Joy, O Joy

There are not many days that I find myself nearly unable to contain the joy that is attempting to overflow out of me at every given opportunity.

Why, Alissa, are you so happy?

Well, in actuality, I said I was full of joy. Joyful. That is not the same as happy. Happy implies a certain satisfaction of things desired. That is not the situation here.

I am joyful. My soul.. it is alive again. It burns again. There's a flowing stream once more that is giving it nourishment. My aching bones have found rest. My empty cup has been filled. By bound soul has been set free, and it able to fly once more!

My heart is racing, and it isn't just the coffee. It has something to do with today being Our Lady's birthday, of that I am sure. I am also just filled with gratitude in general over my devotion to the Mother of God. It is not a thing that I sought out - she sought me out. When I was fourteen, someone in my parish paid for me to go on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. It was nearly two weeks long, over Christmas Break. I was in Medjugorje on Apparition Hill for the turning of the century, on Dec. 31, 1999 into Jan. 1, 2000. Prior to that experience, I had been taught to pray to Our Lady often and our family said the rosary together many nights. However, this was the time in which my Mother reached down and told me all about how much she loved me, and how she wanted me to love her in return. Moreover, I discovered how much I needed to teach others that she loved them too. Jesus had chosen her to be our intercessor and care-giver, our perfect model of purity and holiness, and so many did not have a relationship with her. Truthfully, I did not have much of a relationship with her.

The next four years of my life would be a long process of on-and-off pursual of prayer and faith life, amidst the confusing culture of American high school. Yet, within the first few weeks of my freshman year of college, I discovered that friends of mine were going to "consecrate" themselves to Mary. I did not really understand what that meant, but I wanted to participate. They explained to me that it was a promise, a commitment to be hers. It was a process, a thrity-some day period of prayer, that ended in making a "consecration" of oneself to Our Blessed Mother. They were using a book of prayers by St. Louis de Montfort, and they were going to pray the prayers for the month leading up to the feast of Mary's Immaculate Conception, on December 8th. So I joined in.

That time of prayer was one of great challenge for me. These prayers were kicking my butt! I had never thought about issue one or issue two or issue three as things that I could do with holiness or not do with holiness! All of a sudden I was being forced to examine myself in a way I had never done before. Worse, I couldn't get out of it! I had people holding me accountable. There were five of us who prayed these prayers together, and we only had three of the prayer books between us. This meant we had to meet and gather and pray together each day! There was no escaping this. I had to face my pride, my vanity, my laziness, my doubts, my fears.. so many things. It was wonderful.

It has been nearly six years since that first consecration to Our Lady. I have renewed the consecration every year, and a few of the years I've actually prayed through them twice. Sometimes I just miss the prayers! They are so beautiful. They are full of truth. They bring us to Our Mother's lap, and allow us to sit there while she teaches us about her Son, and his love, and the goodness of belonging to him totally. She teaches us how to live for her Son, how to accept his gifts, whether they seem good or bad. She leads us when we are lost and in darkness. She encourages us when we are too scared to get ourselves moving again. She picks us up when we fall and are too embarrassed to face the world again. She holds us close and carries us in her arms when our hearts are broken and we don't have the strength to keep going.

So, the point is that part of my joy right now is gratitude for the gift of Our Lady to the Church, to Christians everywhere, and to me.

Another aspect of my joy is assurance. Confidence, positivity, the feeling of what is undauntable, indisputable, inarguable, certain. Of what? How? I wish I could say.

This is a mystery, even to me. I am sure of love. Sure of joy. Sure of good. Sure that peace prevails. Sure that mercy covers everything. Sure that evil will lose. Sure that broken people will be healed, that lonely people will be loved, sure that hurt people will forgive and that offenders shall be forgiven. Sure that there is hope, even when hope has been covered by a big black blanket and then had some black smoke put around her and then had black clouds form above that... hope does not fail.

Sure that even when I can barely wake up in the morning, I will be at work on time. Sure that when I have 18 GAZILLION things to read and write for my SEVEN graduate classes, they will get done. Sure that somehow, by the grace of God, I will learn from my mistakes. Sure that again, by the Lord's mercy, I will become a better person. Sure that, no matter how stubborn I am, He will get me to change things that need changed in my heart.

Why am I so sure? Two main reasons. 1. Experience. 2. His Word.

The promise of God is that he IS. We need nothing more. He is love. He is Trinity. He is communion of persons perpetually giving themselves fully and freely in an exchange of love that has been revealed to us in time through the mystery of the Son being made incarnate and through Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection. Christ is the Word. The Word made flesh. Through Scripture, through the teaching of his Church, through the Sacraments, we encounter him on a personal level. We meet him. We can look into his eyes. He can look into ours. What do we see? Promise. We see love. Love is forever. Love mandates a promise. We never stop loving once we begin. When we love in truth, we love for eternity. Because love is eternity.

Going to get a bit sappy here, but this explains so much of the joy in my heart! I've said this before and many of you know, but its on my mind again. My baby brother died when I was ten, and Collin's sudden passing was a huge challenge for our family. We had a lot of other problems going on, and I cannot even explain how we made it through. It was all love. People from our parish making us dinners, helping us move, taking care of my mom who was very ill, babysitting us, driving us to practices so my dad could do other things (like work). People praying for us. Our parish basically becoming our "adopted family" for a while. I cannot express how this assisted us all in knowing the God loved us and was taking care of us, even in our sadness. Specificially in my own heart, there just came a moment when things were reborn. I know, and I will always know, that nothing can take me from the Lord. I've known it since I was ten. There was a moment that I just knew that life is hard. Life can really hurt. It can suck. But God.. he is perfect. Perfect. He loves. He is light. He is hope. He is truth. He holds us up, carries us, rocks us to sleep. He never leaves us alone. It may feel like we're alone, but one day we wake up and realize he was right there by our side the whole time. So then the next time we go through the "alone-ness" we remember that he was there the time before, and we believe he is there with us again. And he is.

My baby brother's birthday is Sept. 7, 1996. Collin turned 14 yesterday! Collin passed away on December 8, 1996. That's the feast of the Immaculate Conception. When we celebrate Our Lady being conceived in all holiness and purity, without any stain of original sin, is when my brother went to heaven. And he was born the day before Our Lady's birthday (that's today)! This is just cool to me, in the most basic sense. I love that if my family was going to endure some sadness and hardship, at least we have a lot of hope surrounding it. And Collin was baptized and without any sin (he was a 3 month old baby), so we can safely assume he is in heaven. So really, no sadness here at all! We all want to be where he is now, and knowing that one of my family members is already in the beatific vision makes me more confident that the rest of us will get there one day.

Ok, sorry, that was the sappy-somewhat-tangental part. Now, reiterating the "joy" and trying to wrap up a REALLY long post.

Joy is this hope, this confidence, this assurity, and something more as well.

Today in class my professor began with a reading from the Gospel of John. It goes as follows:
A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."

His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him, "How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
(The woman) said to him, "Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?"
Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." (John 4:7-15)

I cannot explain it, but something came over me while I listened to this. I felt with this woman. I understood her thirst. I knew her need. I could feel the emptiness that was begging to be filled. When Jesus said, "the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" I beat her to the punch! I felt everything inside of me saying, "well then give me this water!" I want something that will well up in me and allow me to float to eternal life! How great does that sound? All you have to do is ask for the water he's giving out and you're set? It is really that simple.

So these are some of my reasons for joy. It is still a mystery. I don't feel like I'm behaving any differently, and I'm not necessarily skipping through green pastures and climbing trees like a hooligan (though if you know me, I probably will). I am feeling alive. In a new way. Today's class for Nuptial Body was focused on "gift." It will take another long post to explain this, which probably will happen very soon. But the gripping truth of everything in this world, starting with our being and the world itself, being a full, total, free and gratuitous gift from God for no other reason than because he is LOVE just got to me today. It snuck in. Crept under my skin. Put its roots in my heart. He just loves so much.

I guess I could say that and it would be enough. Yes. He loves so much. He so loved the world. He Is Love.
St. Augustine put it like this:
"You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace."