Holiness And Laughter (Catholic Catechism)

[BarbTherese]

Today here in Australia, it is the Feast of The Presentation of The Lord. And today the book book "Between Heaven and Mirth" (Fr James Martin, SJ )arrived just after 9am. Since all that is good comes from God, I wrote in the front of the book "Thank You, Lord!"
I have read to Page 21 and something that really surpised and alerted me is quoted - i.e. Paragraph 1676 of The Catholic Catechism (which I raced off to consult and quoted in full at the end of this post) and a number that will be forever etched into my memory and as a paragraph of the Catholic Catechism it cannot be too much quoted, methinks.

In a post somewhere I read that someone thought that "Between Heaven and Mirth" is not a particularly "holy" book and it reminded me of what St Teresa of Avila said: "Lord, please spare me your gloomy saints". For me the source of laughter is Joy and one of the fruits of The Holy Spirit - providing that that laughter is of that fruit and the book does point this out. Laughter can heal and elivate in many ways and it can also hurt and crush in many ways. The former is that that flows from Joy and The Holy Spirit while the latter flows from decidedly negative spiritual factors contrary to The Holy Spirit.

We are the bearers of Good News, The Gospel - and yet too often I think we can come across as bearing anything but Good News. Seriousness can be thought of as a mark of holiness and this can be so, but if it is a continual seriousness which comes across as 'doom and gloom', then that holiness, I think can be questioned as lacking something vital and a fruit of the Holy Spirit : Joy (Para "[b]1832 [/b]The [i]fruits [/i]of the Spirit are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory. The tradition of the Church lists twelve of them: "charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity.")


[url="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c4a1.htm#1674"]http://www.vatican.v...s2c4a1.htm#1674[/url]

[quote]

[b]1676 : [/b]Pastoral discernment is needed to sustain and support popular piety and, if necessary, to purify and correct the religious sense which underlies these devotions so that the faithful may advance in knowledge of the mystery of Christ.[sup][size=2]182[/size][/sup] Their exercise is subject to the care and judgment of the bishops and to the general norms of the Church.
At its core the piety of the people is a storehouse of values that offers answers of Christian wisdom to the great questions of life. The Catholic wisdom of the people is capable of fashioning a vital synthesis. . . . It creatively combines the divine and the human, Christ and Mary, spirit and body, communion and institution, person and community, faith and homeland, intelligence and emotion. This wisdom is a Christian humanism that radically affirms the dignity of every person as a child of God, establishes a basic fraternity, teaches people to encounter nature and understand work, [color=#ff0000]provides reasons for joy and [u][b]humor [/b][/u]even in the midst of a very hard life[/color]. For the people this wisdom is also a principle of discernment and an evangelical instinct through which they spontaneously sense when the Gospel is served in the Church and when it is emptied of its content and stifled by other interests.[sup][size=2]181[/size][/sup] (formatting is mine) [/quote] I always feel very happy, victorious, when pieces fall into place! Thank You, Lord - and to You the victory.........thank You for sharing it.
Reading Para 1676 again with care, it is a very important paragraph,very - and not only from the point of joy and humour.

Edited February 2, 2012 by BarbaraTherese

[BarbTherese]

I have always loved this statement in the [i]'Primitive Constitutions of St Teresa of Jesus for Discalced Carmelite Nuns" :[/i]

"#27 No kind of game is to be permitted, for The Lord will give grace to some to amuse the others" - and St Teresa herself had quite the sense of humour.
[quote[
[url="http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/spirituality-humor"]http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/spirituality-humor[/url]

[u]"Excerpt only[/u]: Did you know the words [i]human[/i], [i]humor[/i] and [i]humility [/i]all have the same Indo-European root -- [i]ghom[/i], best translated by the English word humus.
Humus is key to any ecological system, whether it be forest, grassland or glade, and it is vital to any garden. The best garden humus, of course, is a combination of rotting vegetable matter: kitchen scraps, autumn leaves, grass clippings. Mixed together and left to rot, the humus pile becomes a rich, fertile soil in which to grow vegetables. I garden every year and tend my humus, or compost, pile carefully. Daily I add to it, and every other week turn it and wet it, so that the microorganisms can do their work effectively, breaking the organic matter down into a rich, loamy, aromatic substance that, when added to the garden, works miracles.
One can readily see the connection between humility and humus. What could be more humble than a pile of rotting organic matter, destined to push up carrots, radishes and corn? Yet nothing is more helpful to growth. Humus is fecund. It's willing to serve. It's a kind of earthy parable for life. When living matter ends its service, it dies into the compost pile ... and gives birth to new life. Earth swallows us up but at the same time it is a womb, a place where birth, renaissance and resurrection all occur. Our human adventure is similar to the sacred saga of humus.
Humor is also a kind of compost in which the organic elements of life mix, ferment and stew, either giving birth to new ways of seeing and understanding, or just reconnecting us with the humble humus of our earthly origins."
[/quote]

Edited February 2, 2012 by BarbaraTherese

[brandelynmarie]

Humor as compost for the tough things in life...I like that.

[BarbTherese]

[quote name='brandelynmarie' timestamp='1328145277' post='2379282']
Humor as compost for the tough things in life...I like that.
[/quote]

I quite liked it too in that out of the tough things in life, humor can generate and stimulate growth "either giving birth to new ways of seeing and understanding, or just reconnecting us with the humble humus of our earthly origins." The quote is not from the book incidentally, rather from an article I read quite some time ago and happily filed in my Favourites.

I am really enjoying the book and had to put it down with much regret. So many wonderful new thoughts and new avenues of thoughts and books quoted to follow through on in my To Get list. I know its going to be one of those books that when I finish, I will wish that I was only just beginning. Father Martin's aspects on Scripture and our Jesus of The Gospels especially and the humor contained therein is a truly refreshingly new re-look with new aspects, new understandings. I am not yet on those Chapters addressing spirituality per se and humour.