The Importance Of Humor In A Time Like This
By DONALD DeMARCO
“Do not abandon yourselves to despair,” said Pope St. John Paul II. “We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.” Such a joyful declaration should give all of us renewed hope. And our hallelujah song should be a happy heart that is filled with merriment.
In his Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas affirms what the pagan philosopher Seneca said about humor: “Bear yourself with wit, lest you be regarded as sour or despised as dull” (ST, II-II, Q. 168, Art. 4). Aquinas is critical of those who “lack playfulness.” On the other hand, he praises those who say things “to make you smile.” Humor, for Aquinas, is not only important, it is necessary. “Those words and deeds,” he writes, “in which nothing is sought beyond the soul’s pleasure are called playful or humorous, and it is necessary to make use of them at times for solace of soul” (ST II-II, Q. 168, Art. 2).
The present difficulties we are currently experiencing would be a fitting occasion of what Aquinas refers to by the words “at times.” These are certainly times in which all of us could use a good dose of humor. Laughter may be our best medicine, but it also may be our best antidote in times when there is no alternative but to laugh.
Humor results when we notice the gap between the ideal and the performance. Catholics, therefore, of all people, have a motherlode of jokes about themselves because it is only too evident that their practice often falls far short of their goal. After a good laugh, they can then get up and do what they can to reduce that gap. Catholicism is also about amending one’s life, and certainly not about despairing.
In recent years, the Jesuit order, as it has been perceived by some, have fallen a peg from its illustrious past. That makes them prime targets for humor. 1) A man, who purchased a lottery ticket for a Lamborghini, asked a Franciscan to say a novena that he might win this highly prized automobile. The Franciscan said, “What’s a Lamborghini?” He then put the same question to a Dominican and received the same response. Undaunted he beseeched a Jesuit, who had a different response: “What’s a novena?”
2) A Franciscan, a Dominican, and a Jesuit were in a hospice and near death. The angel of death appeared before them and offered to grant any wish they desired before they left the world. The Franciscan asked to touch the wounds of Christ before he died; the Dominican asked to gaze upon the face of the Savior. The Jesuit asked for a second opinion.
3) A Franciscan, a Dominican, and a Jesuit were discussing the greatness of their orders when suddenly Jesus in a manger and Mary and Joseph appeared to them. The Franciscan fell on his face overcome by the sight of God born in such poverty. The Dominican fell to his knees, adoring the beautiful reflection of the Trinity. The Jesuit walked up to Joseph, put his arm around his shoulder and said, “So, have you thought about where to send him to school?”
A conversation between man and God: “What, dear Lord, is a million years like to you?” “Like one second,” was God’s reply. “What, dear Lord, is a million dollars like to you?” “Like a penny,” God answered. “Can I have a penny?” the man then asked. “Just a second.”
Four Catholic women are having coffee together. The first says, “My son is a priest and when he enters the room people refer to him as ‘Father’.” The second says that her son is a bishop and when he enters the room, people hail him as “Your Grace.” The third woman says that her son is a cardinal and when he enters the room, people honor him as “His Eminence.” After an embarrassing pause, the fourth woman says, my son is fabulously handsome and when he enters the room, people say, “Oh, my God.”
A woman who desperately wanted a child asked her priest, who was leaving for Rome, to light a candle for her while he was in the Eternal City. Five years later, the woman told the priest that in the interim she had had two sets of twins and was pregnant with triplets. She thereupon gave the priest a plane ticket back to Rome. “You don’t need to thank me,” said the priest. “I’m not thanking you,” said the distraught woman. “I just want you to go back to Rome and blow out that candle.”
Then there was the barren woman who was taking St. Joseph’s Aspirin for Children.
Catholic Sunday services have been renamed. They are now called, “Sunday Mask.” A priest remains in good shape if he exorcises. Swiss cheese was recently declared the official cheese of the Catholic Church, because it is the holiest of cheeses.
My Catholic school was very conservative. When the football team needed encouragement, the cheerleaders broke out into Gregorian chant.
My parish priest told me that at my age I should be thinking about the hereafter. I told him that I do. Every time I enter a different room I ask myself the question, “What am I here after?”
The distinguished theologian Roman Guardini regarded humor as an expression of kindness. “It helps us to endure things more easily,” he writes. “We must have an eye for the oddity of existence. Everything human has something comic about it….A friendly laugh at the oddity of all human affairs — that is humor. It helps us to be kind, for after a good laugh it is easier to be serious again.”
Is there laughter in Heaven? If I do get there, my arrival should provoke gales of laughter.
- + + (Dr. Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus, St. Jerome’s University, and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College. He is a regular columnist for St. Austin Review and is the author of forty books. One of his latest books, The 12 Supporting Pillars of the Culture of Life and Why They Are Crumbling is posted on amazon.com. His fortieth book, Glimmers of Hope in a Darkening World, is now available.)
