Saint Thomas Aquinas said: «Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures». Of course, taking up one’s cross is part of the deal, but this has to be complemented by spiritual joys that make life bearable. And spiritual joys are gifts from God and are not equally distributed. There are people like me that only get tiny spiritual joys, no matter how much you try.
As a Roman Catholic (your church’s mileage may vary), you have two options: you follow the Gospel of Platitudes: you go to Mass, listen to a bland sermon telling you that you must be good or you must fight for peace and the poor (while boring to death) and then forget about God the rest of the week and live like a non-Christian, freely sinning without guilt. This is the Church of Vatican II.
But if this does not seem real Christianity to you, you can go with people that are more serious. Then, you start a path of self-renunciation and sheer masochism. Your faith becomes a duty. You have to give up any world pleasure but you don’t get anything from it (at least in this life). You have a God-to-do list and you follow all the rules. It’s hard work (besides your job). When you sin, you feel awful and go to confession. But when you do things right, you don’t feel specially well: it’s only your duty. You spend a big part of your mental energy to keep yourself away from sin and then you don’t get anything that is perceivable.
But, when you read the New Testament, you find out that first Christians lived a live of joy. For example, «always be happy» (1 Thessalonians 5:16).Where is the abundant life that we were promised? (John 10:10). Is it only after death?
I am afraid most people don’t have enough faith to live a life devoid of any happiness while waiting for the death to come and this is one of the causes of people leaving the Church or following the Gospel of Platitudes. Some of our ancestors lived a Christian life of self-renunciation and wrote wonderful books about that («The Imitation of Christ» by Kempis) but they had more faith than us (not having had contact with worldviews different from Christianity). And they lived very hard lives. It is easy to renounce the world when you don’t renounce anything because the world does not give you anything.
I stumbled upon a Christian book that deals with these issues. It is called «Journey of Desire» by John Eldredge. The author says that desire has been suppressed in our Christian life because it is deemed evil. But this is not a Christian message but a Buddhist message. The goal of Christianity is the satisfaction of desire and God uses desire in us to sanctify us. I cannot recommend this book yet, because I have not finished it so I don’t know what its final message is. But their first chapters have moved me to tears and resonated very deeply in me.