The joy of the heart

You are the joy of every human heart,
King of all the nations.
Lord Jesus, come!

I am very fond of this verse which I sang at Mass last night between the alleluias which introduce the reading of the gospel. I have been contemplating for a day now as to why I am so fond of this particular verse, and the following is what I have come up with.

The path of our life will twist and turn and at times we will be very close to God while at other times we will turn away and end up wandering through life looking for happiness in a myriad of ways. Some people look for happiness in material wealth, others look for happiness in relationships with people which are doomed to fail, still others look for happiness in chemical substances like alcohol. But the truth is, true joy and therefore true freedom can only be found in the Creator and not in the created.

There is a place in each human heart that can only be filled by God. No matter how hard we try to fill that space with other things, nothing can take his place. Oh, we all try to rebel, something which is a result of original sin (a topic for another blog entry), and we seek our own path as though we know what is best for ourselves, as though the path to true freedom is charted by doing whatever we want and being accountable to no one but ourselves, and therefore we turn away from the One who knows us better than we know ourselves, and the next thing you know, we end up miserable. Often times when we get to the end of our rope, and there is nowhere else to turn, we return to God, and suprisingly to us (why it is a surprise I will never understand) we realize that true freedom and joy are only to be found by filling our hearts with the love that is God.

So, as we prepare to celebrate the incarnation, this verse reminds us that Jesus, the incarnate Word and King of all the nations, is indeed the joy of our hearts which cannot be replaced by any other thing. During this time of Advent, may we prepare our hearts for his second coming by filling them with the love that was his first.

Restless is the heart until it comes to rest in you.
All the earth shall remember and return to our God.