Mystery of Joy

by Peter Kreeft

Joy: we look for it, long for it, and spend our lives chasing it. Yet do we really know what it is? Is it a feeling, a state of mind, or a reward for success? Do we know where to find it? The more we seek it, the more it eludes us. 

Yet joy is real. “Joy”, writes philosopher Peter Kreeft, “is a mystery. It is bigger than we are.” Joy’s secret, however, is that it cannot be reached or found but only given. True joy is God Himself, who, giving Himself, takes us outside ourselves, across valleys of loss and mountains of triumph. 

This lucid, witty reflection on the true nature of joy convinces us, page after page, that while sorrow is inevitable, joy is very, very near at hand. “It’s scandalously simple,” Kreeft reveals. “There’s no method; you just do it.” To “do” joy, we must let go of all fake happiness, all false gods. We must return, over and over, to the one true Joy, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 

Drawing from the wisdom of C. S. Lewis and Saint Thomas Aquinas, this instant classic by self-proclaimed curmudgeon Peter Kreeft walks us through the long, beautiful task of surrendering to deep joy, the chief work of any life worth living.