Rejoice in the Lord, always

Human beings are meant to be alive and vibrant, full of wonder, love, and happiness—
which is exactly what Scripture promises to those who embrace God’s word fully.
This is what the saints experience, what people who have a deep prayer life know to be the case.
They ‘rejoice in the Lord always’, not just some of the time (Phil 4:4).
Fr Thomas Dubay, S.M.
from Prayer Primer

(looking up at the ceiling in Santa Maria sopra Minerva / Rome, Italy / Julie Cook / 2018)

“With creation, God does not abandon his creatures to themselves.

He not only gives them being and existence, but also, and at every moment,
upholds and sustains them in being, enables them to act and brings them to their final end.

Recognizing this utter dependence with respect to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom,
of joy and confidence:
‘For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made;
for you would not have made anything if you had hated it.

How would anything have endured, if you had not willed it?

Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved?

You spare all things for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living’
(Wisdom 11:24-26).”
— (CCC, 301)
An Excerpt From
Catechism of the Catholic Church

But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold,
I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.
Isaiah 65:18