{"id":3722,"date":"2025-03-30T07:11:42","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T07:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=3722"},"modified":"2025-03-30T07:11:42","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T07:11:42","slug":"made-for-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2025\/03\/30\/made-for-joy\/benedictine-spirituality\/3722\/","title":{"rendered":"Made for Joy."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Noah Silliman on unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The 26 word in my Lent lexicon is: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOY. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s Laetare Sunday, the halfway point in Lent when we pause our Lent practices for a day. We add flowers and music to our liturgies again, we may change the liturgical colours for a day. All of this is not because we\u2019ve had enough of Lent and need a break. The reason we pause is to remember that our salvation is already assured. It\u2019s a day to remember that Christ has already risen, and that is the source of our joy.

It\u2019s hard to be joyful these days when life is so hard and so uncertain. It\u2019s a lot easier to be pessimistic about our prospects than to be joyful. In these circumstances being joyful becomes a discipline, it becomes a practice that we have to choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have to actively look for joy in our lives. Joy can\u2019t only be connected good things happening in our lives. Even when life is hard and we are suffering joy can sustain us. The source of joy is deeper than the events of life. St Paul sums it up in his second letter to the Corinthians when he writes:

\u201cFor anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here. It is all God\u2019s work.\u201d<\/em>

His words remind us that the source of our joy is in our relationship with God. It is the new creation that God works in each of us that enables us to be joyful, even when our lives are hard. It is the love of God that hold us in being and creates us anew that enables us to be joyful even in hard times.

Where are you discovering glimmers of joy this Lent?
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 26 word in my Lent lexicon is: JOY. It\u2019s Laetare Sunday, the halfway point in Lent when we pause our Lent practices for a day. We add flowers and music to our liturgies again, we may change the liturgical colours for a day. All of this is not because we\u2019ve had enough of Lent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,494,271,336,246],"tags":[28,18,53,6,8,130,781,33,229,624,625,13,41,770,29,135,15,429,10],"class_list":["post-3722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-lectio-divina","category-lent","category-scripture","tag-benedictine","tag-challenge","tag-christ","tag-gospel","tag-hope","tag-joy","tag-joyful","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-laetare","tag-laetaresunday","tag-lectiodivina","tag-lent","tag-lent2025","tag-love","tag-newcreation","tag-newlife","tag-salvation","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3722"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3727,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3722\/revisions\/3727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}