The True Source of Happiness

Julián Carrón - Man is a desire for happiness, for wholeness. So constitutive of each of us is this desire that, after all, everything we do is to try to respond to it. The urgency of this desire is such that without finding satisfaction to it, man does not give himself peace, and is not happy, as we see in the rich young man. We know this well, too.

With what can man respond to this desire for fulfillment? With what we have available to us in reality: things and people. So man seeks, in the accumulation of goods, or in relationships, or in power over people, the satisfaction of desire.

But Jesus challenges this attempt of ours to answer the search for happiness with a question that we cannot shake off: “What advantage does a man have if he gains the whole world, but loses or ruins himself?” because we can possess the whole world, but the whole world cannot fill the void.

The rich young man in the Gospel knows this from experience. The young man who approaches Jesus possesses much wealth, but he finds no peace. He longs for a life that his riches cannot give him, that he wants forever, but this “forever” his possessions cannot guarantee him.

Jesus knew well what man's real problem was - and still is today - that of happiness. And he knew that without responding to this yearning for wholeness that man finds within himself, no proposal can win his heart or take root in him. Therefore, Jesus presents himself in history with an unparalleled claim: “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn. 10:10).

Jesus stands in history as the answer to this desire that we fail to achieve, to fulfill, despite all our attempts.

Peter had grasped the scope of the promise Jesus brought and therefore had followed Him!

But despite this, we are surprised by Peter's question to Jesus, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; but what then shall we have?” (Mt. 19:27). This question of Peter reveals that although they follow him, they have not yet understood in their own experience the fullness of life that Jesus brings, otherwise they would not have asked, “What shall we have of it to follow you?”

They already had it in front of them, in their eyes, in their experience. If Peter was following him, how come he does not realize it? Peter needed prolonged living with Jesus to have in his experience the certainty of the fulfillment of the promise.

In fact, by continuing to follow Him, at some point in his life, Peter realizes what the newness that Jesus brings is really all about. After the multiplication of the loaves, Jesus shows all the passion for those who follow Him, challenging their desire for fulfillment: those who want to reach the fullness they seek in every act they do need to eat my flesh and blood. Indeed, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have in you the life” that we all crave in what we seek to attain.

This claim of Jesus seems such madness to those who have indulged Him and followed Him for days, whose hunger He has satisfied, that they all abandon Him.

Then Jesus to the Twelve who remained does not spare the question, “Do you also want to leave?” At that moment all the certainty of Peter emerges, who - now yes - has reached out following Him, “To whom shall we go? You alone have words of life, filling life with a newness that is beyond compare! How can we ever detach ourselves from You?"

Without the experience of fullness that Jesus brings, we will continue to seek our satisfaction, as we usually do, in the possession of reality. Any moralistic appeal to try to avoid it is insufficient to succeed in freeing us from this anxiety of possession; only the experience of satisfaction is able to free us from this anxiety.

As we see in Zacchaeus: he too was very rich, but the experience of the fullness of Jesus' preference freed him from this anxiety to accumulate. Therefore, Jesus, seeing the experience Zacchaeus had, says, “Today salvation has entered this house.” Only an experience of contentment in the present, as we see in the case of Peter or Zacchaeus, lives up to our endless desire for happiness.

Like them, we know that Jesus' promise -- “Whoever follows me will have a hundredfold here below” -- is true; we recognize it, or will be able to recognize it as true, when we see it happening in us, or in others before us! The sign that we have this fullness is freedom with regard to goods and the ability to experience relationships with people without the attempt to possess prevailing.

What contribution can we Christians make to those who are looking for something to fulfill them, whose cry we see in the news every day, if not the witness of this fullness that makes us free from everything because He is the only one who can fulfill?
The author has not revised the transcript and translation.
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