The aim of this study was to characterize the knowledge about the joy in children with mild intellectual disability. The premises relating to the mental functioning of these children suggest that this knowledge is poorer and less complex than the knowledge of their peers in the intellectual norm. The study used the authoring tool to measure children’s knowledge of emotions, including joy. The tool takes into account the cognitive representation of the basic emotions available in three codes: image, verbal, semantic and interconnection between the codes – perception, symbolization and conceptualization, which perform the functions of perception, expression and understanding. The study included children with the intellectual norm (N = 30) and children with mild intellectual disability (N = 30). The results mainly indicate the differences in how happiness is understood by particular groups, to the detriment of children with disability. The character of the results is largely determined by the level of organization of knowledge about joy and accompanying mental operations.
The paper presents a semantic analysis of mystical descriptions of the concept of radość (joy). First of all, the notion of mystical experience is defined and its main characteristics are presented. The first point touches upon the way in which the concept is used in mystical discourse. Notably, the evaluative potential of radość (joy) is both positive and negative; “worldly” emotions are perceived as a hindrance in a person’s contact with God and as such are treated with suspicion. Yet they are transformed by the process of sanctification into mystical blessings. The paper focuses on the experiencing party’s positive sensations in his/her body when they ”touch” the Absolute and on the mystic’s inner perception of his/her own emotions and conceptualization thereof in language. For obvious reasons, an external observer cannot see the divine reality the way a mystic does. However, by watching the person’s behavior one can see the bodily manifestations of joy, an inseparable part of a mystical experience, expressed by sensory language. Linguistic data provide evidence in favour of a theory that humans do not have any other language to share religious experience but the one that treats the body as a communicating medium. Interestingly, a mystic’s joy is dynamic and it does not exclude negative feelings, such as pain and suffering. The underlying assumption is that joy is a universal phenomenon and that in the Judeo-Christian civilization, most of the linguistic ways of expressing it rely on the same mechanisms and concepts.
PL
Artykuł ma na celu semantyczną analizę mistycznych opisów pojęcia radość. Przede wszystkim definiowane jest pojęcie doświadczenia mistycznego i przedstawiono jego główne cechy. Pierwszy punkt dotyczy sposobu, w jaki pojęcie to jest używane w mistycznym dyskursie. Warto zauważyć, że potencjał oceny radości jest zarówno pozytywny, jak i negatywny. „Doczesne” emocje są postrzegane jako przeszkody w kontakcie danej osoby z Bogiem i są traktowane z podejrzliwością, ale przekształcone przez proces uświęcenia są częścią mistycznych błogosławieństw. Artykuł koncentruje się na pozytywnych odczuciach doświadczającego, które pojawiają się w jego ciele, gdy „dotyka” Absolutu i wewnętrznej percepcji mistrza własnych emocji i ich konceptualizacji w języku. Zewnętrzny obserwator oczywiście nie może dostrzec boskiej rzeczywistości w sposób, w jaki widzi ją mistyk, ale obserwując zachowanie osoby, można zobaczyć cielesne przejawy radości, która jest nieodłączną częścią mistycznego doświadczenia wyrażanego przez zmysłowy język. Dane językowe dostarczają dowodów na twierdzenie, że nie mamy innego języka, którym można by dzielić się doświadczeniem religijnym, jak tylko taki, który traktuje ciało jako medium komunikacyjne. Należy również podkreślić fakt, że radość mistyka jest dynamiczna i nie wyklucza negatywnych uczuć, takich jak ból i cierpienie. Podstawowym założeniem jest, że radość jest zjawiskiem powszechnym i że większość językowych sposobów wyrażania jej w cywilizacji judeochrześcijańskiej używa tych samych mechanizmów i pojęć.
The teaching of the Church speaks of the attitude of joy resulting from the redemption, but the literature on joy is not rich. In theological studies the concept of joy is associated with various God’s actions, which a person can take on such an attitude. The elaboration of the described subject was based on the teaching of Pope Paul VI in the apostolic exhortation „Gaudete in Domino” addressed to bishops, priests and faithful of the entire Catholic world about Christian joy in 1975, the richest and most complete expression of the Church on joy. Also in the teaching and statements of successive popes (St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis), for whom also the concept of joy and the Christian attitude of joy is a testimony of faith and trust in God. It is the direct and unadulterated Gospel, „Joyful News”, the evangelization of life immersed in God. The successors of apostle Peter, disciple of Jesus, the propagator of joy flowing from the personal meeting of Jesus. A witness to his life, miracles. He who betrayed and whom he was forgiven. Who, unflinchingly, in the power of the Holy Spirit, preaches the teaching of Jesus Christ. Church shepherds show the essence of Christian joy based on faith, hope and love, which source is God. They show the biblical dimension of the joy, its manifestations in the history of the Chosen People, in the life of Jesus, the original Church, Mary and saints. They do not cease to show the practical implementation of Christian joy in the life of every human being, seeking to develop indications for the moral life of Christians by listening to the word of God, meeting God in the sacraments and doing good.
The article shows Sidonius Apollinaris’ admiration for all intellectual activities. For example he congratulated Faustus of Riez after reading his book „On the Holy Spirit”. In all the Sydonius’ writings one can see that he has always had a lot of respect for poets and writers as Lampridius or to scholars as Phoebus. In the context of the fall of the Roman Empire Sidonius really appreciated those who reach for the teachings of ancient philosophy, rhetoric, astronomy and music in the proclamation of the Gospel. So Claudianus Mamertus, author of the book „De statu animae” did. According to Sidonius he was a great master of the three cultures: Roman, Greek and Christian. In the works of Sidonius we can see a gradual transition from the vision of the Empire as a political power to the vision of the Church as a spiritual power. In this context, he gladly stated that the Plato’s Academy was working for the Church of Christ. For this reason, he appreciated each quotation from pagan’s works in Christian works. Polish reader can see common elements in Sidonius and Sienkiewicz: both writers were living in a difficult political situation, the home of the two was ruled by foreign rulers: both writers set themselves the same goal – to write to encourage hearts with glorification of excellent people. Both writers wanted to help people get out of the crisis and to lay the foundations for a better future.
Notes of St. Augustine on joy (gaudium) are based on both the philosophical tradition and the Bible. Bishop distinguishes the true joy from the false one. These two types of joy differ in the subject of happiness and its quality. True joy is purely spiritual (gaudium spiritale), aimed to eternal life, while the false joy turns to the worldly possessions. In this life is possible the joy that comes from hope (gaudium de spe), a real joy (gaudium de re) meet only in the future life. Everyday joy, which is consistent with reason and truth, leads to the eternal joy. The true joy arises when one attains the highest goal. It meets in God and is permanent.
This article is aimed as an objective description of the character of Gregory of Nazianzus, written in the light of the realities of life and spiritual experience, which may revise the existing opinions about the Author, relating to his personality, attitude and choices, as they are often one-sided, unjust and wrongful. This study presents Gregory as pastor concerned for the Church who grieves for its internal tearing as well as for „his colleagues in episcopacy” self-interest. It treats about personal aspects of his life often marked by suffering and difficult experience. In this context, the article also points to the source of joy and optimism of life, which is support for the needy and those who lost the meaning of life.
Poverty, perceived as a lack of basic consumer goods, gives rise to a whole range of outcomes which affect not only the material dimension of human existence, but also influence social relations and references to spiritual values. Attitudes which could be associated with involuntary and unacceptable poverty include: doubt in the Divine Providence, bitterness, jealousy and envy, blaming others, lack of gratitude and in perceiving good, laziness, lack of initiative, escalating demands, gluttony and greed as well as meanness. However, joy, peace, freedom and solidarity with the poor, as well as work and enterprise, are symptoms of evangelical attitudes of the poor in spirit. Attitudes to poverty point to a wide range of human behaviours towards possessions and in effect, reveal an individual’s sense of value.
For many priests the requirement of preaching a homily it remains a chal-lenge. This happens for many reasons. Older priests – trained on the traditional schema of preaching – believe that the most important thing is to teach the truths of faith and morals, the younger ones – often do not understand the es-sence of the homily. For them it is also hard to break habits and clichés. In the light of the teaching of Vatican Council II the homily is an integral part of the liturgy, and thus, by its very nature, is subject to the dynamics and character of the Lordʼs day – Sunday – when it first of all should be preached. Therefore, the submitted paper an attempt was taken up to make the paschal, community-friendly, joyful and eschatological dimension of the homily closer to readers. These are also important signs of the weekly memorial of the Lord. Taking into account the paschal dimension in the homily will allow the participants the Mass to recognize that they really take part in the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, leading the faithful to participate more fully in the Eucharist. This in turn enables them to true brotherhood among themselves, that is why the homily should also be an encouragement, especially for small communities (families) to live the day together. Homilies preach the good news of salvation, which takes place today, hence its joyful character. Every Sunday is also the time of joyful expectation of the coming of the Lord, so the homily must focus the minds of the gathered to the mystery of His second coming.
The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between gratitude and certain components of well-being which are conducive to affirming life. Additionally, we also compared how experiencing joy impacts those components of well-being. A randomly chosen 1/3 of the participants was asked to recall an event from their past when they felt grateful. Another 1/3 was asked to recall an event from their past when they felt joy. The final 1/3 of the participants was the control group. Next, all participants filled in the Satisfaction With Life Scale. Then (taking turns) they completed the Social Ties Scale and the Social Trust Scale. Finally, all participants estimated the amount of beneficiary experiences and gratitude they had received in life. The results of the study indicate that both gratitude and joy enhance happiness, and that gratitude and joy play an important, although different in some respects, role as contributing factors to happiness. The results indicate a positive relationship between the balance in gratitude experiences and the examined aspects of well-being.
Acting and suffering subjectivity makes a grand sujet in Ricoeur's philosophy. In his Time and Narrative Ricoeur created the notion of narrative identity which is an individual internalized and evolving life strory. The narrative alone might define the “who”. Whoever lives and exists, suffers. Ricoeur metaphorically defined life as a cloth. We can add, Wiercinski continues, that this cloth is woven with pain. It is pain which makes the cloth, and, at the same time, it is also a joy of the human condition. As humans, we are called to wear this cloth as well as to understand what does it mean - from the hermeneutic perspective.
This study presents the fi ndings of a research which aimed to discover the wishes, joys, fears and worries of gifted eleven-year old children. The fi rst research tool was a questionnaire based on the nomination technique which was given to the class teachers. This served as a method for the consecutive identifi cation of 71 gifted children. The children then answered the following open-ended questions from a second questionnaire: What is your greatest wish? What makes you feel the greatest joy? What do you fear the most? What is your biggest worry? The research data were processed for each question separately on the level of primary analysis of frequency of appearance of the categorised answers. Based on the comparison of data gained from both the gifted and the non-gifted children, we defi ned general categories that are considered to be specifi c for the group of gifted children from our research.
The purpose of this article is to present the development of Thomas Aquinas’sconcept of joy in the subsequent parts of Summa theologiae. Beginning with thedescription of joy as simple movements of the soul, Thomas comes to present theconcept of spiritual joy, which is fundamental to the human visio beatifica. Therefore,the article is divided into three parts, which discuss Aquinas’s accounts ofjoy: Prima secundae, Secunda secundae and Tertia pars. The first part focuses onthe inclusion of joy as experience and feeling. Joy here is understood as one of thefeelings of the sensitive power is considered in the perspective of human emotionality(vis concupiscibilis). Joy that comes from satisfying the lack of sensory goodsis called pleasure (delectatio). It differs from the joy of affection (gaudium) – theintellectual and spiritual affrct, to which the second part of the article is dedicated.Spiritual joy does not include the sensory-corporal component, and it superimposesitself over purely intelligible beings. Thomas clearly emphasizes that only Godcan be the cause of spiritual joy. This perspective allows Aquinas to develop hisconcept of theology of joy in the next part of Summa (III pars), which is devotedin the last part of this text. The emotionality of Christ is the central problem forThomas here. These considerations throw a lot of light not only on the supernaturalapproach to joy, but also on the ways in which joy – the fruit of the Holy Spirit canbe experienced by a human being in hac via.
The paper highlights common or divergent points in the way in which the concept of ”joy” is reflected in two masterpieces of Christian literature: Surprised by Joy (C. S. Lewis) and The Diary of Happiness (N. Steinhardt)
In the past fifteen years, the Polish linguistics faced a significant increase of interest in research into positive emotions: their naming, the ways in which they are expressed and manifested in the texts. The largest group of such research pieces concerns the field of joy and happiness and includes the noun “humor” and its derivatives. The semantic development of the above-mentioned noun can be traced basing on lexicographical sources: ‘body fluids’ (XVI c., the meaning disappears in the nineteenth century) – ‘character, temperament, mood’ (XVII c.) – ‘good mood’ (XVII c.) – ‘whim, fantasy’ (XVIII c., this meaning becomes soon characteristic solely for the plural uses) – ‘type of comedy’ (XIX c.). Being less aggressive, more intellectual and requiring developer cultural competence from both the sender and the receiver, “humor” in the latter sense quite soon begins to be regarded as more valuable than the other types of comedy. High evaluation is attributed also to “humor” in the sense of ‘character, temperament’, associated with positive emotions such as joy, serenity and optimism.
Die vorstehende Untersuchung zeigt, wie reich der hebräische Sprachschatz an Worten ist, mit denen er die Freude als Stimmung und Ausdruck darzustellen vermag. Am häufigsten begegnet man dem Terminus śāmah, sich freuen. Das Wort übergeht von profaner zu religiöser Bedeutung; die religiöse Freude kann sich nicht anders äussern wie die profane. Lediglich durch objektive, seien es heilsgeschichtlich oder sittlich bedingte Momente, ist jene als religiös charakterisiert und von dieser unterschieden. Die Bedeutung der Wurzel gil ist streng religiös, bezieht sich fast stets auf die Heilsfreude. Die andere, komplementäre, Termine wie rānan, rûac, śûś (śtś), ʽālaz, ʽālas und hālal pi., weisen neben sprachlichem Reichtum eine bunte Skala von Bedeutungsmomenten auf, welche die Freude als Stimmung und Ausdruck einmal mehr als innerseelisches, ein anderes Mal als demonstratives und sich mitteilendes Erlebnis darstellen. Für das religiöse Freudenerlebnis bedeutet diese terminologische Mannigfaltigkeit Unterscheidung der Freude als individueller Seelenstimmung, Gottseligkeit, meistens als Gemeinschaftserlebens in kultischer Feier, als doxologischen und hymnologischen Lobpreises.
Jednym z piewców misterium Bożego Narodzenia był papież, św. Leon Wielki. Znamy dobrze działalność św. Leona dzięki jego przepięknym kazaniom – zachowało się ich niemal sto, zapisanych wspaniałą i jasną łaciną, oraz dzięki jego listom – ok. stu pięćdziesięciu. Wśród jego kazań znajdujemy te, które najbardziej nas interesują: na Narodzenie Pańskie (11 mów) i na Objawienie Pańskie (8 mów). Z tego materiału źródłowego staram się przybliżyć główne myśli naszego autora dotyczące misterium Bożego Narodzenia. Najpierw zatrzymuję się na duchowych owocach Tajemnicy Wcielenia, następnie ukazuje przyjście Pana jako objawienie się Miłosierdzia Bożego, a przy końcu wskazuję na postawę, jaką człowiek powinien zająć wobec tajemnicy Bożego Narodzenia. Tak streszcza swoją naukę: „Uciekając się bowiem znowu do miłosierdzia Bożego – co w tak niewysłowiony sposób ku nam zstąpiło, że Stwórca ludzi zechciał stać się człowiekiem – poznajemy siebie w Tym, któremu Boską część oddajemy” (Na Narodzenie Pańskie 8).
EN
Pope Leo the Great left a rich patrimony of letters and sermons, which were created as a result of his constant pastoral care for the community of Rome and for all the churches. The preserved collection contains about a hundred of sermons and about one hundred and fifty letters, all written in Latin. Among his sermons the ones that interest us the most are: on the Feast of the Nativity (11 sermons) and on the Feast of the Epiphany (8 sermons). On the basis of these source texts an attempt to elaborate on the main thoughts concerning the mystery of the Nativity is made. First the spiritual fruits of the Mystery of Incarnation are discussed, then the Divine Mercy and lastly – the approach of the faithful to the mystery of the Lord’s Nativity. Pope Leo summarises his teachings in the following way: “If we have recourse to that unutterable condescension of the Divine Mercy, whereby the Creator of men deigned to become man, by it we shall be raised to the nature of Him whom we adore in ours” (Sermon VIII on the Nativity).
Belgian novelist Marie Gevers lived all her life surrounded by venerable trees alongside a pond, in the gorgeous estate of Missembourg. Her imagination and sensibility were deeply impregnated by the changing of natural elements and seasons, which were enhanced as authentic characters in her literary work. Plaisir des météores (1938) is emblematic of this impregnation, being a personal and poetical rewriting of legendary almanacs, which invigorated less-literate populations in the remote countryside for centuries after the invention of the printing press. Enlightened by this particular tradition and an analysis of the author’s creative stylistic devices, season renewal appears as an everlasting dramaturgy, leading us to adapt ourselves to the world’s perpetual metamorphosis, in a pure Ode to Joy.
The article presents the classical vision of beauty depicted by one of the most outstanding German philosophers alive. Trying to outline it independently, the German scholar is in principle inspired by the thoughts of Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle and Plato. In the article we get to know nearly all the most important aspects of beauty, which are in the scope of classical view. Thus, beauty is considered in the context of good, in the transcendental sense and with reference to joy. The issue of God’s beauty and the beautiful life is also explained. Finally, the attempt to define the concept of beauty is undertaken
This article presents the concept of joy in surviving more than 90 letters of St. Ambrose of Milan. As it is clear from the above analysis of St. Ambrose’s letters, he included in them broad and deep reflections on a joy. Certainly the vocabulary that was used by Bishop of Milan to describe the phenomenon of joy reflects the richness of this phenomenon. The variety of topics, context, sources of joy prsented in his letters show the importance of joy in the life and work of the Bishop of Milan. He appreciates the earthly joy, drawing from ordinary, earthly life, but beyond it he submits the spiritual joy, „joy of the heart” (iucunditas cordis), which comes from God, the Giver of wisdom.
In this article the author presents patristic interpretation of Luc 10: 20 about the joy of Christ’s disciples, whose names are written in the heaven. The author portrayed the thought both of Latin, as well as Greek authors, dating back until the exegesis of the Bede the Venerable. The thought of Fathers is concentrated on such aspects as: 1. priorities of the internal attitude, especially of the faith and love, before making miracles; 2. metaphors of „the Book of the Living” and of „the Book of the Just”; 3. theological meaning of Jesus’ promise; 4. parenetic aspect, and in this case – encouragement to the humility and joy.
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