Reflection on Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras Tuesday:

Christian Laughter and Crying

Karl Rahner, SJ

Can the subject of our reflection for Mardi Gras Tuesday be anything but laughter?

We do not mean the sublime heavenly joy that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, nor the joy that “spiritualpersons” like to talk about in soft, gentle terms (a joy that can easily produce a somewhat insipid andsour effect, like the euphoria of a harmless, balanced, but essentially stunted person). No, we mean reallaughter, resounding laughter, the kind that make people double over and slap their thigh, the kind thatbrings tears to the eyes; the laughter that accompanies spicy jokes, the laughter that reflects the fact thata human being is no doubt somewhat childlike and childish. We mean the laughter that is not verypensive, the laughter that ceremonious people (passionately keen on their dignity) righteously takeamiss in themselves and in others. This is the laughter we mean. Is it possible for us to reflect on thislaughter? Yes, indeed, very much so. Even laughable matters are very serious. Their seriousness,however, dawns only on the one who takes them for what they are: laughable. …

In the most pessimistic book of the Bible we read: “There is a time to weep and a time to laugh; a timeto mourn and a time to dance” (Eccl 3:4). This is what laughter tells us first of all: there is a time foreverything. The human being has no fixed dwelling place on this earth, not even in the inner life of theheart and mind. Life means change. Laughter tells us that if as a people of the earth we wanted to bealways in the same fixed state of mind and heart, if we wanted always to brew a uniform mixture out ofevery virtue and disposition of the soul (a mixture that would always and everywhere be just right),laughter tells us that fundamentally this would be a denial of the fact that we are created beings. Towant to escape from the atmospheric conditions of the soul—the human soul that can soar as high asthe heavens in joy and be depressed down to death in grief—to want to escape by running under thenever-changing sky of imperturbability and insensitivity: this would be inhuman. It would be stoical,but it would not be Christian. This is what laughter tells us first of all.

It speaks to us and says, “You are a human being, you change, and you are changed, changed withoutbeing consulted and at a moment’s notice. Your status is the inconstancy of transformation. Your lot isto stop and rest at no one status. You are a manifold, incalculable being that never factors out without aremainder. The being that can be broken down into no common denominator other than that which iscalled God—which you are not, and never will be. Woe to you if, while immersed in time, you shouldwant to be the never-changing, the eternal; you would be nothing but death, a dried up, witheredperson." …

Laugh. For this laughter is an acknowledgement that you are a human being, an acknowledgment ofGod. For how else is a person to acknowledge God except through admitting in her life and by meansof her life that she herself is not God but a creature, that her times—a time to weep and a time to laugh,and the one is not the other. A praising of God is what laughter is, because it lets a human being behuman. …

We are thinking here of that redeeming laughter that springs from a childlike and serene heart. It canexist only in one who is not a “heathen,” but who like Christ (Heb 4:15; cf. 1 Pt 3:8) has thorough lovefor all and each, the free, detached “sympathy” that can accept and see everything as it is: the greatgreatly, the small smally, the serious seriously, the laughable with a laugh. Because all these exist,because there are great and small, high and low, sublime and ridiculous, serious and comical, becauseGod wills these to exist—that is why this should be recognized, that is why the comical and theridiculous should be laughed at. But the only one who can do this is the person who does not adapteverything to himself, the one who is free from self, and who like Christ can “sympathize” witheverything; the one who possesses that mysterious sympathy with each and everything, and beforewhom each can get a chance to have its say.

But only the person who loves has this sympathy. And so, laughter is a sign of love. Unsympatheticpeople (people who cannot actively “sympathize” and who thus become passively unsympathetic aswell) cannot really laugh. They cannot admit that not everything is momentous and significant. Theyalways like to be important and they occupy themselves only with what is momentous. They areanxious about their dignity, they worry about it; they do not love, and that is why they do not evenlaugh. But we want to laugh and we are not ashamed to laugh. For it is a manifestation of the love of allthings in God. Laughter is a praise of God, because it lets a human being be a loving person.

God laughs. He laughs the laughter of the carefree, the confident, the unthreatened. He laughs thelaughter of divine superiority over all the horrible confusion of universal history that is full of bloodand torture and insanity and baseness. God laughs. Our God laughs; he laughs deliberately; one mightalmost say that he laughs gloatingly over misfortunes and is aloof from it all. He laughssympathetically and knowingly, almost as if he were enjoying the tearful drama of this earth (he can dothis, for he himself wept with the earth, and he, crushed even to death and abandoned by God, felt theshock of terror). He laughs, says scripture, and thus it tells us that an image and a reflection of thetriumphant, glorious God of history and of eternity still shines in the final laugh that somewheresprings out from a good heart, bright as silver and pure, over some stupidity of this world. Laughter is praise of God because it is a gentle echo of God’s laughter, of the laughter that pronounces judgment onall history.

But it still is more, this harmless laughter of the loving heart. In the Beatitudes according to Luke(6:21), this is what we find: “Blessed are you who weep now, you shall laugh!” Of course this laughteris promised to those who weep, who carry the cross, those who are hated and persecuted for the sake ofthe Son of man. But it is laughter that is promised to them as a blessed reward, and we now have todirect our attention to that point.

Laughter is promised, not merely a gentle blessedness; an exaltation or a joy that wrings from the heartof tears of a surprising happiness. All this, too. But also laughter. Not only will our tears be dried up;not only will the great joy of our poor heart, which can hardly believe in eternal joy, overflow even tointoxication; no, not only this—we shall laugh! Laugh almost like the thrones; laugh as was predictedof the righteous (Ps 51:8). …

Fools laugh, and so do the wise; despairing nonbelievers laugh, and so do believers. But we want tolaugh in these days. And our laughter should praise God. It should praise him because it acknowledgesthat we are human. It should praise him because it acknowledges that we are people who love. It shouldpraise him because it is a reflection and image of the laughter of God himself. It should praise himbecause it is the promise of laughter that is promised to us as victory in the judgment. God gave uslaughter; we should admit this and—laugh.

Christ in the Poor

Undoubtedly one of the best things that I have experienced since entering the seminary has been the amazing and very different people that I have met: either in parishes or in youth groups or in soup kitchens or in the Gift of Hope in Baltimore or in the City Juvenile Detention Center or in the seminary or in the Dono di Maria. There is no doubt that the Church is extraordinarily wealthy-- and that wealth and richness comes in major part from the people who make-up the Church as they turn towards God. It comes from the people who allow the presence of God within them to shine. And to do this they simply bring who they are to the community, to the Church-- as they come together in worship and praise.

This past February I had a few chances to experience this reality. The first and probably most intense experience was exams. So that we're all on the same page-- 30 of my classmates from the NAC and I go to school at the Gregorian University, a Pontifical university founded in 1551 by St. Ignatius of Loyola that educates over 1600 students from over 130 different countries, and study theology in Italian. As you can imagine, understanding class lectures can be pretty tough, especially in the beginning. This experience, though, of studying in Italian has given me a much greater respect for all of the seminarians, other students, and families who come to America from Africa, Asia, Latin and South America, and Europe. Studying in Italian has afforded me the opportunity to learn more about this great culture and to have a common language in which to meet and get to know my classmates at the Greg who come from around the world. Exams, though, bring a whole new edge to studying in Italian. Luckily I was able to take all of my exams in English, and thanks to the cooperation and team work of my brother seminarians was able to take those exams very well prepared. I did, however, choose to take my revelation exam in Italian. It was certainly a humbling experience to know the answer to a question and have to try and stall time while I searched for the words to articulate that answer. In the end I ended up doing a lot better than I thought and learned a valuable lesson-- that not articulating something perfectly does not always indicate a lack of knowledge.

Another very significant experience was the encounter that took place right after my revelation exam. As I crossed the courtyard in front of the Greg a man approached me. He was bundled up for the cold and as he approached me he said, "Padre, devo parlare. Parlarae con me? (Father, I need to talk. Will you talk with me?)" After explaining to this man that I will certainly speak with him and after letting him know that I am a seminarian and not a priest, I was blown away by his genuine desire to talk and to share his experiences of being homeless with another human being, someone who will just listen. He told me about how he had become homeless and how he had come to Rome from Naples. He told me about his family and how much he misses them. He told me about how people judge him, push him away, and reject him because he is homeless. He told me about how these experiences of being ignored and pushed to the side have caused him to question his faith. And as I listened to him I realized how human and how vulnerable he was, and how much he was affected by the actions of others. And over the course of almost two hours and a cup of coffee, I kept thinking about the depiction of the Last Judgment found in Matthew 25-- about how we will be judged by how we treat others. As our conversation came to an end and we parted ways, I couldn't help but think how I will fare on that exam. Sure it is easy to memorize facts and engage theology for an academic exam, but it is not so easy, at least at first, to truly love someone-- even someone who has made mistakes in her or his life... but that is the exam we really should be studying for. And we can. We can study for that exam by being people of joy who little by little give to others of ourselves, even if it is just time and a listening ear. On my way back to the seminary that afternoon I stopped by the Pantheon to say a prayer for Joseph, and as I looked up at the gaping hole in the ceiling of the Pantheon which symbolizes our brokenness as human beings and our innate need for God, I couldn't help but feel somehow deeply connected to Joseph and to his struggles as a homeless man, deeply connected also to all of the people who sleep on the streets in Rome and in Baltimore, and all of the people who are acutely aware of their needs or of their weaknesses or of their brokenness. At the Pantheon there is a tradition of pouring thousands of rose pedals into the church through that same hole in the ceiling to celebrate Pentecost-- the feast in which we remember and turn our attention to how the Holy Spirit pours into us and lights our hearts on fire and stirs us to carry that same flame to others.

After finishing exams a friend and I went to Florence for a few days. It was a great break from studying and from the business of Rome. One of the churches we visited was called Santa Croce. We had come a bit early for a Mass that started at 6:oo in the evening, and when we got to the side chapel where they celebrate daily Mass we saw that there was a Korean pilgrimage group celebrating Mass. And as we sat there in prayer waiting for our Mass to start, we heard the beautiful melody of this Korean pilgrimage group singing their Communion Hymn. And listening to the beauty of their voices praising God I took a step back and just sat in awe at the fact that here I am, an American, in an incredibly beautiful church in Florence where Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Galileo, and Dante are buried listening to a group from Korea sing a song of thanksgiving. Pretty incredible. And even more incredible was realizing that all of us were together in that church in Florence because of our love for and joy in God.

Just before Mass started that night a woman came up to me and asked if my friend or I would be willing to read the First Reading and the Psalm... in Italian. After it was clear that she would not take no for an answer, I agreed to do the readings, hoping that they would be short. Well, it was a long reading from Genesis followed by a Psalm with some pretty big Italian words in it... but somehow I made it through the reading without making too many pronunciation blunders. Like my experience with taking the exam in Italian-- it was definitely not perfect, but somehow the right things were communicated and it sparked a great conversation after Mass with several of the locals from Florence who come daily to this church for Mass.

This past Saturday I had another great experience. A few seminarians and I had the opportunity to help the archivist for the Missionaries of Charity move almost all of the order's archives to a new building in Rome. This involved carrying boxes of newspaper clippings, video tapes, and other important documents of the Missionaries of Charity. First of all-- any opportunity that you might have to get to know or work with or serve with the Missionaries of Charity, DO IT. They are truly extraordinary women who are ministers of joy in an extremely simple and yet extremely profound way by loving other people. They have a house in just about every major city and devote themselves loving the poorest of the poor. Their house in Baltimore is called the Gift of Hope. Go there. The poor that you encounter at their houses and the clear presence of faith and joy will bring you back. The superior of their house in the Vatican told our group on Saturday a little pearl of wisdom, "In life we can only make things more complicated." Something to think about.

The people that I have encountered over the past month come from all around the world, and yet they are intricately woven together in the common faith which we profess and the common condition in which we live, and the common God who loves us more than we can imagine and desires so much to shine through us in our actions.