REFLECTION Suffering and Joy Do we have any right to be happy when millions suffer? EMIL FUCHS JUNE 14, 2026 When I live through beautiful spring days or a summer such as we had this year, or when I have opportunity to live in a happy family with children, I often think of the young mother who lost her child one winter, and when spring came, cried out bitterly, “My child cannot see it.” There are millions in this world today in whom this cry lives, millions for whom the beauty of nature in the spring and all the happiness of other people are only terrible pains, making despair harder to bear. Have we any right to enjoy anything, to be happy with our families when we know the millions in despair? I not only say that we can enjoy; I say that we must find again the strength to enjoy – but not by forgetting what we have lost or what others have lost, certainly not by forgetting our shortcomings and our sins. There is another, stronger way. There was a time when beauty and happiness only deepened my own despair and pain. The spring and summer of 1933 were good to look upon. But my children were scattered, my family destroyed, my life’s work broken. My friends were in danger; some had fled; others had been imprisoned; many had been killed. And around me was the success of what I knew was the power of destruction and injustice. I hated the beauty of that spring and I fled the sight of families and the sounds of music. Hiding its terrors behind sparkling life made fate seem doubly cruel. But then came the experience of Christ’s presence, and it became stronger and stronger in my being. And out of it came again the challenge of him who was happy with children, who calls us to enjoy the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. More and more it came to me that all joy and happiness are great gifts of God, his greetings, showing us something of the goal which will be achieved when love and truth are victorious on earth. In the beauty of nature, in the lively innocence of children, in the joys and pleasures of young people, I felt more and more a hidden presence. All joy is holy.