Quiddity
UndertheInfluenceofGiants
I thought this was worth sharing. Hope you enjoy. 
Joy is more than happiness, just as happiness is more than pleasure. Pleasure is in the body. Happiness is in the mind and feelings. Joy is deep in the heart, the spirit, the center of the self.
The way to pleasure is power and prudence. The way to happiness is moral goodness. The way to joy is sanctity, loving God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself.
Everyone wants pleasure. More deeply, everyone wants happiness. Most deeply, everyone wants joy.
Freud says that spiritual joy is a substitute for physical pleasure. People become saints out of sexual frustrations.
This is exactly the opposite of the truth. St. Thomas Aquinas says, "No man can live without joy. That is why one deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasures." Sanctity is never a substitute for sex, but sex is often a substitute for sanctity.
The simplest, most unanswerable proof that Aquinas is right and Freud is wrong, is experience. It is not a matter of faith alone. It has been proved by experience by many, many people, many, many times. You can repeat the experiment and prove it to yourself. You can be absolutely certain that it is true, just as you can be certain that fire is hot and ice is cold.
Millions of people for thousands of years have tried the experiment, and not one of them has ever been cheated. All who seek, findthis is not just a promise about the next life, to be believed by faith, but a promise about this life, to be proved by experience, to be tested by experiment.
No one who ever said to God, "Thy will be done" and meant it with his heart, ever failed to find joynot just in heaven, or even down the road in the future in this world, but in this world at that very moment, here and now.
In the very act of self-surrender to God there is joy. Not just later, as a consequence, but right then. It is exactly like a woman's voluntary sexual surrender to a man. The mystics often say all souls are female to God; that's one reason why God is always symbolized as male. Of course it's only a symbol, but it's a true symbol, a symbol of something true.
Continued....
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/joy.htm
Joy is more than happiness, just as happiness is more than pleasure. Pleasure is in the body. Happiness is in the mind and feelings. Joy is deep in the heart, the spirit, the center of the self.
The way to pleasure is power and prudence. The way to happiness is moral goodness. The way to joy is sanctity, loving God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself.
Everyone wants pleasure. More deeply, everyone wants happiness. Most deeply, everyone wants joy.
Freud says that spiritual joy is a substitute for physical pleasure. People become saints out of sexual frustrations.
This is exactly the opposite of the truth. St. Thomas Aquinas says, "No man can live without joy. That is why one deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasures." Sanctity is never a substitute for sex, but sex is often a substitute for sanctity.
The simplest, most unanswerable proof that Aquinas is right and Freud is wrong, is experience. It is not a matter of faith alone. It has been proved by experience by many, many people, many, many times. You can repeat the experiment and prove it to yourself. You can be absolutely certain that it is true, just as you can be certain that fire is hot and ice is cold.
Millions of people for thousands of years have tried the experiment, and not one of them has ever been cheated. All who seek, findthis is not just a promise about the next life, to be believed by faith, but a promise about this life, to be proved by experience, to be tested by experiment.
No one who ever said to God, "Thy will be done" and meant it with his heart, ever failed to find joynot just in heaven, or even down the road in the future in this world, but in this world at that very moment, here and now.
In the very act of self-surrender to God there is joy. Not just later, as a consequence, but right then. It is exactly like a woman's voluntary sexual surrender to a man. The mystics often say all souls are female to God; that's one reason why God is always symbolized as male. Of course it's only a symbol, but it's a true symbol, a symbol of something true.
Continued....
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/joy.htm
