Joy - New Evangelizers

I was on retreat Saturday with our middle and high school youth ministry core teams.  One of our deacons gave a talk on joy and said it was necessary to have joy in order to share the Good News with the youth.  Another word that was used throughout the day was authentic.  When you put those two words together, authentic joy, you have summed what we need to have and what others need to see in us if we want to draw people to Jesus.

But is it possible to have and express joy as an adult?  Just a brief example, when I searched the website I use for photos using  “joy” in the search box, the majority of photos were of children.  Children and young people can sense our authenticity.   They will be attracted to that in us and we must also be joyful.  How can we share how wonderful it is to have Jesus in our lives and the love we have the him and his Church without authentic joy?  We can’t.

Yet it’s easy to get bogged down in our lives which  include serious concerns.  We forget to turn over our problems to the Father so that we can be at peace.  St. Theresa of Avila said, “save us from sour faced saints”  and St. Francis reminded his followers to be open to “the joy of salvation”.  I remind myself and other that Jesus came so that we “might have life and have it more abundantly”, (John 10:10)

We are called, by virtue of our baptism, to share the Good News with those we encounter in our daily lives.  When we have authentic joy people are attracted to us.  Then we can share the Gospel message easily, since it has been seen clearly in our lives.

Copyright 2015, Deanna Bartalini

Deanna Bartalini

Deanna G. Bartalini, is a Catholic writer, speaker, and educator. She serves on the retreat team at Our Lady of Florida Spiritual Center. Deanna loves teaching about Catholicism and how it fits into our daily lives. She writes at DeannaBartalini.com, serves as the editor of the NewEvangelizers.com blog, and is a contributor there as well as at AmazingCatechists.com. Deanna contributed to A Catholic Mom's Prayer Companion published by Ave Maris Press. She is the author of “Invite the Holy Spirit into Your Life: Growing in Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control” published by Our Sunday Visitor. Deanna is available to lead retreats and speak at catechist and ministry events.