From the Editors – On the Solemn Nature of Joy (M.Ch.)

“Cry out [...], serve the Lord with gladness, come before him singing for joy.” These words of St. Augustine where quoted by Pope John Paul II in his commentary on Psalm 100. Undoubtedly, “practising” joy results in a better understanding of it than theoretical analyses do. Yet philosophical reflection on joy, apart from its purely cognitive value, has also a practical significance: apart from providing ways to distinguish true joy from its masks, it can also itself become a source of joy. As the editors of Ethos, we have planned – for a long time now – to devote a volume to the theme of joy and to consider the key question: What is the most general meaning of joy?

The present volume, focused precisely on this issue, is dedicated to Professor Adam Rodziński, who as a genuine philosopher of culture has for many decades revealed to his students the broad horizon of intellectual joy and taught them to recognize its subtle shades, while as an axiologist and ethicist he has explored the joy that springs from the discovery of values and from actions that follow from the truth one has intellectually affirmed.

The recent events have put the theme of our current volume into new contexts. The most obvious one is that of the approaching beatification of Pope John Paul II: the Holy Father Benedict XVI has announced that it will take place on 1 May 2011. This celebration will be joyous to the Church, to Poles, to our Institute and – in a special way – to Professor Adam Rodziński, who used to be a colleague of Karol Wojtyła’s, as both of them were teaching in the faculty of philosophy at the Catholic University of Lublin. By giving the title of “Blessed” to a Servant of God, the Church points to the perfection of his or her life in God, and the Latin word beatificare may be translated as “make merry” or “exhilarate.” Thus the beatification of John Paul II will express our belief that he already shares in the eschatological happiness – the act of beatification directs our attention to the fullness of joy that is the privilege of the saved ones who can see God face to face. The blessed are a joy to their communities through their participation in the history of salvation and they strengthen the hope of their communities to partake of the joy that will never cease.

In his teaching, John Paull II frequently focused on the question of joy, particularly in his catecheses on the Book of Psalms, in his Christmas and Easter addresses, and in his speeches to the youth, but he also referred to this concept in the documents of the Magisterium. In the encyclical Dives in Misericordia he pointed that a source of the greatest joy that lies in the affirmation or in the rediscovery of the dignity or essential value of the person (cf. Section 14). In his exegesis of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Pope reflected on the theological and anthropological sense of the motif of joy. The father welcomes his returning son with a joyous emotion making his joy a gift to the son. The source of the father’s joyful affection lies in that his “fidelity to himself is totally concentrated upon the humanity of the lost son, upon his dignity” (Section 6). In the joy the father shows to his son, John Paul II sees the inalienable nature of the dignity that results from the sonhood to God, as well as the possibility of a new realization of this dignity by man’s return to the truth about himself (cf. Section 14). Thus joy remains deeply connected to the creation of man in the image and likeness of his Father, as well as to the act of Redemption by the Son of God. John Paul II repeatedly taught that, through his Incarnation, his Sacrifice of the Cross, his Resurrection and Ascension, Christ “restores man to the joy of being man.” In the encyclical Dominum et vivificantem in turn, the Holy Father referred to the Gospel according to St. Luke in order to speak about the joy of Jesus Christ: “Jesus rejoices at the fatherhood of God: he rejoices because it has been given to him to reveal this fatherhood; he rejoices, finally, as at a particular outpouring of this divine fatherhood on the «little ones.» And the evangelist describes all this as «rejoicing in the Holy Spirit»” (Section 20).

The significance of joy was marked by the fact that Pope Paul VI decided to devote a separate Magisterial document to it. The apostolic exhortation Gaudete in Domino of 1975 (extracts from which we have included in the current volume) states that “in essence, Christian joy is the spiritual sharing in the un− fathomable joy, both divine and human, which is in the heart of Jesus Christ glorified” (Section 2). Paul VI encourages the faithful to cultivate the ability to rejoice and to partake of the numerous joys that the Creator grants human beings in their earthly lives. In particular, Paul VI exhorts the faithful to strive for the joy that is a special gift of the Holy Spirit.

Without delving into terminological analyses, one can easily observe, on the basis of intuition alone, that joy differs significantly from merriment, pleasure or gladness. The experience of joy is not exhausted in its emotional or sensual aspects, and it involves also the deeper layers of the personal structure of the human being. Also the ontological power of joy seems stronger than it is the case with the states that resemble or are related to it. Joy is not merely a subjective response to a more or less accidental set of circumstances, but it carries objective value (be it due to its social grounding or to its rootedness in the transcendent). Neither is joy a short−lived state, but a process which exhibits its own dynamics. In the strict sense joy is characteristic of persons only – only human beings rejoice (animals are capable of experiencing pleasure only, and some of their behaviors can be described as cheerful), although there are clues in the Holy Scripture and in the Tradition of the Church which make it possible to attribute joy to God and to the angels. Yet fallen angels and the condemned souls are deprived of a possibility to rejoice, since joy retains a close connection to the good.

Just as there is a hierarchy of goods, one can distinguish higher and lower joys. In their earthly lives, human beings approach eschatological beatitude through hope. The Eucharist is in a way a foretaste of the fullness of joy promised by Christ and the anticipation of heaven, says John Paul II in the encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (cf. Section 18). A foretaste of this joy is also found in the contemplation of revealed truths. A noble joy is inherent in the delight in the works of the Creator and in the gratitude for them. A particular place among the spiritual joys belongs to the moral ones, which accompany the fulfillment of a human being through his or her good deeds and result from a “clear conscience.” Spiritual nature is characteristic of the joy of knowledge, of creation or of delight in the beauty of art.

Yet there are also numerous joys pertaining to the body. Some of them resemble the spiritual ones, among them the joy of motherhood or the one of married life; there are also very simple joys, such as the joy of having enough food or of being free from physical pain. When satisfaction of the basic needs is experienced as a good, it can also become a source of joy. The human being, who, in his actions, frequently appears as homo ludens, tends to seek joy in amusements, in reveling or in entertainment. Medieval theologians sometimes exhorted their readers to abandon the enjoyments of this world considered as a significant obstacle on the way towards everlasting joy, and admonished them to earn eternal happiness by way of asceticism. Can one thus say that there lies an infernal abyss between the garden of earthly pleasures and the gardens of the paradise? Does the affirmation inherent in a joyful attitude to the reality – to being conceived of as good – make it possible for us to state that also lower joys are truly joys? Or does the criterion of the authenticity of a given joy lie in its echoing the dignity of the human being created as imago Dei?

Joy is marked by its inherently solemn nature which can be compared to the solemnity of a dignified dance. Indeed, the similarity between joy and a dance was pointed to by Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński, Polish poet, who praised the joy of everyday life.5 Artists frequently depicted heavenly joy as a dance of angels which, not infrequently, embraced the souls of the blessed. Yet this solemn nature of joy which lies at its core and is its ultimate reference, does not exclude external signs of joy. Julian of Norwich, the mystic writer to whom Pope Benedict XVI devoted his reflection during a General Audience the previous year, describes her experiences which accompanied her vision of Christ scoring the victory over evil through his Passion: “For this sight I laughed mightily, and I made them to laugh that were about me. And their laughing was pleasing to me. I thought I would mine even−Christians had seen as I saw; then should they all have laughed with me. But I saw not Christ laugh. Nevertheless, He is pleased that we laugh in comforting of us, and are joying in God that the fiend is overcome.”

Julian’s words remind us about the community forming power of joy, so loftily sung out in the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, perhaps the most famous piece of symphonic music. Music has a manifold reference to joy, as it can provide either its expression or its source. As our late lamented author Bogdan Pociej used to say, the mission of music is to make the human being happy. Due to the pure spirituality it conveys and its happiness bringing function music provides a foretaste of the eternal bliss. The spirit of music is capable of harmoniously uniting joy and sorrow.

The experience of sorrow in joy and of joy in sorrow recently became the lot of our archdiocese and our university. The sudden passing of Abp. Józef Życiński, Metropolitan Archbishop of Lublin and Grand Chancellor of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, left us in deep grief and made us recall the words of Fr. Tadeusz Styczeń, SDS, Founder and long term Director of the John Paul II Institute, also recently passed away (the next volume of Ethos will be devoted to his philosophical output). When we had been mourning the Holy Father John Paul II, he would tell us that the emptiness experienced as a result of such a loss opens up a space for the inexhaustible depth of the joy of Resurrection, and he encouraged us to live through this joy. We do so, believing that God, rich in mercy, will lead our Archbishop to the glory of heaven and grant him eternal happiness. Let the special memento in this volume be Abp. Józef Życiński’s reflection on the human responsibility for the joy in which Christ reveals his presence: „The art of living through the joy he brings remains the measure of our mature Christianity.”

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska