Interviewed by Our Sunday Visitor in their latest issue. Love the cover.
OSV: You wrote that humor should be seen as a requirement in a Church leader. Why do you think it’s such an important attribute?
Father Martin: First, it’s important to have a sense of humility and poverty of spirit. Second, humor helps us get along with people. Humor is a natural social element that is an essential part of human interaction. Third, to gain some perspective. The saints used humor as a tool in their quest for humility and also as a way of gaining some perspective on their place in the universe. And finally, as Archbishop Timothy Dolan has said, “Happiness attracts.” Why would anyone want to join a group of miserable people?
It also communicates our belief in the Resurrection. We’re living in Easter time now — Christ has risen. The disciples ran with joy to see the risen Lord. They didn’t mope around.
It’s a very complicated topic, because you don’t want to give the impression that you want people to be irreverent or silly, but I’m just trying to balance things out a bit.
OSV: How can Church leaders go about lightening up a little or infusing a sense of joy and humor back into the spiritual life of its members?
Father Martin: Far be it for me to give advice to Church leaders, first of all. But it’s an invitation for all Christians to recover a sense of the inherent joy in the Gospel, to see humor as something that the saints used and therefore as something we can use. Life gives us plenty of invitations to laugh at ourselves. That’s the first step, to laugh at ourselves and at the absurdities of life, and to not take ourselves too seriously. And all of this leads to attracting more people to Christ.
It’s not to say that we have to be grinning idiots 24/7, but I think we are so far over to the one pole that this book is just trying to bring us back a little bit to the center.
OSV: What could that movement back to the center mean for the future of the Church?
Father Martin: It’s a tool for evangelization. Human nature is such that we are attracted to joy; and there’s something profound about that because the attraction to joy is the attraction to God’s joy. It’s our ultimate goal — joy with God — so there’s something within us that responds very deeply to the experiences of communal joy. The more the Church recovers it, the more it will be able to attract people.
Are you saying that 'the one Pole' [JPII] was so oft center that the German will give us a balanced humorous center? I don't think so at all.
next you will be suggesting Irish leaders.. ouch..
I think that is very true. Your appearances, Fr. Martin, as the "Official Chaplain" of "The Colbert Report" attest to that. It would be foolhardy and unproductive for you to try to one-up Stephen Colbert, but I think your appearances help undercut stereotypes that Catholic/Christian clerics don't know how to laugh at themselves or engage popular cultural on its terms.
There are more youtube videos of WYD Madrid 2011....... I watched the before, during and after episodes of the festivities. Very touching and inspirational.
In the first and last instance, our aim as Christians is not God the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. We can safely assume they are doing quite well without our assistance. My aim is to somehow get my sorry self into heaven. When I look at where I am supposed to be on that long and winding road, and where I am, the distance can induce paralyzing fright or despair. Humor somehow enables me to recognize the distance, but to accept where I am. Then I can proceed with baby steps, trusting that if I continue every day, God will give me a graceful boost and in the end, I will somehow join Him.
Obviously, God is so filled with elements of surprise that in heaven as we get to know him “as he truly is” we’re going to get a sense of humor so refined that it becomes “awe” in the endless surprises that is God.. Laughter in its heavenly equivalent will abound. And I suspect there will come a time when laughter as we know it will rock the rafters of heaven! It’s not just that we’ll enjoy God’s company, he’ll enjoy ours just as much!
St. Teresa of Avila once said, “From sad face saints O God, deliver me!” They’ll be no sad face saints in heaven. We who live on the periphery of heaven in God’s Church as People of God, should be people of high spirited hilarity. Right? “Resurrection people” as St. Augustine said, adding, “Alleluia is our song!” A sense of humor, the ability to laugh easily, is evangelism-savvy, guaranteed to win over people, wilting jaded Christianity. “Unless you become as a little child you shall not enter the kingdom.” We should laugh readily like “little children” realizing that laughter is the soul-child of a sense of humor and good humor is heavenly! That’s the ideal, often an uphill struggle, a struggle we’ve got to keep at and win!
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/the-vatican/detail/articolo/angelus-papa-pope-el-papa-benedetto-xvi-benedict-xvi-benedicto-xvi-7709/
George Weigel, whom I usually don't associate with the comedic, wrote recently ''The Gentlemanly Art of the Insult''. (I would hope that, under sufficient duress, he could be persuaded to insert ''and Ladylike'' in his title.) He is sorry to see it gone. His and commenters' examples tend to be noteworthy, not just for their humor, but also for their nicely honed form - maximum impact in a minimum number of words.
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/09/the-gentlemanly-art-of-the-insult
If inspiration were taken from old masters of the gentlemanly insult like those Weigel mentions - Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, G. B. Shaw - perhaps Benedict's fraternal correction could be raised to a new art form rich in memorable humor, enjoyable by all with the possible exception of the recipient.
Our Blessed Mother must have sense that there was something very special about her son, and she wanted to show him off. And hence, ''Do whatever he tells you.
And again, Jesus sounded rather funny, when he told Zacchaeus to come down from that tree because ''today I am coming to dine at your house.....
I suppose you could say that evangelization is sharing our joys as members of the mystical body of Christ, the Church. I think people today are more attracted to "show me", rather than to "tell me".