Be filled with the Spirit of the Beatitudes: joy, simplicity, mercy. Joy begins within. Perfect joy lies in the utter simplicity of peaceful love. In order to shine out, such joy requires no less than your whole being. Perfect joy is self-giving. Whoever knows it seeks neither gratitude nor kindness. It is sheer wonder renewed by the sight of the generosity of the Giver of all gifts -- material and spiritual. It is thankfulness. It is thanksgiving. Simplicity lies in the free joy of those who keep their heart and mind fixed on Divine Light and Love. Those who live in mercy are neither oversensitive nor constantly disappointed. They give themselves simply, forgetting themselves -- joyfully with all their heart; freely, not looking for anything in return.
At a certain pitch of religious experience, the heart just wants to sing; it breaks into song. Paradoxically, you could say when silence finds its fullness, it comes to word. As the Book of Wisdom says, "When night in its swift course had reached its halfway point and deep silence embraced everything" -- when night was at its darkest and deepest -- there "the eternal Word leaped from the Heavenly throne": silence burst into song.