Friday 29th March 2024

Home » Featured Today » Currently Reading:

A Book Review… The Pursuit Of Happiness

September 12, 2017 Featured Today No Comments

By MITCHELL KALPAGIAN

Finding True Happiness, by Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ, Ph.D. (Ignatius Press, San Francisco: 2015), 312 pp., $19.95. Available from www.ignatius.com or 1-800-651-1531.

A work of both practical commonsense advice and spiritual wisdom, this book defines four types of human happiness that conform to human nature and mark the human condition, a hierarchy of values that ascend from the first level of happiness provided by the enjoyment of pleasures and the comforts of material possessions to the highest level of transcendence in which man experiences a loving relationship with God and contemplates the meaning of the One, the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.
As man graduates from the first to the fourth level, he experiences a sense of completeness in the possession of a happiness that Fr. Spitzer calls “pervasive,” “enduring,” and “deep.”
The pursuit of happiness proceeds through four stages as man not only discovers the delight of the senses and the gratification of bodily appetites on the first level but also relishes the joy of achievements that provide great satisfaction on the second level: the feeling of accomplishment like earning a degree, receiving a promotion, purchasing a home, or receiving an honor. In the first and second types of happiness, however, the pleasure does not extend beyond the self.
Gaining in financial prosperity or improving one’s social status limit a person’s participation in the fullness of joy that awaits him if he does not rise to the higher levels. Honors and achievements alone are not “pervasive” or inclusive enough. Delighting in the gratifications of eating, drinking, traveling, and vacationing is not “enduring.”
The joys of the first two levels do not go beyond bodily satisfaction and social approval, not reaching the depths of the soul or nourishing the mind with the highest knowledge or purest joy. As the quest continues, man learns of nobler sources of happiness and advances to the third stage that the author identifies as “contributive,” the many ways that persons enrich and bless the lives of others with love, friendship, care, and affection.
As man recognizes that the pleasure, satisfaction, and fulfillment of the first three stages — while natural sources of happiness — do not perfectly fulfill man’s transcendental desires for everlasting joy and union with God, he turns to the fourth level. Here the restless human heart yearning for the perfection of heavenly beatitude and the fullness of happiness without change or loss seeks a greater knowledge and love of God, “a dynamic encounter.”
Spitzer explains all of these levels with clarity, thoroughness, and telling examples: While “every level of happiness is good and has its proper place,” certain temptations accompany them because they can blind or limit a person’s view of higher, ultimate things. For example, to remain on the first or second level and define the source of happiness exclusively in terms of pleasure, comfort, or wealth ignores the riches of the life of the mind and soul. To remain on the second level and always view life as a form of competition to defeat one’s rivals for lucrative prizes and prestigious positions easily leads to egocentricity and narcissism.
Those who stay complacent and make success, status, wealth, or luxury the dominant view of happiness soon identify it solely with “winning “ rather “losing” in the competition of life, and they inevitably disregard the importance of the profoundly human aspects that enrich happiness: “They do not see their personhood, personality, lovability, love of others, and empathy as being important.”
Thus those obsessed only with the first or second kind of happiness “underlive” their lives and fail to experience the abundant life Christ promised which the psalmist expressed: “Taste and see the sweetness of the Lord.”
As Spitzer forcefully argues, lack of financial or social success and even disappointment and failure never define the worth of a human being. Other criteria need to replace worldly standards in order to understand the fullness of happiness that life offers and God gives. Instead of reacting with a sense of inferiority, depression, or self-pity when people fail to win or gain the prize, they must “find new categories to define life and self — categories that are not reducible to things or ego-comparative qualities, but instead open upon our noble, loving, lovable, transcendent, spiritual selves.”
When the pursuit of happiness never aspires beyond the first and second levels but instead seeks reputation, image, popularity, and praise as the essence of life, many gloat over their achievements and belittle others with contempt. Ego-centered and narcissistic, the successful achievers fall into the sins of pride and envy, never grateful for their blessings and always discontented when their highest ambitions fail.
While those who know happiness on the third and fourth levels show gratitude, share their joy and blessings with others, express a love of neighbor and a love of God, the overachievers ruled by secular standards never feel at home in the world or in themselves and compulsively seek more adulation and recognition. In short, comfort, pleasure, and success are not “ends in themselves” but stepping stones to the higher levels of full human happiness.
Spitzer shows that those who remain on the first and second levels and never fulfill the higher transcendental desires for truth, goodness, and beauty inevitably encounter a sense of alienation, loneliness, emptiness, and guilt — all problems that the contributive and transcendental aspects of happiness alleviate. To address these problems and “to escape your personal hell,” the author recommends certain fundamental changes of attitude that transform a person’s whole sense of direction and purpose in life.
First, a person needs to redefine his primary purpose in life from personal pleasure and material accumulation to contributions to family, society, church, and the common good. Instead of seeking admiration and kudos, he needs to earn the love and gratitude of others.
Second, a person must notice the good in others and see them in their “lovability,” as images of God — as mysteries rather than problems — rather than as rivals whom he envies and resents for their success.
Third, persons must adopt a view of themselves beyond marketable skills and professional prestige that deserve “esteem” but do not evoke “love” in the way that personal qualities such as kindness, humility, compassion, and charity form the basis of human relationships that produce fruitful, joy-filled lives.
Fourth, persons must develop a responsible, rational sense of freedom that exercises discipline and constraint — a change that distinguishes between “freedom from” and “freedom for” — freedom from license, addiction, and enslavement and freedom for love of neighbor and God and works of mercy.
This new understanding, then, honors commitments and fulfills duties rather than championing autonomy and radical individualism. These changes in attitude depend on learning from Christ’s example. He enjoyed others, listened to them, spent time with beloved friends, and served them — He was One “who had time to be with sinners, the poor, and the weak; who enjoyed His relationships with the simple and the powerful; who listened to the cry of the poor as well as ‘the wise of the world’.”
In this transition from the first two levels to the higher two levels, man must not stop at the third level lest he find that “something is missing” and that he is wasting his life and not following his vocation and highest responsibility — a state of mind that produces what Spitzer calls “cosmic alienation” and “cosmic loneliness: “When we are not in relation to others, we feel a mere fraction of ourselves, and the deeper our relationship with others, the deeper our experience of ourselves.”
However, even though other people breathe life, energy, and vitality into one’s life, man’s most important relationship binds him to God, and “no human relationship will be able to take the place of this transcendent one,” a relationship in which man participates in the eternal battle of good and evil and realizes he is part of something greater than himself.
This transcendent level attunes a person to an appreciation of God’s divine Providence both in the world and in his own life and sensitizes him to the wonder of the transcendentals like beauty: the beauty of the natural world, of sacred music and art, of holy people:
“Notice that when you allow yourself to be drawn into the life of the sacred, the Lord responds more intensely, with an invitation to even deeper things.”
On the first level man seeks to satisfy the basic needs essential for survival — food, clothing, shelter — called the “External-Pleasure-Material” plane of existence. The author calls the second tier of happiness the realm of “Ego-Comparative desire,” the acquisition of distinctions, prizes, and status that follow from the success of reaching one’s goals.
The third form of happiness Spitzer describes as “Contributive-Empathetic,” explained as “the contributive desire to make a positive difference to someone or something beyond ourselves.” This desire conquers the ego-centricity and narcissism that develop when human happiness remains on the first two levels, and it combats the sense of emptiness and meaninglessness a person confronts in the realization that he made no positive difference in any other person’s life.

Real Sources Of Happiness

However, the ultimate degree of happiness corresponds to man’s innate sense of the holy, sacred, and spiritual that intuits “a mysterious, awe-inspiring power” common to all religions that Spitzer calls the “numinous” experience. This desire for transcendence expresses itself in man’s longing for perfect justice, perfect beauty, and perfect goodness that man’s mortality in the fallen world of the human condition never absolutely satisfies.
All these truths about happiness make excellent sense, validate knowledge from other fields of learning that lead to similar conclusions, and correspond to Christ’s teachings and the spiritual wisdom of the Church.
As Spitzer concludes, man needs more than the offerings of the first three levels of happiness because “we expect more, need more, and want more because we are created for more. We are transcendent beings who recognize and desire the transcendent, spiritual, sacred, and religious.”
To ignore this aspect of happiness inevitably leads to an existence in which “we will surely underlive our lives, undervalue our dignity, and underestimate our destiny — a perfectly avoidable waste and tragedy.” The secular world and the mass of humanity need to know the real sources of happiness that transcend the consumerism of a society manipulated by propaganda and the media’s image of the good life.

Share Button

2019 The Wanderer Printing Co.

Vatican and USCCB leave transgender policy texts unpublished

While U.S. bishops have made headlines for releasing policies addressing gender identity and pastoral ministry, guidelines on the subject have been drafted but not published by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, leaving diocesan bishops to…Continue Reading

Biden says Pope Francis told him to continue receiving communion, amid scrutiny over pro-abortion policies

President Biden said that Pope Francis, during their meeting Friday in Vatican City, told him that he should continue to receive communion, amid heightened scrutiny of the Catholic president’s pro-abortion policies.  The president, following the approximately 90-minute-long meeting, a key…Continue Reading

Federal judge rules in favor of Gov. DeSantis’ mask mandate ban

MIAMI (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge this week handed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis another legal victory on his mask mandate ban for schools. On Wednesday, Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida denied a petition from…Continue Reading

The Eucharist should not be received unworthily, says Nigerian cardinal

Priests have a duty to remind Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin and to make confession easily available, a Nigerian cardinal said at the International Eucharistic Congress on Thursday. “It is still the doctrine…Continue Reading

Donald Trump takes a swipe at Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him

Donald Trump complained about Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him in 2020. The former president made the comments in a conference call featuring religious leaders. The move could be seen to shore up his religious conservative base…Continue Reading

Y Gov. Kathy Hochul Admits Andrew Cuomo Covered Up COVID Deaths, 12,000 More Died Than Reported

When it comes to protecting people from COVID, Andrew Cuomo is already the worst governor in America. New York has the second highest death rate per capita, in part because he signed an executive order putting COVID patients in nursing…Continue Reading

Prayers For Cardinal Burke . . . U.S. Cardinal Burke says he has tested positive for COVID-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. In an Aug. 10 tweet, he wrote: “Praised be Jesus Christ! I wish to inform you that I have recently…Continue Reading

Democrats Block Amendment Banning Late-Term Abortions, Stopping Abortions Up to Birth

Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment that would ban abortions on babies older than 20 weeks. During consideration of the multi-trillion spending package, pro-life Louisiana Senator John Kennedy filed an amendment to ban late-term abortions, but Democrats steadfastly support killing…Continue Reading

Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding…Continue Reading

New York priest accused by security guard of assault confirms charges have now been dropped

NEW YORK, June 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A New York priest has made his first public statement regarding the dismissal of charges against him.  Today Father George W. Rutler reached out to LifeSiteNews and other media today with the following…Continue Reading

21,000 sign petition protesting US Catholic bishops vote on Biden, abortion

More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.  Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that…Continue Reading

Bishop Gorman seeks candidates to fill two full time AP level teaching positions for the 2021-2022 school year in the subject areas of Calculus/Statistics and Physics

Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School is a college preparatory school located in Tyler, Texas. It is an educational ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler led by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The sixth through twelfth grade school provides a…Continue Reading

Untitled 5 Untitled 2

Attention Readers:

  Welcome to our website. Readers who are familiar with The Wanderer know we have been providing Catholic news and orthodox commentary for 150 years in our weekly print edition.


  Our daily version offers only some of what we publish weekly in print. To take advantage of everything The Wanderer publishes, we encourage you to su
bscribe to our flagship weekly print edition, which is mailed every Friday or, if you want to view it in its entirety online, you can subscribe to the E-edition, which is a replica of the print edition.
 
  Our daily edition includes: a selection of material from recent issues of our print edition, news stories updated daily from renowned news sources, access to archives from The Wanderer from the past 10 years, available at a minimum charge (this will be expanded as time goes on). Also: regularly updated features where we go back in time and highlight various columns and news items covered in The Wanderer over the past 150 years. And: a comments section in which your remarks are encouraged, both good and bad, including suggestions.
 
  We encourage you to become a daily visitor to our site. If you appreciate our site, tell your friends. As Catholics we must band together to rediscover our faith and share it with the world if we are to effectively counter a society whose moral culture seems to have no boundaries and a government whose rapidly extending reach threatens to extinguish the rights of people of faith to practice their religion (witness the HHS mandate). Now more than ever, vehicles like The Wanderer are needed for clarification and guidance on the issues of the day.

Catholic, conservative, orthodox, and loyal to the Magisterium have been this journal’s hallmarks for five generations. God willing, our message will continue well into this century and beyond.

Joseph Matt
President, The Wanderer Printing Co.

Untitled 1

Catechism

Today . . .

Abortion Advocates No Longer Consider It “A Necessary Evil,” They Celebrate Killing Babies

Last week, Kamala Harris became the first vice president in U.S. history to make a public visit to an abortion clinic. Though the Democratic party’s support for abortion is nothing new, Harris’ Planned Parenthood appearance does illustrate how that support has become a flagrant celebration of abortion as a public and personal good, essential to both “freedom” and to “healthcare.” At the appearance, Harris proclaimed,  It is only right and fair that people have access…Continue Reading

Wisconsin Supreme Court says Catholic charity group cannot claim religious tax exemption

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a major Catholic charity group’s activities were not “primarily” religious under state law, stripping the group of a key tax break and ordering it to pay into the state unemployment system. Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) last year argued that the state had improperly removed its designation as a religious organization.  The charity filed a lawsuit after the state said it did not qualify to be considered as an organization…Continue Reading

Walgreens and CVS Will Start Selling Abortion Pills That Kill Babies

The two largest pharmacies in America will start selling abortion pills this month that end the lives of unborn children by starting them to death. Walgreens and CVS will both sell the abortion pills despite the fact that they kill a developing human being and have killed at least dozens of women and injured tens of thousands more. They plan to initially roll out abortion drug sales in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, California…Continue Reading

Cardinal Burke announces novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for ‘crises of our age’

VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — Raymond Cardinal Burke has announced the start of a global, nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, calling on Catholics to beseech Mary’s intercession on the Church and the world in the face of the “crises of our age.” In a new endeavour published online over the weekend, Cardinal Burke announced a novena beginning in March, and culminating on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.

Texas attorney general targets Catholic nonprofit, alleges it facilitates illegal immigration

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 21, 2024 / 21:15 pm Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to shut down a Catholic nonprofit organization in El Paso based on allegations that the group may be facilitating illegal immigration, harboring immigrants who entered the country illegally, and engaging in human smuggling.  Paxton filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit Annunciation House, which has operated in the state for nearly 50 years. The lawsuit asks the District Court of El Paso…Continue Reading

The King of Kings

Cindy Paslawski We are at the end of the Church year. We began with Advent a year ago, commemorating the time awaiting the coming of the Christ and we are ending these weeks later with a vision of the future, a vision of Christ the King of the Universe on His throne before us all.…Continue Reading

7,000 Pro-Lifers March In London

By STEVEN ERTELT LONDON (LifeNews) — Over the weekend, some seven thousand pro-life people in the UK participated in the March for Life in London to protest abortion.They marched to Parliament Square on Saturday, September 2 under the banner of “Freedom to Live” and had to deal with a handful of radical abortion activists.During the…Continue Reading

An Appeal For Prayer For The Armenian People

By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE (Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke on August 29, 2023, issued this prayer for the Armenian people, noting their unceasing love for Christ, even in the face of persecution.) + + On the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, having a few days ago celebrated the…Continue Reading

Robert Hickson, Founding Member Of Christendom College, Dies At 80

By MAIKE HICKSON FRONT ROYAL, Va. (LifeSiteNews) — Robert David Hickson, Jr., of Front Royal, Va., died at his home on September 2, 2023, at 21:29 p.m. after several months of suffering and after having received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He was surrounded by friends and family.Robert is survived by me —…Continue Reading

The Real Hero Of “Sound of Freedom”… Says The Film Has Strengthened The Fight Against Child Trafficking

By ANA PAULA MORALES (CNA) —Tim Ballard, a former U.S. Homeland Security agent who risked his life to fight child trafficking, discussed the impact of the movie Sound of Freedom, which is based on his work, in an August 29 interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. “I’ve spent more than 20 years helping…Continue Reading

Advertisement

Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. The email and postal addresses are given at the end of this column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 53-59)…Continue Reading

Color Politics An Impediment To Faith

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The USCCB is rightly concerned about racism, as they should be about any sin. In the 2018 statement Open Wide Our Hearts, they affirm the dignity of every human person: “But racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart. This evil causes great harm to its victims, and…Continue Reading

Trademarks Of The True Messiah

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on September 2, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + In Sunday’s Gospel the Lord firmly sets before us the need for the cross, not as an end in itself, but as the way to glory. Let’s consider the Gospel in three stages.First: The Pattern That…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… The Holy Cross And Jesus’ Unconditional Love

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON Each year on September 14 the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. The Feast Day of the Triumph of the Holy Cross commemorates the day St. Helen found the True Cross. It is fitting then, that today we should focus on the final moments of Jesus’ life on the…Continue Reading

Our Ways Must Become More Like God’s Ways

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9Phil. 1:20c-24, 27aMatt. 20:1-16a In the first reading today, God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially when we look at what the Lord…Continue Reading

The Devil And The Democrats

By FR. DENIS WILDE, OSA States such as Minnesota, California, Maryland, and others, in all cases with Democrat-controlled legislatures, are on a fast track to not only allow unborn babies to be murdered on demand as a woman’s “constitutional right” but also to allow infanticide.Our nation has gotten so used to the moral evil of killing in the womb that…Continue Reading

Crushed But Unbroken . . . The Martyrdom Of St. Margaret Clitherow

By RAY CAVANAUGH The late-1500s were a tough time for Catholics in England, where the Reformation was in full gear. A 1581 law prohibited Catholic religious ceremonies. And a 1584 Act of Parliament mandated that all Catholic priests leave the country or else face execution. Some chose to remain, however, so they could continue serving the faithful.Also taking huge risks…Continue Reading

Advertisement(2)