What will make us happy?  What will give us joy?  We spend some time today thinking about these questions, as Jesus talks to us today about wanting to give us “complete” joy.  What would “complete” joy look like to us in 2009?  Well, almost all of us are residents of Hamilton Co.  We live in one of the richest areas of our state, of our country, and of our world.  For many of us, at very least many of those that we live and work with, money and wealth are what they think will make them happy.  We are surrounded by people who put their trust in their wealth and who firmly believe that money can buy them happiness.  The money, the houses, the cars, and the clothes all sure make them look happy, at least in the commercials.  But does money really make you happy or give you joy?  Consider the story of Buddy Post, of Oil City, Pennsylvania.  In 1988, Mr. Post won a jackpot of $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery.  That’s a lot of money!   Mr. Post must have been one very happy man, if money buys you happiness.  And yet, that day was really the beginning of Mr. Post’s unimaginable misery.  First, his landlady claimed that she shared the winnings, and she successfully sued him for one-third of the money.  Next, Mr. Post started an assortment of business ventures with his brothers and sisters, all of which failed.  In 1991, he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to six months in prison.  Mr. Post said he was only firing his gun into the air to scare off his stepdaughter’s boyfriend, who was arguing with him over a pickup truck.  In 1993, Mr. Post’s own brother was convicted of plotting to kill him and his wife to get their money.  In 1994, Post filed for bankruptcy.   Soon after that, his wife divorced him and he was ordered by the court to pay $40,000 a year in support payments.  Post’s life was in shambles.  He had had enough.  In September of 1996, under a mountain of legal fees, he tries to sell off the rights to his final payments from his jackpot, valued at nearly $5 million.  The Pennsylvania lottery sued to block the sale.  In the end, Post said, “Money didn’t change me.  It changed people around me that I knew, that I thought cared a little bit about me. But they only cared about the money.”  Still think that money will make you happy?  How’d that work for Elvis, or Kurt Cobain, or Anna Nicole Smith?  All the money in the world won’t make you happy or give you joy.  It’s a good lesson to remember especially when we live in Hamilton County.

        So what will make us happy and give us joy?  Well, Jesus makes it very clear in our Gospel today that it’s God’s love and our response to His Love, that will give us real and lasting joy and happiness.  Our hearts and souls were designed for real love.  I’m not talking about the love of a new house, or a new car, or a love of money.  I’m not even talking about the fake or artificial love of our lust.  We try and make love.  What a joke.  That’s not love.  That’s lust.  God’s got something so much better in store for us.  We were designed and built for something much higher, much better, and much more lasting.  Is it any wonder that our world is so messed up?  We keep putting the wrong things into our hearts.  When what would really make us happy, what would really give us joy, is God’s incredible love.  This week, why don’t you do something different in your life?  This week, why don’t you really concentrate on God’s love, what God has done for you, and your response to His great love, and see if you don’t have a more joy-filled week?  I’m betting that if you give God the chance, you will have one of the happiest weeks of your life.  And you won’t need drugs, or alcohol or money.  God’s way and His love are completely free.  Oh, there’s that whole tithing thing, but a tithe is a response and acknowledgement to God’s love.  This week, try God’s way and just see if you’re not happier, and more filled with joy, and more at peace.

        In the Summa Theologica , St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that every soul needs joy and that God is true source of lasting joy.  The problem, according to St. Thomas, is that when we don’t have the real thing in our hearts, we go looking in all the wrong places for all the wrong things.  Where do you find happiness?

        Are you a joy-filled person?  Do others recognize that you are a person of Faith because of your joy?

The Easter season reminds us that as followers of Jesus, we are supposed to have real, lasting joy evident in our lives at all times.  Sometimes, as Catholic Christians, we aren’t so joyful, or at least don’t appear to be joyful.  And that’s a real problem.  May joy and peace permeate our lives!

        May God bless us this Sunday,  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…AMEN !!!