In popular [contemporary, secular] terminology, joy is happiness. For the religious person joy is happiness in God. Joy is not simply a fleeting feeling or an evanescent emotion; it is a deep-seated result of one's connection to God. Although the more secular definition of joy may sometimes describe one's emotional response to an object or event, wonderful though it may be (a new job, for example), religious joy is always about a relationship. Joy has an object and that object is God.
-- James Martin, S.J.
Between Heaven and Mirth:
Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter
Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life
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