With this invocation we ask the Virgin Mary to grant us a share in transcendent joy — the joy that overcomes even great moral suffering, such as what Jesus Christ endured in his Passion.
It is Mary who exclaims before her kinswoman Elizabeth: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46–55). For her, true joy flows from the spirit, which for Semitic peoples meant the innermost core of the person — affirming, in this way, that joy is divine.
Joy appears only rarely in the Old Testament, and when it does, it takes the form of gladness. With Abram (circa 1800 BC) a new era begins for all humanity: the beginning of the Promise that brings hope to the human race. Until then, there had been no hope on earth of escaping the kingdom of darkness. All of humanity worshipped various “gods,” and magic and myth spread across the earth; it was the reign of demonic spirits, and humanity groaned in darkness.
Santa Ana Church
Yahweh changes Abram’s name to Abraham and seals a Covenant with him, promising him a people more numerous than the sand of the sea. He seals it in the flesh, so as to mark out the members of that people as his own. He chooses Abraham to be the leaven of a new humanity in which light would shine and darkness would vanish, in which humanity would find its Creator and accept him as Father and Origin of all things.
Sin had been great — not merely a weakness of human nature, but a denial of the Creator, who was to be replaced by man himself. It was the triumph of darkness over light, and the wound ran deep. Man was alone.
The people of Israel begin a long journey of conversion, hopeful at times and despairing at others. It is the prophets who announce, again and again, the coming of the Messiah. Along that journey, great patriarchs arise who guide the people and speak with Yahweh. Among them all, David stands out, marking a turning point by establishing a “family.” From then on, King David would be the moral point of reference for the whole people of Israel.
Bethlehem Our Lady
David is the author of the Psalms, which devout Jews still recite today with devotion, and it was he who, with great rejoicing, brought the Ark up from the house of Obed-edom to the City of David (2 Samuel 6:11–12). The king sang and danced before the Ark, and the people celebrated with joy. More than eight hundred years had already passed since Abraham made the Covenant, and the Jewish people were gradually interiorizing and strengthening their faith in Yahweh. Little by little, they were also discovering that Yahweh is a Father who loves his children, not a Father who only punishes them.
This Father-Son relationship would be shown in full, overflowing measure by Jesus of Nazareth, who insisted on it — both in his preaching and in his miracles — revealing his special love for the human race. By breaking these chains, Jesus Christ brings joy into the world.
Transcendent joy undoubtedly belongs to the generation of the Son. One might even say that God is the inventor of joy, insofar as he extends it to creation — above all inasmuch as created life is itself generative. There is no greater joy than the eternal generation of the Son.” (Polo, L., Epistemología, Creación y Divinidad, p. 320; translated from the Spanish original.)
If joy springs from generation, then mothers and fathers are deeply happy when a child of theirs comes into the world, and that joy far surpasses anything that comes from possessing material goods or enjoying what the world has to offer.
Presentation of the Child in the Temple
This is how the Jewish people understood it, where barrenness was an especially painful affliction for a woman. The motherhood we glimpse in the Old Testament reaches its full splendor in Mary, for she is the perfect model of Motherhood: conceived without sin, assumed by the Son to be the Mother of God.
She accepted becoming a Mother and brought him into the world as Savior of the human race — which is why Mary’s joy was doubly complete: as Woman (the Woman of Genesis and of Revelation) and as Mother, being the Mother of the Redeemer.
Mary was joy from the very instant of her Immaculate Conception, because from that instant she is a daughter of God the Father — and this is why the young Jewish woman, Miriam of Nazareth, overflowed with joy her whole life long. Not only was she joy throughout her life, but she also gave that joy to the whole human race when, at the foot of the Cross, she received the Church as a gift from her Son — and in accepting it, she accepted us as her own children. And so she shares that same joy with every member of the Church by begetting us as her children.
After the Resurrection, now within the Church, we can say that Mary is the cause of our joy. Now it is Mary who speaks to us those first two words of the angel’s message: do not be afraid, and rejoice. So Mary says to us again: rejoice with me, for God has risen forever. Rejoice, and do not be afraid — death no longer triumphs in you: I am your mother. That same joy is given to us in Baptism and in Confession.
Mary is the cause of that joy which the world cannot take from us, and which she wants to share with everyone. To share the joy of the Resurrection, of new life — that is the path to happiness that Mary shows to all people.
Simeon’s Song of Praise, 1631. Rembrandt van Rijn. Mauritshuis
The opposite of joy is not solitude, nor suffering, nor a lack of means, nor illness. Its opposite is sadness, which takes hold of us the moment we regard ourselves as the cause of our own joy — and then that joy disappears.
Have you lost your joy? There is an obstacle standing between you and God. Turn to Mary, and let her help you find her Son.
Holy Mary, Cause of our Joy, pray for us.
By Domingo Aguilera Pascual