[C]HRISTIAN joy does not depend on anything sensible: it has its seat in the centre of the soul, where often it is not perceived in the inferior region, not even in its reasonable part. It abides there hidden, in order that it may be maintained in all its purity; for its Sowings over into the sensitive region, which sometimes happen, are greatly exposed to the danger of self-love, through the satisfaction which thence proceeds. It is quite compatible with sadness in the inferior region, as is evident in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle, when he says that he exceedingly abounds with joy in all his tribulations, does not the less avow (1 Cor. L 8) that they afflicted him, ‘out of measure,’ so that he was ‘weary even of life’: which shows plainly that we must understand him to mean the joy which is in the supreme region of the soul; otherwise he would be in contradiction with himself. We do not thereby deny that the inferior and sensitive part of his soul had a share therein at certain times; we say only that it is sufficient that the joy should be in the summit of the soul, which finds her satisfaction in the order of God’s dealings with her, although, so far as feeling is concerned, she experiences only an overwhelming sadness.
“Neither does this joy prevent even moderate complainings in the inferior region, when the senses feel nothing but affliction and lament accordingly; our Lord regarding them as little children who cry when they are chastised. To prevent their weeping would be to stifle them. But the effect of this joy is that, despite all our sensations to the contrary, we are delighted at being in a state of suffering, we signify our esteem for it to every one; we invariably set a great value on crosses, as well on those which befall ourselves as on those which we remark in others. There are even some who on these occasions break out into self-congratulations for having received so great a gift from Heaven. They testify both by voice and in writing the esteem in which they hold it; and they are right in doing so. If people of the world congratulate themselves so much on account of some good fortune that has happened to them, O my God, what a glorious fortune, according to the spirit of Jesus Christ, is that of sufferings! I know that they are hard to nature; but if a miser, said Father Baltasar Alvarez, who had spent much money in cultivating his vineyard, beheld it visited by a hailstorm, doubtless to his great affliction — if, I say, this miser were to learn that the hailstorm was composed of crown-pieces, his affliction would be speedily changed into the sweetest consolation possible. Now, O my soul, let us learn that crosses are so many gold pieces of Heaven’s coinage: they are its precious stones.”
— Henri-Marie Boudon, The Holy Ways of the Cross [trans. Edwin Thompson Healey]
