Hymns this time of year trumpet “Easter joy,” and lilies by the dozens seem to waft joy’s scent through every church. But how does one get ahold of joy? The topic seems appropriate for an opening column by Dominicans, since we have always been known for our joy.

One story we have fondly recounted through the centuries involves Blessed Jordan, second Master of the order, returning to the friary one evening with a fresh crop of novices. As they were saying night prayer together, something struck one of them as funny, and laughter soon engulfed the whole group. A conscientious friar’s signal for silence naturally produced yet more riotous laughter.

After prayer had finished, Jordan turned sternly to rebuke not the novices but the friar: “Brother, what right have you to take them to task?” Then, “Laugh to your hearts’ content, my dearest children: it is only right that you should laugh after breaking from the devil’s thralldom.” This story illustrates the three keys to joy: gratitude, gift and God.

Isn’t the most joyful person you know also extraordinarily grateful? My exemplar of joy is an elderly Sister who finds occasion for thanks in every mundane daily event. Be it the nurse who peeks in her room for a routine check or the server who fills her plate with food at lunch, each receives a smile and a rapturous, “Oh, aren’t you wonderful?!” And this despite real physical suffering and disappointment at her daily failing energy and memory. She is grateful for what she can do, and for what others do for her. Those 13th-century novices had just received the gift of a religious vocation, a life in the service of truth. We have received … well, make yourself a list!

Sister Helen and the novices also demonstrate a paradox: joy is inseparable from suffering, from gift of self. We often equate pleasure with joy and suffering with sadness, but actually, while pleasure may bring fleeting happiness, lasting joy results only from self-sacrifice; the Resurrection is only possible because of the Passion. Consider again your own life. When you make a sacrifice, say doing the dishes right after you cook, doesn’t your initial repugnance at surrendering your own will melt into joy? The novices’ renunciation of the world for Christ was the source of their joy, not an impediment to it.

Finally, remember God’s joy. He rejoices over the repentant sinner. He rejoices in the communion of love that is the Trinity. It is the devil who is sullenly scheming to suck everyone into his own gloom and despair. In Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton playfully suggests that, though Christ did not hide His tears or anger, “there was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.”

We are children of this God, ultimate victor over sin and death, who showers us lavishly with blessings: let us rejoice!

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Sr. Maria Veritas Marks is a member of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, based in Ann Arbor.