Joy

"And yet, from it very beginning Christianity has been the proclamation of joy, of the only possible joy on earth. It rendered impossible all joy we usually think of as possible. But within this impossibility, at the very bottom of this darkness, it announced and conveyed a new all-embracing joy, and with this joy it transformed the End into a Beginning. Without the proclamation of this joy Christianity is incomprehensible. It is only as joy that the Church was victorious in the world, and it lost the world when it lost that joy, and ceased to be a credible witness to it. Of all accusations against Christians, the most terrible one was uttered by Nietzsche when he said that Christians had no joy . . . Christianity was the revelation of the gift of joy, and thus, the gift of genuine feast. Every Saturday night at the Resurrection vigil we sing, 'for, through the Cross, joy came into the whole world.' This joy is pure joy because it does not depend on anything in this world, and is not the reward of anything in us. It is totally and absolutely a gift, the 'charis,' the grace. And being pure gift, this joy has a transforming power, the only really transforming power in this world. It is the 'seal' of the Holy Spirit on the life of the Church -- on its faith, hope and love."

-- Fr. Alexander Schemann, For the Life of the World

It's not too good to be true; it's so good it has to be true.