I Found the Meaning of Real Joy

This past weekend, the Newman Catholic Club joined the Rutgers-New Brunswick Catholic Student Association for their bi-annual retreat. The following is a heart-felt account of the incredible experience that John Lombardi, a student at NJIT, had over those three days. 

I have never had the slightest interest in going on a weekend-long retreat such as the one we attended that weekend, but I was told that the retreat was nothing to be afraid of. It was just going to be three days of not doing schoolwork, not having my cell phone, and just 150 good, faithful, Catholic people all together praising the Lord. So I decided to give this one a shot. On the car ride over, I still wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. When we arrived, we all gathered in the tabernacle [main hall] and heard witnesses and priests briefly talk about different parts of their lives that related to the weekend’s main focus: infinite joy.

As I was sitting next to my friends from the Newman Center, I really listened to what all these people had to say. It was actually uncanny how accurately the stories I was hearing pertained to my life. Almost every witness’s story had the same prologue: “I was raised Catholic. I went to mass every week just because it was kind of something my family just did. I never really connected with my faith at all.” The list goes on. And then each witness began talking about when they found Christ. Some of them, I would really relate to. At that point of the weekend, I knew that this wasn’t something I could idly watch from the sidelines, but I could actually get involved and make the best out of the weekend.

The part of the retreat that made the difference was the incredible music that was provided. Singing has always been my favorite hobby, and it is truly something I can connect to on a spiritual level. Having those songs play in the background while I was praying, either standing up or being down on my knees, was almost surreal, as if things could only be so ideal in the midst of a dream. The words to the songs are more real than any of the pop or rock I'm used hearing on the radio. 

There were times throughout the weekend when I would break from my concentration of prayer, stop, look around, and to my delight, I saw one of the most promising things I had ever seen. I saw over a hundred devout, Catholic people praising the Lord (Like, really praising the Lord.)  I didn't know that there could be a place where I could truly express everything I was feeling because, normally throughout the days of my life, I have to be cautious of how I come across to others that don’t share my faith. It gave me hope that I don’t have to settle for friends that lead me to sin rather than embrace my desire to lead from sin and actually receive help when I am struggling.

The most powerful and revealing part of the retreat was undoubtedly Saturday night’s focus on the gift of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It was good to hear the real reasons why going to a priest is so much more effective than keeping my sins to myself. The priest is there to guide me and coach me through my weaknesses, teaching me how I can fight temptations and eliminate sin from my life. It revealed to me how important it is to do penance and go to confession as often as possible. God wants me to live eternally by His side, and every time I sin, I’m telling him that I don’t want to take Him up on his offer. And as a logical guy myself, I realized how little sense it makes to sin. Granted, that doesn't mean I won’t ever sin again, (I am only human), but I am going to try my hardest to lead by His example. When I do fall to temptation, I will reconcile, and hopefully I will eventually live with Him eternally because the more often I go to confession, the less and less I am likely to sin and therefore will not have to go to confession as frequently!

In relation to the focus of the retreat which was infinite joy, I can describe it with one final story. I met this boy (who will remain nameless) while waiting on line for confession, and we struck up a conversation. He explained to me how he wanted to believe in Christ so much; logically, he couldn’t just lie to himself and say he believes, when deep down he really didn’t. He asked me why I believe what I do, and I couldn’t put it into words very well. What I could say though was that, without Christ in my life, I wouldn’t be as joyous of a person. The secular world likes to tell us what joy is, but until you are sitting in that main room, looking around, and seeing the smiles on people’s faces as they sing praises to our God, you simply don’t know what real joy is. To a kid like this who was very analytical, I tried to keep it relative. I said to him that when you find $5 on the sidewalk you experience a certain level of joy. When you get a 100% on a seemingly impossibly-difficult exam, you experience a level of joy much greater than that of finding $5 on the sidewalk. But when you find God, and you believe Him, and you experience all of His fulfilled promises, there literally is no higher high.