Carrying the Cross Without Pretence: Joy in the Catholic Sense

We are often told today that no matter what troubles us, we should strive for joy — that even suffering ought to be approached with happiness, a smile, or interior brightness. It is said that joy is our shield, our strength, even our proof of spiritual health.

But Catholic Christianity has never taught joy in this way.

We live, as Scripture says, in a valley of tears. War, illness, injustice, betrayal, grief, and death are not illusions, nor are they small while we endure them. They weigh heavily because they are real. Christ Himself did not deny this reality. In Gethsemane He was sorrowful unto death. On the Cross He cried out in abandonment. There was no forced cheerfulness there, no spiritualised optimism, no smiling defiance of pain.

And neither was there joy at the foot of the Cross.

The Blessed Virgin Mary — full of grace, sinless, perfectly united to the will of God — did not experience happiness as she watched her Son be scourged, mocked, crucified, and slowly suffocated to death. Simeon had foretold it: a sword would pierce her heart. That sword was not symbolic. It was real anguish. Her obedience was not joyful in the emotional sense; it was steadfast, silent, and unimaginably costly.

If joy, understood as emotional consolation, were a requirement of holiness, then Mary at Calvary would stand condemned by modern standards. Yet she stands there as Our Lady of Sorrows, the highest model of faith beneath the Cross — not smiling, not uplifted, but faithful.

Catholic joy, therefore, is not emotional happiness, nor a psychological technique for coping with adversity. It is not something we manufacture by reframing our thoughts or suppressing sorrow. Joy, properly understood, is a fruit of charity — a grace given by God, sometimes abundantly, sometimes scarcely felt at all.

Many of the saints lived long periods with little or no sensible joy. Some endured darkness, dryness, humiliation, physical agony, and misunderstanding for years. They did not become holy by feeling uplifted, but by remaining faithful. Their greatness lay not in their emotional state, but in their perseverance.

Yes, the saints speak of joy — but never as a command to feel happy. They speak of a deeper reality: an interior anchoring in God that can coexist with sorrow, fear, and exhaustion. This joy is often quiet, hidden, and invisible to others. Sometimes it is not consciously perceived at all.

To suggest that there is “joy in everything unless the devil guides you” risks burdening consciences unjustly. Sorrow is not a moral failure. Fear is not proof of infidelity. Grief does not mean one has turned away from God. Christ Himself entered fully into human anguish, and His Mother entered it with Him — not as a spectator, but as a co-sufferer.

Suffering becomes redemptive not when it feels light, but when it is offered. The Cross is not transcended by cheerfulness; it is sanctified by obedience. The Christian vocation is not to banish darkness, but to walk through it with Christ, trusting the Father even when consolation is absent.

This is why Catholic spirituality is Paschal. Good Friday is not denied or rushed through. Easter comes, but only after the tomb. Joy, when it is given, is a gift — not a demand.

We are not called to smile at every disruption, nor to pretend that loss does not wound us. We are called to remain faithful: to pray when prayer feels empty, to love when love costs, to endure when endurance is all that remains.

If joy comes, receive it with gratitude.

If it does not, do not be troubled.

God is no less present in the darkness than in the light.

Christian life is indeed a fight against evil, but it is not a performance of brightness. It is a long obedience, often costly, sometimes lonely, always rooted in hope — not because suffering is pleasant, but because Christ has gone before us, bloodstained and faithful, and His Mother stood beside Him, sorrowful and steadfast, showing us that holiness does not require happiness, only fidelity.

That is Catholic joy: not the absence of sorrow, but the quiet certainty that the Cross is not the end.

Omegaman