God Loves A Cheerful Giver

We all love cheerful people. When we have God's joy, we attract others. God's joy also gives us a deep peace. All is right with the world. That, of course, is not what I think when I read the morning paper or listen to the evening news. We see only the sad things that are happening all over the world. As I may have told you before, I have the habit of picking up the little glass globe on my prayer shelf and just putting a finger on each continent as I confide them all to God. It really helps me and then I can concentrate on the good things I see and hear each day. Keeping a gratitude journal is a great help in living joyfully! Try it and see!
I was thinking about what I wrote yesterday about giving God joy. Actually, He gives me the joy and I just need to radiate it and share it as I really cannot give God anything, but I do try to allow Him to love me and maybe that is enough.
Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Evangelii Nuntiandi talks about spiritual fervor and Pope Francis says that "Joy means fervor". Here is a partial quote from Paul VI's encyclical: "We exhort all those who have the task of evangelizing, by whatever title and at whatever level, always to nourish spiritual fervor...Let us preserve the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing, even when it is in tears that we must sow. May it mean for us...an interior enthusiasm that nobody and nothing can quench. May it be the great joy of our consecrated lives. And may the world of our own time,...receive the Good News not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient, or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of Christ."
We are all called to evangelize and be ministers of the Gospel - does my life glow with fervor? We have all received the gift of joy from the Holy Spirit. Let us cultivate it by being grateful and joyful!