Jesus, I know that finding happiness in life can only come from you. Saints trusting in the goodness of God have all suffered various trials. Despite this, they remained faithful and happy in life.
I want this virtue.
The Bible teaches us that Saint Paul the Apostle had spiritual happiness despite being beaten three times with rods, flogged, stoned, shipwrecked, and thrown in prison multiple times (2 Cor. 11). He still rejoiced and had complete trust in you. Saint Paul did not cry about every dire situation or doubt you would rescue him. He always trusted you would deliver him from evil, recognizing that you were his all in all and your will was always best in every situation. This gave him confidence and full trust in your goodness. Even with a thorn in his side, he was happy knowing your grace is sufficient (2 Cor. 12:9).
Lord, I need the virtue of happiness. You have always been there for me, bringing people into my life to teach and nourish me, especially in times of darkness and despair. So why is it hard for me to trust you? It grieves me that I am like this. I am ashamed of my lack of trust and how it causes me to lean on my own understanding. This habit of self-reliance causes so much unhappiness (Proverbs 3:5). Please give me the grace of trusting in the goodness of God.
I often worry about the future and make decisions without praying for wisdom. Then the consequences of my decisions often make me unhappy afterward. So why am I like this? Jesus, you know all my selfish motivations. You know I tend to make decisions based on fear of the future and without good judgment. Some decisions cause deeper unhappiness because they lead me away from you.
I do all these things without consulting you. I have even blamed you when they do not go my way. I am so sorry for my arrogance and lack of trust. Please forgive me. Jesus, I am truly sorry. I don’t want to be unhappy or distrustful anymore. Please help me change myself so that I follow you like a child, trusting in the goodness of God like the saints do. I know this is the only way of finding happiness. I repent for my lack of faith and for not trusting in the goodness of God. I know this is a terrible vice that keeps me from finding happiness.
Please help me become a saint. I want to trust in you like a child and follow your will all the remaining days of my life. When I know I am doing your will it fills me with happiness. When I am away from you and searching for fulfillment through the world I am anxious about the future and unhappy. Thank you for every grace you have given me and will give to me in my life. I love you.
AMEN.
“The Beatitudes respond to the natural desire for happiness. This desire is of divine origin: God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw man to the One who alone can fulfill it:
We all want to live happily; in the whole human race there is no one who does not assent to this proposition, even before it is fully articulated. How is it, then, that I seek you, Lord? Since in seeking you, my God, I seek a happy life, let me seek you so that my soul may live, for my body draws life from my soul and my soul draws life from you.
God alone satisfies.”
Finding Happiness by Trusting in the Goodness of God
Further words of David
by St. Hildegard von Bingen
“And He commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of Heaven, and rained down manna upon them to eat, and gave them the bread of Heaven. Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them provisions in abundance” (Psalm 77:23-25).
What does this mean?
From the heights of Heaven the Celestial Father showed this to the patriarchs and prophets in the power of His glory and in the secrets of His mysteries to prepare human minds; for in the Holy Spirit they truly foretold His Son, and in the precepts of the Law, the blood of goats and other
demonstrations they miraculously foreshadowed Him to the people.
And thus, opening the sweetness and affection of His heart in mildness and burning charity, He sent them His Son, that through Him they might be refreshed from the hunger of unbelief and fed on heavenly things that would satisfy their faith and give them the fullness of happiness and beatitude. And so, when the Supreme Father sent those blessed refreshments in an abundance of spiritual joy, through the humanity of the Son of God, Man received that bread with whose sweetness the angels of Heaven contemplating God can never be sated.
And therefore let the faithful faithfully listen: O you faithful people, who are the fruits of the Church! Listen and understand your souls’ remedy, by which you are not children of the Devil but heirs of the celestial Kingdom; and consider how I, the mild and benign Father, have surrounded you with the manifold happiness of your salvation.
Pay heed therefore, to the goodness of your Father, by Whom the thing that will save you has been arranged.
Scivias, Book 2 Vision Five Paragraph 25
Week 13 of the Virtue Meditations Series
Finding Happiness by Trusting in the Goodness of God
Reflection:
To begin to understand the virtue of happiness, we must first look at the root causes of our unhappiness. At the core, unhappiness is rooted in the desire to control your own life, and at its worst, unhappiness will drive you toward a total separation from our Eucharistic Lord, the Bread of Life.
St. Hildegard shows us how the unhappy soul develops a melancholy that slowly leads to contempt toward God if left unchecked. The unhappy soul may even end up in total despair and become suicidal, as Judas Iscariot did. St. Hildegard shows us how unhappy souls see themselves as the center of their world, and how this causes them to doubt God and question his love for them. When things do not go as the unhappy soul wants them to, he tends to blame God.
Am I an Unhappy Person? Do I lack Trust in God?
Man’s unhappy disposition is best captured in the lament of Psalm 88. It is the most despairing prayer of the entire Bible. The author is in deep pain, and he blames God: “You plunge me into the bottom of the pit, into the darkness of the abyss. Your wrath lies heavy upon me; all your waves crash over me. Because of you my acquaintances shun me; you make me loathsome to them; Caged in, I cannot escape; my eyes grow dim from trouble (verses 7-10).”
Many of us can relate to a moment in our lives when we were in pain and felt that God wasn’t with us. This is a lie. God cannot and does not abandon us in this life. Christ came down from heaven and became man to ransom us from our eternal destination, to rescue us from Gehenna. He is fully God and fully human. He knows pain. He felt pain. He loved through his pain and gave his life so that you can be one with the Father and be filled with the Holy Spirit and live.
Pain that Comes from Unhappiness
Pain, C.S. Lewis says, is “God’s megaphone,” meaning pain can’t be ignored and it will cause us to turn toward God for relief. He says, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain.“
The Lord loves you so much that he calls you to him night and day. But when you are full of pleasures and the good things of the world you probably won’t hear his whispers. So he comes to you in your conscience, but if you are weak and unable to give up the sin that feels good, he will allow you to suffer the consequences of your sin and have pain.
Finding Happiness while Experiencing Pain
God allows us to experience pain to draw us closer to him, especially when we have wandered far from grace. When we let our pain help us grow in virtue and holiness we suffer well. Jesus comforts us when we pray through pain because he knows the agony of the body and the agony of the soul, having experienced it in his Passion and Death on the Cross.
When our lives are full of worldly pleasures we often forget about God and become slaves to our sinful nature. We do what feels good to us, but afterward, we feel guilt, yet the pleasure we get from sins of the flesh makes it nearly impossible for us to repent. This is why, sometimes, the Lord allows us to feel pain.
Virtue of Happiness
Concerning Unhappiness
“Unhappiness, which turns away from all the good things of God, follows strife. Men who think they are saved run into death when they do not cultivate God. He is surrounded with the instability of various vanities, and he tries to make himself happy in various ways. But he cannot be happy. He blames his conscience when he looks into the innermost parts of his heart where he finds evil works. He has no hope in God. Let men be cautioned not to stay this way.”
Liber Vitae Meritorum, The Second Part, 57
If I Put My Trust in God will I be Happy even in Pain?
So if we turn toward the Lord in our pain, will we find happiness there? Although this seems impossible and implausible, the answer is yes.
Think about that one secret sin that you can’t stop. Maybe it’s not so secret now, but at one time it was. God knows you, and you have been asking for grace, but you are too weak to stop this sinful desire of your heart on your own. Maybe it has even separated you from God and turned your heart against him, but now you are finally praying again and wanting to be freed from it.
Sometimes, in God’s great wisdom and mercy, he will allow you to suffer pain from the consequences of your sin so that you will call on him and repent. Sometimes when faced with pain we become purified and pruned by it. Christ’s strength is sufficient for you right now. Contemplate that in prayer. Say it over and over, “Jesus Christ, your strength is sufficient for me right now…” Remember Paul’s words, “for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10) If you allow it, the pain you are experiencing right now will drive you to love Christ more deeply. If you contemplate the Cross as you suffer, and prayerfully journey each station with the Lord, you will realize how much he humanly suffered to save you.
Finding Happiness when God Chooses to Prune Us
The Lord loves us so much that he prunes us by removing the near occasions of sin in our lives through suffering. This is why the saints praise the Lord in their suffering and accept all trials and tribulations with obedience and humility. They assent to the Lord in his great wisdom for the Cross that he asks them to bear. Saint Padre Pio was a great example of this.
If your Cross makes you unhappy and resentful to God, you may be seeing your life from your own worldview, and have not surrendered this pain to the Lord and assented to his will for you. You need to give God authority over your life. Make him King of kings and ruler of your life. Assent to his will and allow the grace to flow in the midst of your suffering. You will find spiritual joy and have an inexplicable happiness in your suffering when you do this. I promise you, God will fill that pain with joy.
The Only way of Finding Happiness in Life is through God
Every soul who has suffered with Christ knows. We know that the only way of finding happiness is through God.
Going Further:
Today in our reflection on finding happiness by trusting in the goodness of God, we contemplated Psalm 88 and 2 Corinthians 11 and 12. You may want to spend some time in contemplative prayer meditating on these two passages this week as you pray about finding happiness in pain. The Psalm 88 Scripture passage is an unhappy prayer. Another passage is from Saint Paul, who is happy and content to suffer everything for Christ. Spend time with the Lord in adoration and seek to know his will for you in your time of suffering and pain. Allow yourself to surrender fully to the pain and give your assent, trusting in the goodness of God. Next, you may want to journal about your experiences of finding happiness as you meditate on Scripture the remaining days of this week.
Let us Pray:
Now that we understand the virtue of happiness, and have contemplated trusting in the goodness of God, let’s begin with a prayer of petition for it.
Virtue of Happiness
Prayer of Petition
Eternal Father, I am the work of your creation, made in your image and likeness but too weak to conquer the devil by my own power. I ask you for the grace to grow in virtue, surrendering all my thoughts, words, and deeds to you. Please help me resist the devil and all his tricks. Jesus says that whoever believes in him will do the works that he does and that whatever we ask in Jesus’ name he will do so that You may be glorified. Heavenly Father, you sent us your Son to show us what it means to have perfect virtue in life. Jesus is fully human and fully divine and has perfect virtue. Father, have mercy on me and please give me the grace I need to grow in the virtue of happiness, trusting in the goodness of God, so that I might grow in holiness and imitate Christ in my thoughts, words, and deeds. AMEN.
Now let’s contemplate the Lord by listening to him speak to us in the Gospels about finding happiness. Slowly meditate on the following passage, reflecting on his virtue happiness and trusting in the goodness of God. Take your time. Pause over a word or phrase that speaks to your heart. Reread the passage again, and then ask Jesus to help you better overcome unhappiness and the worldly attachments that cause it. Choose a word or phrase from this passage about finding happiness to write in your journal and add your thoughts. Go back and prayerfully re-read it throughout the week.
Finding Happiness by Trusting in the Goodness of God
Remain in Me so your Joy may be Complete
from the Gospel of John Chapter 15
[Jesus said:] “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.
Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.
Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.”
Let us Pray:
Jesus, this week I have self-reflected on my life and all the ways I have not trusted in your goodness and given in to unhappiness. St. Hildegard has taught me that the only way to overcome unhappiness, especially in pain and suffering, is to know the remedy; it’s being in Communion with you. When I stay on the vine and partake of your Body in the Eucharist my joy is made complete. I will bear good fruit.
The secret to finding happiness in this life is in the Eucharist. You feed me the new Manna from heaven and your mystical Body enters into me and gives me grace, purifying my heart and soul. I become a temple of the Holy Spirit. You fill me with your love, draw me toward holiness, and make me an instrument of your grace. I feel your presence; it gives me spiritual joy that cannot be duplicated. I trust in the goodness of God when I receive you bodily in holy Communion. This is because I experience your love in a palpable way. I touch the hem of your garment, finding happiness in you and you alone. When I am weak, then I am strong, because you are with me, and in me, and I am in you.
Thank you Jesus for this great gift. There is no greater love than this. You laid down your life for me and I want to give my life to you in gratitude for what you have done for me. Let me obey your will and go where you ask me to go. Let me suffer as I must for the sake of the Kingdom and to prune me so that I might become more virtuous and holy in your sight. I love you and I want to serve you. AMEN.
Virtue of Happiness
A Prayer for an Increase in Virtue for Others
Lord Jesus Christ, you say that when two or more are gathered in your name, you are with us. Jesus, in your name I lift up every person who has joined this prayer challenge or will join it in the future. I ask you to give us all the grace we need to grow in virtue and holiness so that we may love and serve you in our lives and through the people we love and care for. Help us in our thoughts, our words, and our actions. Guide us all by your Holy Spirit and give us the strength to overcome every temptation from the evil one. We ask all this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
Let’s pray for each other and strive to make good resolutions this week on trusting in the goodness of God.
Many people are in pain and are suffering throughout the world. Please take a moment to be with Jesus in this moment to lift others in prayer. Think of people in your life who need to overcome unhappiness and develop a trust in the goodness of God. Offer up your own pain and suffering for their conversion. Stand in the gap and intercede for them this week, joyfully accepting pain and suffering for their sake by finding happiness in your Cross and carrying it with love.
How do I Practice Virtue?
You’ve learned about the 13th Virtue, and you’ve prayed for God to give you grace. Now what? Let’s take a look at the Catechism for some guidance on how we can make Week 13 a successful effort.
“But this intimate and vital bond of man to God can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man. Such attitudes can have different causes: revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call.
Let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice. Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life and happiness. But this search for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, an upright heart, as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek God.
You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is your power and your wisdom is without measure. And man, so small a part of your creation, wants to praise you: this man, though clothed with mortality and bearing the evidence of sin and the proof that you withstand the proud. Despite everything, man, though but a small a part of your creation, wants to praise you. You yourself encourage him to delight in your praise, for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
Making Resolutions
Take a moment to reflect on the virtue of happiness. What are the ways you can freely practice this virtue this week? Ask the Lord to give you opportunities, and when you feel the Holy Spirit prompting you, take action. Write down your resolutions for this coming week in your prayer journal. Remind yourself to complete these resolutions daily for this entire week, and as the Spirit prompts you, feel free to write about your experiences with this virtue throughout the week.
In My Thoughts:
Jesus, this week I promise to take time daily to conform my thoughts by… (make your intention).
In My Words:
Jesus, this week I promise to take time daily to conform my words by… (make your intention).
In My Actions:
Jesus, this week I promise to take time daily to conform my actions by… (make your intention).
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Week 14 Mental Prayer Meditation
Use Good Discretion to Avoid all Forms of Immoderation
“Use Good Discretion to Avoid all Forms of Immoderation” – Join us for our 14th meditation on the 35 virtues of St. Hildegard of Bingen.