What Makes a Happy New Year?

At the beginning of this new year, the greeting ‘Happy New Year’ is on everyone’s lips. Yet do we really know what brings us real happiness, what we really mean when we wish happiness to others? God is happiness, He is the happiest Being. Those who seek God will find joy and happiness but those who seek happiness often do not find it because they may not be looking for God.

God wants to make us Happy

Being happy and making others happy are natural to God as much as light gives everything its colour. St Francis says of God ‘You are joy and gladness’ whilst St Augustine says that He is ‘the joyful God who makes human beings joyful’

God is love so He is Happy

Why is God happy and full of joy? Real happiness lies in loving and being loved. From all eternity, God, with infinite love, loves Jesus His Son. The Father finds all His delight in Him. It may be difficult to comprehend and indeed it is a mystery – but this love, this happiness, between God the Father and God the Son is actually the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

He brings us real joy

In Romans 5: 5 the Word of God tells us ‘God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.’  This means that in God we share in true happiness. So much so that in the list of the fruit of the Spirit St Paul mentions we find joy to be one of the first fruits ‘ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness ..’  Gal. 5:22

When we seek Him we are seeking happiness

The desire to be happy is inbuilt in every human being. Quoting St Augustine once again we can say that ‘When I look for you to be my God, I am looking for happiness’ (Confessions 20) Every human being wants to be happy – the problem is that we try to achieve this in wrong and sinful ways. The result is that we feel empty and unfulfilled. Then we add more and more pleasure to seek to fill up the emptiness. This only makes matters worse. Quantity will not give us true happiness – only quality will.

What are we to do?

Make the Lord your joy and He will give you the desires of your heart.  Psalm 37:4 This journey had to be pursued with perseverance which will ultimately lead to eternal happiness. Jesus tells those who make their final entrance into heaven 'Come and join your Master’s happiness.’ Matt 25:21 Then what the Psalmist says will certainly be our experience ‘You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.’  Psalm 16:11

We are called to draw close to God in the way He shows us in the Gospel – through repentance, confession of sin, prayer, meditation of His Word, the sacraments and loving and serving Him in others.

The devil has convinced many people (and sometimes he convinces even us) that human beings have to choose between God and happiness. This cannot be further from the truth. God is happiness and only He can share His joy with us. Jesus says that His Gospel is ‘so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.’  John 15:11