“…you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”
“…she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy…”
“But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”
Christ does not deny grief. Indeed, He practically guarantees it. Christianity is not optimism painted over sorrow like cheap whitewash over rotten wood. Rather, it is the astonishing claim that sorrow itself can become joy, much as grapes become wine or wheat becomes bread.
The joy Christ speaks of is not the fragile happiness of favorable circumstances. It is something fiercer and stranger: a joy that survives wounds, disappointment, confusion, and even death itself.
2. Meditatio
Recently Daniel Cardinal DiNardo released a message of joy for the Diocese of Amarillo. In it he concluded:
“I would also ask all in our local diocese, in this Month of May dedicated in popular devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to ask for the prayers of the Mother of God, who always invites us, her children, to do whatever her Son, Jesus, tells us. She is an unfailing protector for all God’s children and a model of thanksgiving.”
It is a beautiful sentiment, and yet it prompts in me a question that has lingered stubbornly in my soul like a pebble in a boot:
Why then was the Saturday morning 7:00 AM Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral suspended during the very Month of May dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary? And now it no longer appears on the schedule at all, as though it has quietly vanished into ecclesiastical fog.
A priest explained that the suspension would serve as a sign of unity for the Diocese during this Centennial year and as solidarity with our youth amid Confirmations and First Holy Communion celebrations.
I do not doubt the sincerity of the explanation. Yet I cannot quite silence the question echoing in my own heart:
What is the greater sign of unity and solidarity—canceling a Mass or offering one?
It has been observed that Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. I sometimes wonder if joy itself suffers the same fate. We imagine joy to be the absence of tension, disagreement, inconvenience, or sacrifice. But Christian joy is almost the opposite. It is often born precisely in the midst of them.
A farmer knows this well. Joy is not found because the weather obeys him. Joy is found because he continues planting despite storms. A mother does not rejoice because childbirth is painless, but because love makes suffering fruitful. Christ Himself does not promise the Apostles escape from grief. He promises transformation.
Perhaps that is why this missing Saturday Mass troubles me more than I expect. It is not merely about scheduling. It is about hunger. There are souls who wished to gather around the altar of Mary’s Son on Saturday mornings in May and now quietly cannot.
Still, I suspect Christ is asking me whether my joy depends upon having things arranged precisely as I prefer.
The deeper question may not be whether the Mass was suspended, but whether my love for Christ remains when disappointment enters the sanctuary.
And that is a much harder question to answer honestly.
3. Oratio
Lord Jesus Christ, You promise a joy that no one can take away, yet I confess how easily my peace is disturbed when things do not unfold as I desire.
I grieve losses both great and small: closed doors, vanished traditions, misunderstandings, disappointments, and the quiet ache of longing for You.
Teach me the strange Christian art of allowing grief to become joy.
Give me the patience of the farmer, the endurance of the saints, and the trust of Your Blessed Mother, who remained faithful even beneath the Cross.
May my love for the Eucharist never harden into bitterness, but deepen into hunger for Your presence.
And when I cannot understand decisions made around me, grant me the humility to continue seeking You with charity rather than resentment.
For You alone are the joy that survives every sorrow.
Saint Isidore the Farmer is one of those saints modern civilization can scarcely comprehend because he possessed the revolutionary habit of sanctifying ordinary labor.
The modern world imagines joy to be excitement, entertainment, or escape. St. Isidore found joy in furrows.
That is because Christian joy does not arise from novelty, but from meaning.
The farmer rises before dawn, works beneath heat and uncertainty, watches crops fail some years and flourish in others, and yet somehow continues. To the modern economist this appears inefficient. To the saint it appears sacramental.
Isidore understood what Christ teaches in today’s Gospel: grief itself can become joy. The seed disappears into darkness before it rises green from the soil. Rain ruins one day’s labor yet saves the harvest months later. The farmer lives perpetually between frustration and hope.
So too with the Church.
There are moments when decisions confuse me, when things I love disappear quietly, when I feel grief over losses both personal and liturgical. Yet the farmer saint reminds me that not every buried thing is dead. Some things are planted.
Chesterton delighted in pointing out that Christianity is the only religion in which God Himself appears at times to have lost. Good Friday looked very much like failure. The empty tomb proved otherwise.
Perhaps Christian joy is simply this: the stubborn refusal to believe that God has abandoned the field merely because the sky has grown dark.
5. Actio — In Light of Laudato Si’ and Synodality
Many people know that our current progress and the mere amassing of things and pleasures are not enough to give meaning and joy to the human heart, yet they feel unable to give up what the market sets before them.
The family, the micro-community where new life arises, is both socially and ecologically significant. Pope Francis declares that the family is “the principal agent of an integral ecology, because it is the primary social subject which contains within it the two fundamental principles of human civilization on earth: the principle of communion and the principle of fruitfulness” (AL 277).
Laudato Si’ reminds me that creation itself rejoices through patient cooperation. Fields, vines, rain, sunlight, and labor all work together in hidden communion.
Synodality asks the Church to walk together, but true walking together requires more than administrative unity. It requires listening to the spiritual hunger of ordinary people.
Action:
Today I will practice joyful fidelity in small things:
praying for those with whom I disagree,
attending Mass gratefully whenever possible,
resisting cynicism,
and remembering that authentic joy grows slowly, like crops tended faithfully over time.
Like St. Isidore, I will trust that God still works the field even when I cannot yet see the harvest.
“Joy to the World” is a 1970 hit song by the American rock band Three Dog Night, written by Hoyt Axton. Blending pop, rock, and gospel influences, it became the group’s most iconic track, known for its exuberant refrain “Jeremiah was a bullfrog.” The single topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971 and became a defining anthem of early-1970s American rock.
Christian joy is not naïve cheerfulness. It is the wild confidence that even grief can someday sing.
The Joy Luck Club is a 1993 American drama film directed by Wayne Wang and based on the 1989 novel by Amy Tan. The film explores the complex relationships between Chinese-American women and their immigrant mothers, reflecting themes of identity, heritage, and intergenerational conflict. It is widely regarded as a landmark in Asian-American cinema.
Joy often survives through generations not because suffering disappears, but because love continues telling the story anyway.
8. Poetic Verse
The farmer plants without guarantees.
The mother loves without conditions.
The Christian kneels without certainty that tomorrow will be easier.
