Will You Come Run with Me to Happiness?

Happiness, such an elusive state of being that mankind has been trying to capture and define since the beginning of time itself. Happiness, the meaning of life and the search for excellence seem to be the subjects of the most contemplative thought in all of history. The greatest minds of all time have wrestled and struggled to define how these non-material essences are achieved and mastered, and many have fallen very short.

As a Catholic Christian I see many of my brothers and sisters in Christ mired in this same struggle and battle. So many of us work very hard trying to achieve happiness, but is seems we don’t really even understand what true happiness is. How can we search and strive to achieve something that we haven’t even been able to define, what exactly is happiness?

Dictionary.com defines happiness as: 1 - the quality or state of being happy. 2 - good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy.

This is an interesting problem, because these terms used to define this seemingly relative idea of happiness, seem to also be pretty relative as well, don’t they? What is good fortune? What is pleasure, contentment, joy, and how do we find them? No wonder the greatest thinkers of all time have had problems trying to define the state of being that we all strive, hope, pray and spend our whole lives and all our resources trying to achieve. We are chasing moonbeams!

I am fortunate to have Saintly brothers and sisters in Christ who have laid the groundwork for an understanding of happiness that doesn’t align so much with the above secular definition, As Catholics we must come to know that true happiness is not something that can be achieved here on Earth in this life; true happiness is something that we can only fully attain once we have reached eternity and can intellectually know and contemplate the source of everything: God. As Augustine so brilliantly poses: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord.”

You see, we were made for greatness, a greatness that we cannot achieve on our own, because we are made in the likeness and resemblance of God, a Heavenly Father who has dreams and goals for us that we cannot even fathom or comprehend. So, we will never be able to achieve Joy, until we surrender ourselves to those Heavenly desires that our Heavenly Father wants to guide us to and assist us in achieving. It has nothing to do with earthly accomplishment; with goals of wealth, power, prestige, and popularity. Jesus laid down that lesson very plainly and obviously. Yet, we still so stubbornly and arrogantly reject the example he gave us, don’t we?

We are searching for love in all the wrong places, as the song laments, and as we search for a love, which again, most of us truly misunderstand. We then fail to recognize the happiness that comes with it. We may not achieve the true and ultimate form of happiness in this life, but we can find a peace and joy that transcends the temporal. We find that peace and joy only in God, and we find God through the teachings and sacraments of the Catholic Church. To reject one, we reject the other, and will fall short of the pursuits of that greatness God calls us to. To love is to will the good for the other, it is an action, it is not an emotion. It is a work, a good work! The first step is Faith, because Faith brings us Grace, and Grace enables us to love, and love in the way that Christ calls us to love, to will the good of the other! You see, loving each other and our enemies is the solution to all the world’s problems. Laying our lives down for the sake of the other, elevates us in ways that we cannot humanly understand and we cannot do on our own. We can see moments of this greatness, as we look at the lives of the Saints, our brothers and sisters who have finished their races, and our cheering us on as we run ours.

So, if you are looking for happiness, you won’t find it in that new fancy house, or expensive car. You won’t achieve happiness with a killer wardrobe or a diamond ring, you will find it in the peace and quiet of your soul as you love as Christ, and pick up your cross in the service of love to others. As we serve the good of others we rise to a goodness that transcends this world and will lead us on to the next. The next world is where we can and will know true happiness and joy, as we contemplate and know God fully.   We are called to start the journey now, by loving God with all our hearts, with all of our souls, and with all of our minds; because relationship with him starts here and now, is all that matters in this life and the next, and will lead us to Heaven, as we finish our race.

Will you run with me?