 15:5 48. Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great id the Holy One of Israel among you. - Isaiah 12:6 49. I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face-to-face, so that our joy may be complete. - 2 John 1: So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. - John 16:22 15 P a g e

17 51. A person finds joy in giving an apt reply - and how good is a timely word. - Proverbs 15: Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. Ps. 47:1 53. May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. - Romans 15: Deep joy is both the ground of love and the surest source of strength to persevere in the course of compassion - even when trials abound, as they often will. - Robert Elwood 16 P a g e

18 55. These are the marks of a heart that is living in the joy of the resurrection. It lives out of itself; and living out of itself, by this unselfish joy, it has a joy in itself which comes from the presence of Jesus Christ. - Archibald Manning 56. Joy is increased by spreading it to others. - Robert Murray 57. Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place. Rumi 58. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Matt. 13:44 17 P a g e

19 59. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. - John 6:9 60. Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are. - Marianne Williamson 61. Comparison is the thief of joy. Unknown 62. If we can just let go and trust that things will work out the way they are supposed to, without trying to control the outcome, then we can begin to enjoy the moment more fully. The joy of the freedom it brings becomes more pleasurable than the experience itself. - Goldie Hawn 18 P a g e

20 63. When you feel someone else's pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them. - Ann Brashares 64. O God, teach me to be satisfied with my own helplessness in the spiritual life. Teach me to be content with your grace that comes to me in darkness... Teach me to be happy that I can depend on you. To depend on you should be enough for an eternity of joy. To depend on you by itself ought to be infinitely greater than any joy which my own intellectual appetite could desire. - Thomas Merton 65. Learning to celebrate joy is one of the great practices of the spiritual life. - Joan Chittister 19 P a g e

21 66. Some of you say "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater." But I say to you that they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at the table, remember that the other is asleep on your bed." - Kahlil Gibran 67. The atom's soul is nothing but energy. Spirit blazes in the dullest clay. The life of every person - the heart of it - is pure and holy joy. - George Leonard 68. Joy is the realization of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover. - Rabindranath Tagore 69. Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness. - Tolstoy 20 P a g e

22 70. The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have, and to be able to lose all desire for things beyond your reach. - Lyn Yutang 71. One of the sanest, surest and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others. - Robert Heinlein 72. Once you open your eyes to the fun some 90 year olds are having, you'll be surprised at how much more willing you become to step into that joy yourself. - Noelle Nelson 73. I have merged, like the bird, with the bright air, and my thought flies to the place by the bo-tree. Being, not doing, is my first joy. - Theodore Roethke 21 P a g e

23 74. For God s anger is but for a moment and God s favour is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. - Psalm 30:5 75. Joy is a gift from God. It fills us from within. 76. Everyone should be able to experience the joy of being loved by God, the joy of salvation. It is the gift that one cannot keep to oneself but it is to be shared. - Pope Francis 77. A Christian is never bored or sad. The one who loves Christ is full of joy, radiates joy. - Pope Francis 78. A healthy Christian is a joyful Christian, even in times of sorrow and tribulation. - Pope Francis 79. Every encounter with Jesus changes our life and every encounter with Jesus fills us with joy. - Pope Francis 22 P a g e

24 80. Joy does not simply happen to us - we have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. - Henri Nouwen 81. Find out where joy resides and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all. - Robert Louis Stevenson 82. Joy comes to us in ordinary moments. We risk missing out when we get to busy chasing down the extraordinary. - Brene Brown 83. Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow. - Helen Keller 84. With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things. - William Wordsworth 23 P a g e

25 85. Consider it all Joy. - James 1:2 86. Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within. - Eckhart Tolle 87. Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. - Eleanor Roosevelt 88. A joyful spirit is evidence is evidence of a grateful heart. - Maya Angelou 89. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, constant in prayer. - Romans 12: The joyful heart sees and reads the world with a sense of freedom and graciousness. - John O'Donohue 24 P a g e

26 91. Life teaches you the art of letting go in every event. When you have learnt to let go, you will be joyful and as you start being joyful, more will be given to you. Sri Sri 92. Being joyful is not what makes you grateful. Being grateful is what makes you joyful. - Ann Voskamp 93. Always be joyful. Never stop praying. - 1 Thessalonians5: A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love. - Mother Teresa 95. All who joy would win must share it. Happiness was born a twin. - Lord Byron 25 P a g e

27 96. Joy and sorrow are the light and shade of life; without light and shade no picture is clear. - Inayat Khan 97. Let us aim for joy, rather than respectability. Let us make fools of ourselves from time to time, and thus see ourselves, for a moment, as the all-wise God sees us. - St Philip 98. Suffering is brief, joy will be eternal. - St Paul of the Cross 99. The beating heart of the universe is holy joy. - Martin Buber 100. We have God's joy in our blood. - Frederick Buechner 26 P a g e

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