The Prelate of Opus Dei, Don Fernando Cariz, recently published a letter on the Opus Dei website, addressing the topic of joy and its fundamental difference from happiness. In his characteristically concise style, Don Fernando reminds us of a distinction we often forget: the difference between joy and happiness.

Joy, he explains, is the effect of the possession and experience of good. Depending on the type of good, there are varying intensities and permanences of joy. When joy is not a consequence of the specific experience of good, but of one’s entire existence, it is usually considered happiness. In any case, the deepest joy and happiness are those rooted in love.

Don Fernando distinguishes between joys that come from tangible goods, such as the joy of children receiving ice cream, and joys from professional goods, such as success in a job or a raise. He also mentions higher joys, such as those rooted in relationships, like a plan with a friend or the first word of a child.

On the other hand, happiness is the feeling experienced at the possession of a good that encompasses one’s entire life. It is a definitive good in the double sense of defining and stable, which does not pass or is transitory. This good gives life a definitive and stable underlying joy, which in spiritual theology is called vocation or, in ethics, the ultimate good of the person.

In contrast, the negative feelings of pain, suffering, and sadness are the possession of an evil. There is a gradation of pain according to the evil from which each one comes, from sensitive pains to professional or relational pains. Sadness, as opposed to happiness, is produced by an evil that encompasses one’s entire life.

Don Fernando quotes Saint Thomas Aquinas, who says that sadness is a vice caused by disordered self-love, which in turn is the general root of all vices. Sadness is the dross of selfishness, and self-love, the root of all good and joy, has its opposite in sadness.

The fundamental conclusion is that pain and suffering are perfectly compatible with happiness. They are two distinct things that we often confuse. When something bad happens, whether physical, professional, or familial, it is a particular and concrete evil, but it has nothing to do with unhappiness.

To illustrate this, Don Fernando invites us to look at Saint Joseph, who, despite his many sufferings, was a happy man. Saint Joseph experienced great pain and suffering, from the news of Mary’s pregnancy to the flight to Egypt and the loss of Jesus for three days. However, if we were to ask him if he was happy, he would say he was the happiest man on earth because he was Mary’s husband and Jesus’ guardian.

In difficult times, like those we are experiencing today in the world and in the Church, it is important to remember that pain and suffering are compatible with happiness. Happiness is the feeling we experience in the face of a good that encompasses our entire life, in the face of our vocation. If a person is aware of being a child of God, spouse to his wife or husband, and father to his children, this justifies, encourages, and sustains our existence above all pain and suffering.

The key word is vocation, which is what God wants for us. Our relationship with God is nourished by the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. Faith allows us to find the meaning of life, hope leads us to trust absolutely in God, and charity is the breath of our vocation, the joy that God counts on us to collaborate in redemption.

In short, happiness is perfectly compatible with pain and suffering. Fortitude, as a virtue, allows us to endure and maintain serenity and peace, even in the most difficult moments. Saint Joseph is an example of this serenity and fortitude, relying on Mary, who lives faith, hope, and charity to the absolute degree.

Even in difficult times, we can find true happiness in our vocation and in our relationship with God.