ANUARUL ACADEMIC 2003-2004 - Facultatea de Teologie "Andrei ...

According to Fr. Steinhardt, the felt joy is all penetrating: “Waves ofhappiness are shedding over us, they are flowing, they are flooding us, and they areoverwhelming us” 100 . Furthermore, he finds an analogy for this joy and he says thatthis joy is similar to the joy felt when Holy Communion is received 101 . Thus theimplication is plainly exposed- the more one feels the Lord’s presence, the happierthe one is.From the above lines we can see that for Fr. Steinhart, the existence of joy inprison is a divine gift and a witness of God’s existence. He is happy as he feelsLord Christ’s presence. Another person writing extensively about happiness inprison is the young student Valeriu Gafencu, imprisoned at the age of 20 years. Hedies in prison after 11 years of detention, sick with tuberculosis. Valeriu Gafencuhas received the appellation “the saint of the prisons”. From prison, ValeriuGafencu writes letters to his younger three sisters and to his mother, emphasizingthe fact that the main condition for gaining happiness is to remove the passions andsins from our thought: “let us live in truth, let us tear ourselves away from sin, andlet us sacrifice everything for Christ, for truth. Only following this way we can getsalvation, we can get happiness.” 102According to Valeriu Gafencu, happiness is very close to us, closer than wethink. He urges:“Look for happiness in your souls. Don’t search for it outside of you, and don’texpect happiness to come from some other part except from your inner self,from your soul where the Lord of Love, Jesus Christ, dwells. If you wait forhappiness to come from outside of you, you will experience disappointmentsafter disappointments, and you will never reach it” 103 .Several times Valeriu Gafencu mentions that he has found the truehappiness: “I live in the happiness to have understood the high meaning of Life-thebright road that goes up to Heaven. Without Christ, our Lord, life would be acomplete futility bearing one aim: to suffer without any hope” 104 .100 Ibidem.101 Ibidem, p. 70.102 Valeriu Gafencu, 2006, Calea spre fericire. Scrisori trimise din inchisoare celor dragi,Fagaraş,Editura Agaton, p.5.103 Ibidem, p. 5.104 Ibidem.173