My assignment was to share with you for a few moments what you might call the theological reasons for laughter. Why would a person of faith be cheerful? Why is a crabby believer a contradiction?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s my reason for joy: the cross.<\/p>\n
You heard me right: the cross of Christ!<\/p>\n
See, when Jesus suffered and died on the cross on that hill called Calvary, on that Friday strangely called \u201cGood,\u201d literally, the \u201clights went out\u201d as even the sun hid in shame. Literally, the earth sobbed with convulsions of sorrow as an earthquake occurred.<\/p>\n
Jesus, pure goodness, seemed bullied to death by undiluted evil;Love, jackbooted by hate;
\nMercy incarnate, smothered by revenge;
\nLife itself, crushed by death.<\/p>\n
It seemed we could never smile again\u2026<\/p>\n
But, then came the Sunday called Easter!<\/p>\n
The sun \u2013 S-U-N \u2013 came up, and the Son \u2013 S-O-N \u2013 came out as He rose from the dead.<\/p>\n
Guess who had the last word? God!<\/p>\n
Hope, not despair;<\/p>\n
Faith, not doubt;<\/p>\n
Love, not spite;<\/p>\n
Light, not an eclipse of the sun;<\/p>\n
Life, not the abyss of death.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe who laughs last, laughs best\u2026\u201d \u2026and we believers have never stopped smiling since that Resurrection of Jesus from the dead!<\/p>\n
So, as the Bible teaches us, if God loves us so much that he didn\u2019t even spare His only Son, well, then, \u201cnothing can separate us from the love of God,\u201d can it?<\/p>\n
So, Good Friday did not have the last word\u2026Easter did! That why I can laugh.<\/p>\n
Because I believe all is God\u2019s providential hands, and, that \u2013 the Bible again \u2013 \u201cAll will work out for those who believe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lord knows there are plenty of Good Fridays in our lives\u2026but, they will not prevail. Easter will. As we Irish claim, \u201cLife is all about loving, living, and laughing, not about hating, dying, and moaning.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why a crabby, griping, whining believer is an oxymoron!<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why we say, \u201cJoy is the infallible sign of God\u2019s presence.\u201d<\/p>\n
I saw it in Haiti when I went there with Catholic Relief Services right after the devastating earthquake two-and-a-half years ago \u2013 crying, horror, death, anguish \u2013 you bet, in abundance. But, still, a resilience and a hope in a people clinging onto faith after centuries of oppression and grind.<\/p>\n
I see it every time I visit the pediatric oncology department at Sloan \u2013Kettering \u2013 beautiful, little, innocent children, baldheaded, emaciated by chemo, but they and their folks still radiating an interior trust and calm such that they can smile while I\u2019m choking up.<\/p>\n
I see it every time I visit cloistered nuns. Eventhough they posses nothing of earthly value, but the clothes on their back and the prayerbook in their hands; eventhough they live a life of silence, penance, enclosure and virginity, unknown to most of us, they still laugh heartily and, Stephen, they are the best audience I could ask for in roaring at my corny jokes.<\/p>\n
A young man in college once approached me as a parish priest to say he wanted to become Catholic. When I asked him why, he replied, \u201cLast week I was at the wake of a Catholic man I admired very much, who died suddenly, still young. And his family, while mourning him deeply, could still laugh, as if they knew it would all be ok.\u201d<\/p>\n
Faith in the cross of Christ, and hope in His Resurrection, does that\u2026.<\/p>\n
\u2026which makes it providential that we\u2019d be talking about joy on this day in the Catholic calendar when we celebrate The Triumph of the Cross.<\/p>\n
Thanks for listening!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Read it all. <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He appeared at Fordham University last night, in a conversation with Stephen Colbert that was moderated by Fr. James Martin, SJ.\u00a0 Here\u2019s part of the cardinal\u2019s opening remarks: My assignment was to share with you for a few moments what you might call the theological reasons for laughter. Why would a person of faith be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,22],"tags":[1057,821],"class_list":["post-16857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bishops","category-humor","tag-cardinal-dolan","tag-stephen-colbert"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n