The Virtue of Cheerfulness

The Joker from Themed Shoes

In the words of the Joker, "why so serious?"

The past few months it seems to me that  a lot of what I have been reading on the Catholic blogosphere has been negative doom and gloom. Worse yet, much of it has been intra-Catholic bickering. Some has been down right uncharitable and unworthy to be called Catholic.

I concede that we are living in difficult times, but honestly how is that unique? Christians (and humanity in general) have encountered troubling times throughout the ages. St. Josemaria contends that:

[T]hese world crises are crises of saints.
God wants a handful of men 'of his own' in every human activity. And then... 'pax Christi in regno Christi — the peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ'. (The Way, 301)

Furthermore, I believe we have fallen into the same trap of those in the times of Jesus who were looking for a political savior. As I shared at our Joe Catholic gathering this weekend, we don't belong to a political party. We are neither Democrat nor Republican; we belong to Roman Catholic Church. We are called to follow the teachings of Christ as handed down by the teaching authority of the Church, the Magisterium.

It seems to me that we are walking around in fear which often manifests itself as anger.  One of the lines we see so often in Holy Scripture is "be not afraid." In fact, those very words were the first spoken by Blessed Pope John Paul II when he became pope. We need to remember that Christ has already won the battle. We are on the winning team. We have already turned to the last page of the good news book and we know how the story ends.  Jesus conquered sin and told us that "the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against it [my church]" (Matt 16:18).

We need to start living our lives with this winning attitude. St. Josemaria has a whole section on Cheerfulness in The Way. The one that stood out for me as most appropriate comes from the #661:

Long face, rough manner, ridiculous appearance, unfriendly attitude. Is that how you hope to inspire others to follow Christ?

No joke,  there is one thing we can learn from the Joker – to keep a smile on our faces at all times.