Cheerfulness
On the occasion of the feast, I would like to speak to you about joy, the joy in the Lord, through which a person is always cheerful. Therefore, let the subject of our contemplation today be cheerfulness.
Cheerfulness(1)
† Cheerfulness is a sign of inward joy, joy being a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22).
And cheerfulness is a sign of inward peace, and peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Thus the cheerful person is one in whom the Spirit of God dwells and produces His fruits..
† The cheerful face spreads peace around it, not only within itself. The cheerful face is a silent consolation to sorrowful hearts.
The cheerful face sends reassurance into the hearts of others, and indicates that its owner is a comforting person, showing an innerly rested soul.
As for gloom, fatigue, and loss of peace, they are signs of weakness of faith in the heart. For the believing heart, no matter how troubles surround it, and even if the devil overcomes it, has hope and trust and faith that all things will end well; therefore it is cheerful.
† The cheerful person does not live in present fatigue, but through hope lives in coming joy. If he does not live happy in reality, he lives happy in imagination and dreams…
He imagines Christ walking on the waters, rebuking the wind, and calming the waves. And he imagines Christ coming in the fourth watch of the night. And his imagination is not an illusion, but a truth built on faith.. He surely comes and does not delay. For the promises of God are true, and the cheerful one depends on them.
“Remember the word to Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope; this is my comfort in my affliction” (Ps 119).
And the cheerful person does not allow problems to confine him within them; he breaks their circle and opens for himself a door to come out of them.
† Sometimes cheerfulness is connected with asceticism, “for the ascetic heart does not cling to anything, nor grieve over the loss of anything, nor desire to obtain anything. Therefore nothing troubles him…”
The cheerful person does not judge by his mind, but by his faith… He does not judge matters by his own thinking, but judges them in the light of faith in God the Doer of good, the Lover of mankind… God must work good, even if I do not see this good… it may be merely a shortcoming in my sight…
† The cheerful person, even if his heart is full of sorrows, says: And what fault have people that they should see me with a frowning face and become sorrowful?!…
The noble person keeps his sorrow for himself, and offers his cheerfulness to others. He shares his joys with people, not his sorrows.
† The cheerful one overflows cheerfulness upon people, and makes them cheerful like him.
He spreads around him an atmosphere of joy, and of peace, and of reassurance… and makes people forget their sorrows…
The person who loves cheerfulness loves it for others also…
† Therefore he always finds solutions for the problems of others…
He gives them a comforting explanation for every distress, and a bright face for every trouble. He rejoices and makes them rejoice no matter what happens… whatever happens cannot remove his joy from him.
† The cheerful person lessens troubles and does not consider them heavy, whereas the gloomy one magnifies them and enlarges them…
The cheerful one overcomes troubles, but the gloomy one is overcome by troubles. The cheerful one does not fall into psychological confinement, nor does his soul become an enemy to him within.
† The cheerful one has a mind that is a friend to him, always comforting him. But the gloomy one has a mind that is his fiercest enemy, for it imagines troubles that have no existence, always magnifies evil for him, and closes before him the doors of solutions…
If he wants to go out of his house, it says to him, “The lion is in the way.”
The Lord Christ said, “Come unto Me, all you who labor, and I will give you rest.” And the Scripture said, “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you.”
† The gloomy person carries his worries, but the cheerful person leaves them to the Lord to carry them for him.
Cheerfulness stands beside the verse that says, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice.” “No one can take your joy from you.”
† The true cheerful one is he who enjoys inner cheerfulness as well as outer cheerfulness.
† The cheerful one, if he errs, instead of losing his cheerfulness, corrects himself, and then lives in inward peace and peace with God.
† Gloominess is not a practical solution to problems. The cheerful person searches for the practical solution by which he gets rid of the problem and of gloominess…
† The gloomy one, if he hears of the death of Lazarus, says as Thomas said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” And if he goes and dies with him, will this be a solution to the problem, or an addition of a new problem to it?!
But the cheerful one says with Christ, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; let us go that we may wake him up”… He softened the word “died” because he does not want to sadden others…
† The cheerful one does not think about the problem and its troubles, but thinks about its solution; and if he finds the solution, the problem disappears and he rejoices.
But the gloomy one thinks about the problem, its depths, its dimensions, how it occurred, and the extent of its dark results, so he increases in gloom. And he does not think at all about solving it. And if he thinks of the solution, he finds it difficult, places obstacles before it, or imagines it far off. Or gloominess paralyzes his thinking so he does not see the solution, though it exists. Thus he continues in his gloom, and this gloom increases, and he cannot be cheerful…
† The cheerful one, if he does not find a solution for his problem, leaves it to God, who has many solutions, and forgets it between His divine hands.
But the gloomy one cannot forget his problem. It is always before his eyes, tiring him and disturbing him. Whenever he thinks of it, it exhausts his nerves and tires his psyche. Therefore psychiatrists may give him a sedative so he may sleep and no longer think of it, or give him tranquilizers so his nerves may rest. And all these are treatments from outside, while the inside is in fatigue…
† The cheerful one gives opportunity for God to work…
If a problem troubles him, he says to the Lord: Your time has come to intervene. I was reserving You for the time of trouble, and behold, the time of trouble has come—so work, O Lord. And he is confident that God will work. Therefore he does not get troubled… But the gloomy one forgets the existence of God and His intervention in his time of trouble…
† The cheerful one places God between him and the problem, so the problem disappears behind God. But the gloomy one places the problem between him and God, so he does not see God.
† The cheerful one does not give troubles more importance than their real weight. They do not frighten him nor terrify him. He is a person with rested nerves, rested soul, rested mind… he does not fall at all into anxiety or disturbance or confusion or despair.
But perhaps someone asks: If this is the nature of cheerfulness and its importance, what is the meaning of the Scripture “By the sadness of the face the heart is made better”?
And what is the meaning of sorrow for sins? And what is the meaning of the tears of the saints? And what is the meaning of “a time to weep, and a time to laugh”? And all similar verses and sacred texts?
The answer is simple: There is a difference between sorrow and sorrow, and gloom and gloom… and spiritual gloom has signs that distinguish it from wrongful gloom.
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The spiritual person becomes sorrowful for spiritual reasons, not for worldly or personal reasons.
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And his gloom is mixed with hope, as the Scripture says, “Do not sorrow as others who have no hope.”
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Therefore his hope gives birth to joy, as the Apostle said, “Rejoicing in hope” (Rom 12).
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And his gloom leads to joy, as the Apostle said, “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” Gloom that leads to repentance, and repentance gives birth to joy.
Spiritual sorrow is mixed with joy, and is not pure sorrow. It is mixed with hope… and it does not last long. It is a stage on the way, a bridge that leads to joy; otherwise what is the meaning of the Scripture, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice”?
It is a sorrow that comforts the person, not one that tires him like the gloom that destroys the soul, troubles the mind, sickens the nerves, distances from the work of the Spirit… and becomes separated from hope and from faith, and forgets God and His intervention…
Spiritual gloom is sensitivity in emotion, but not confinement in the self; it carries joy within it.
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Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Sixth Year (Issue Nineteen) 9-5-1975
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