Fight for Joy

12-12-2021The Pastor's PenFr. Matthew R. Paratore, S.T.L., J.C.L.

Dear Friend,

Please allow me to offer 15 Biblical things we must do to fight for joy. This list reminds us that faith does not produce inactivity, but God centered activity:

  1. Realize that authentic joy in God is a gift.
  2. Realize that joy must be fought for relentlessly.
  3. Resolve to attack all known sin in your life.
  4. Learn how to fight like a humble and repentant sinner.
  5. Realize that the battle is primarily a fight to see God for who he is.
  6. Meditate on the word of God day and night.
  7. Pray earnestly and continually for an inclination.
  8. Learn to preach to yourself rather than listen to yourself.
  9. Spend time with God saturated people who help you see God and fight the fight.
  10. Be patient in the night of God's seeming absence.
  11. Get the rest, exercise, and diet your body needs.
  12. Make a proper use of God's revelation in nature.
  13. Read great books about God and biographies of great saints.
  14. Do the hard and loving thing for the sake of others witness and mercy.
  15. Get a global vision for the cause of Jesus and pour yourself out for the unreached.

Padre Pio would put it this way: "I should think myself in the way of my duty, to raise the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can, provided they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with."

Let us pray for always and never lose heart.

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