I’ve been sitting with this thought lately: nobody in the Gospel had an easy life. Not Mary. Not the apostles. Not even Jesus Himself. The call to follow Christ has never been about ease. The joy we carry doesn’t come from the age we live in, or from things going smoothly. It comes from Christ living in us.
That’s why the Psalm hits so hard: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” It doesn’t say “this is the day that’s going to work out perfectly” or “this is the day when life will get easier,” nor does it say, “this is the day we will make a lot of money,” It just says this is the day. And if the Lord has made it, then it’s worthy of our gratitude.
A Gospel Lens on Joy
I think of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus looks out at a crowd of people who are poor, hungry, grieving, and oppressed, and what does He say? “Blessed are you.” Not “one day you’ll be blessed when life gets better.” Not “blessed are the comfortable.” But right there, in their struggle, He names them as blessed.
Joy in the Christian sense isn’t about pretending hardship doesn’t exist. It’s about knowing that even in the valley, God is with us. That Christ Himself walks alongside us, turns mourning into dancing, and transforms what feels unbearable into the soil where love can grow.
Joy in the Witness of the Saints
That’s what Mother Teresa lived out in Calcutta. Every day she faced death, suffering, and poverty on a scale most of us can’t imagine. Yet she always said the greatest poverty was to be unloved, and she fought that poverty with joy.
Thérèse, the Little Flower, never sought the grand gesture. She believed in the “little way,” the holiness of doing small things with great love. Her hidden life in the convent bloomed into joy because she knew every small act could shine with Christ’s presence.
And then Padre Pio. Marked by suffering and carrying the wounds of Christ in his own body, he spent endless hours hearing confessions. But if you read about him, you also hear about his humor, his warmth, and his peace. Even in pain, his joy was contagious.
None of them had it easy. And neither did anyone in the Gospels. Yet joy was not taken from them, because joy was not dependent on what was happening around them. It came from the Christ living in them.
The Monday Morning Test
If we’re honest, most of us don’t think about joy first thing on a Monday morning. Monday feels like the alarm clock that will not stop ringing, the inbox filling up again, the long list of things we would rather not face. Sometimes Monday feels like a “fresh hell” instead of a fresh start.
But what if we chose to see it differently? What if Monday morning is not a punishment but a promise, a new dawn, a new chance, a new day given by God? The resurrection itself happened on the first day of the week. Monday carries that same invitation: to start again, to rise again, to discover that what looks like another grind could actually be the beginning of something wonderful.
Joy as Defiance
So maybe the real invitation is this: don’t wait for life to get easier to be grateful. Start now. Say thank you for the smallest things. Notice the blessings tucked into the ordinary. Let joy be your quiet act of defiance against despair.
Because whatever today holds, its burdens, its beauty, its uncertainty, this is still the day the Lord has made. And we can rejoice and be glad in it.
A Word for the Road
If this reflection spoke to you, I’d love to invite you deeper into this journey. Every week I write here at Message from the Margins to help us see Christ’s presence in the middle of real life — not the polished, easy version, but the messy, complicated days we actually live.
If you’re feeling the weight of the times, if Monday mornings feel more like “fresh hell” than fresh hope, this space is for you. Together we practice gratitude, lean into Scripture, and draw strength from the saints who walked this road before us.
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Most of all, carry this with you today: Christ is alive in you, and because of that, this is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.