Joy
Quotes
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.
Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings. -Euripides
One joy scatters a hundred griefs. -Chinese Proverb
Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. -Mother Teresa
Joy is not in things; it is in us.
-Richard Wagner
Archived Homilies
4th Sunday C - Dcn. Chuck Stevens
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Illustrations
Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
C.S. Lewis.
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Author Leo Buscaglia tells this story about his mother and their "misery dinner." It was the night after his father came home and said it looked as if he would have to go into bankruptcy because his partner had absconded with their firm's funds. His mother went out and sold some jewelry to buy food for a sumptuous feast. Other members of the family scolded her for it. But she told them that "the time for joy is now, when we need it most, not next week." Her courageous act rallied the family.
Christopher News Notes, August, 1993.
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Poetry
With Joy
I am joy...
With joy, you were born
With joy, you were a baby
With joy, you cried
With joy, you smiled
With joy, you laughed
With joy, you sleep
With joy, you walked
With joy, you matured
With joy, you were healed
With joy, you fought
With joy, you never gave up
With joy, you world peace
With joy, you made me
-Joy O' Pateng
'Tis so much joy! 'Tis so much joy!
'Tis so much joy! 'Tis so much joy!
If I should fail, what poverty!
And yet, as poor as I,
Have ventured all upon a throw!
Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so —
This side the Victory!
Life is but Life! And Death, but Death!
Bliss is but Bliss, and Breath but Breath!
And if indeed I fail,
At least, to know the worst, is sweet!
Defeat means nothing but Defeat,
No drearier, can befall!
And if I gain! Oh Gun at Sea!
Oh Bells, that in the Steeples be!
At first, repeat it slow!
For Heaven is a different thing,
Conjectured, and waked sudden in —
And might extinguish me!
-Emily Dickenson