Cardinal Newman on Joy

I recently ordered a handful of back issues of Communio Magazine, which are handily organized according to topic. And thus what I ordered were a few backissues on topics of particula interest to me. The one I dived right into was on "Joy" (dating from Summer 2004) and I just had to ot down this lovely thought from Blessed John Henry Newman that is quoted within:

Gloom is no Christian temper; that repentance is not real which has not love in it; that self-chastisement is not acceptable which is not sweetened by faith and cheerfulness. We must live in sunshine, even when we sorrow; we must live in God's presence, we must not shut ourselves up in our own hearts, even when we are reckoning up our past sins... We must look abroad into this fair world, which God made 'very good,' while we mourn over the evil which Adam brought into it. We must hold communion with what we see there while we seek Him who is invisible; we must admire it while we abstain from it; acknowledge God's love while we deprecate his wrath; confess that, many as are our sins, His grace is greater. Our sins are more in number than the hairs of our head; yet even the hairs of our head are all numbered by Him. He counts our sins, and, as he counts, so can He forgive; for that reckoning, great though it be, comes to an end; but His mercies fail not, and His Son's merits are infinite.

 I think this is not just a lovely thought, but an important one!