Can God Take A Joke?

Q: Is it a sin to tell jokes? From time to time in old Christian writings I find statements such as “Christians should not indulge in jesting, laugh or tolerate buffoons” (St. Basil) and the like. I often rely on humor to get along with people and with myself. I’ll try to be less zany in the future, but I still feel frightened at the thought that I shouldn’t try to make people laugh. What should I do?

A: Did you hear the one about the man who . . . Well, okay, I’ll hold off on that for now. Perhaps an adequate answer is provided by some recent newspaper reports on the approaching beatification of Pope John XXIII. They recalled his humor and, in particular, his response to an American visitor who — honoring the interest in statistics that most Americans have inherited in their genes — asked the Pope, “How many people work in the Vatican?” Pope John is reputed to have looked at him and answered (with a pontifical grin, one imagines), “Oh, about half.” 

The present successor of St. Peter, especially in situations where he is most at home — in Poland or with young people — loves bantering and joking. It’s possible that St. Basil didn’t have a great sense of humor. More likely, however, he was quite right in the context he was referring to. There are situations where jesting and laughing are clearly out of place. But mirth and humor also have a legitimate, even important, place in life. (I’d like to think Envoy magazine is one of those places.) The key here is balance. If you don’t have that balance, when it comes to joking and humor, you have to find that balance.

As for buffoons, if the dictionary is right in its description of such a blighter (that’s Irish lingo) as someone who is “a low, vulgar or indecent jester, one without self-respect,” I couldn’t have more sympathy with St. Basil. In fact, I’d be tempted to utter a loud British “Hear, hear, old chap!” and vote for the buffoon to be sent off to a special purgatory where he would have to listen to replays of himself for about two millennia. On second thought, that might qualify as “cruel and unusual punishment.” Two days of some people’s “humor” would be excruciating. 

Anyway, whatever you think of the above arguments, here’s the clincher: If jesting and laughing were unacceptable 
for Christians, Envoy would long since have died under an avalanche of anathemas. And while there are a few people out there who wish that such a thing had happened, so far not a single prelate has chimed in to accuse us of “execrable and perfidious levity unbecoming of Christians,” or of any similarly impressive crime. So there.

Q: We have a serious problem in our parish with a particular lay “liturgist.” One of our parish priests, Fr. N., is from another country. He’s a wonderful man and an excellent priest, but he’s been told by our bishop that he’s “here to learn, not to change anything.” (Apparently this translates to mean that the priest is not allowed to (re)introduce any of the traditional devotions that have fallen by the way in our parish.) The problem stems from the “liturgist” who says: “RCIA is my ministry, and Father N. has nothing to do with it.” She also claims that it’s mandated by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops to use the RCIA program, as opposed to allowing people to receive individual instructions in the Faith, something which Father N. has said he would be happy to provide, if it was requested of him (which it has). The parish “Liturgist” seems determined to thwart any effort by Father N. to do an “end run” around her RCIA position of power. Is there some reliable and authoritative ecclesiastical source I could turn to that would either support her claims or prove them false?

A: You’ve probably heard the standard line about liturgists. Question: “What’s the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist?” Answer: “You can negotiate with a terrorist.”

Ahem. Well, to be fair, I do know some excellent liturgists, people who are orthodox theologically, and blessed with great humility and a genuine spirit of cooperation. Unfortunately, there are also liturgists who are not theologically orthodox, who don’t evince the virtue of humility (something crucial for all Christians, of course, but especially for those who serve the Church with Her sacred ministry of the Sacraments and the Liturgy), and who are intransigent in their opposition to traditional forms of Catholic piety. Some of these liturgists have staked out their own liturgical fiefdom and will defend it with the territorial élan of a terrier. 

For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with the acronym (though it’s invoked with such fervor everywhere these days that it’s hard to imagine anyone who frequents a Catholic parish could possibly have avoided running into it), RCIA stands for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. What does the Church have to say about adults who will be initiated into Christian life? 

According to Canon 851 of the Code of Canon Law (Church law, that is universally binding in the Latin Rite), “An adult who intends to receive baptism is to be admitted to the catechumenate and, as far as possible, brought through the various stages to sacramental initiation, in accordance with the rite of initiation as adapted by the Episcopal Conference and with the particular norms issued by it.” We’re also told (Can. 788 §3): “It is the responsibility of the Episcopal Conference to establish norms concerning the arrangement of the catechumenate, determining what should be done by catechumens and what should be their prerogatives.” In the United States, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) effectively determined “what should be done by catechumens” by establishing the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. 

Nevertheless, judging by what those nationally responsible for it say about it, your local liturgist is laboring under some fairly serious misconceptions about what “RCIA” is. With modesty, flexibility and reason (which goes to prove that the liturgist joke is unfair as a generalization!), what they say is the following (emphases are mine): “The Rite of Christian Initiation is not a program. It is the Church’s way of ministering sensitively to those who seek membership. For that reason some people will need more time than others to prepare for the lifetime commitment that comes with membership in the Catholic Church. The usual length of preparation is from one to two years. For those already baptized and who seek full communion in the Catholic Church, the time may also vary. It seems reasonable that catechumens or candidates experience the yearly calendar of Catholic practice at least one time around in order to make an informed decision.” 
I think it’s fairly obvious that there’s a great deal of flexibility and adjustment to the situation of each candidate. And most importantly, it’s “not a program”; individual instruction can be “ministering sensitively” to candidates, and therefore part of RCIA.

The second part of the question is, can the priest intervene? Well, assuming he’s the pastor of the parish, he’s obliged to do so. At the very least, he should evaluate what the liturgists or catechists are proposing to do in order to decide whether to endorse and approve it. 
According to Canon 519, “The parish priest is the proper pastor of the parish entrusted to him. He exercises the pastoral care of the community entrusted to him under the authority of the diocesan Bishop, whose ministry of Christ he is called to share, so that for this community he may carry out the offices of teaching, sanctifying and ruling with the cooperation of other priests or deacons and with the assistance of lay members of Christ’s faithful, in accordance with the law.” Moreover (Canon 528 §1), he “has the obligation of ensuring that the word of God is proclaimed in its entirety to those living in the parish. He is therefore to see to it that the lay members of Christ’s faithful are instructed in the truths of faith . . . . ” 

That, too, seems clear enough. The pastor is the one who is primarily responsible before God for the spiritual well-being of his parish (i.e. all his parishioners, the souls of the men, women, and children entrusted to his care). He can exercise his responsibility with the assistance of others, but they aren’t somehow independent operators. 

The bishop can remove him as pastor if he so wishes, but as long as he leaves him there as pastor, he can’t redefine the role entrusted to the parish priest by canon law. And if he removes him, he must name another priest in his place (no, the lay liturgist can’t become the pastor). That new priest, in turn, must take upon himself the pastoral care of the faithful of his parish. That’s why he’s the pastor! 

Certainly, the pastor is “under the authority of the diocesan bishop,” and the bishop can instruct him to follow a particular process in preparing adults for initiation into the Sacraments. But you can take it as certain that nowhere is it said that the pastor is “under the authority of the parish liturgist.” Father, then, has plenty to do with it, since RCIA is most certainly a ministry of “teaching and sanctifying.”
That said, it’s not clear why there should necessarily be a preference for “individual instruction” by the priest over whatever the liturgist is proposing to do. If he or she understands and communicates that faith well, perhaps this person will do it better than the priest. There’s plenty of room and need for those lay collaborators; the priest is not a one-man orchestra. 

Q: In Genesis, the devil talked Eve into eating the apple. Eve then told Adam that the apple was good, causing him to fall also. So many more women than men seem to be fooled by society today into thinking that homosexuality, abortion, astrology or trading motherhood for a career is okay. Do women have an innate tendency to be more trusting, and more naïve, which could lead to their downfall? Could this also be one reason why Jesus chose only men as apostles? Are women especially being duped and targeted by the devil and society?

A: Well, to be honest, I think it would be more indicative of naiveté to be talked into something by one’s wife than by Satan. (At this point, the reader is advised to duck, because bricks are doubtless flying toward this column “as we speak”). Now, actually, I’m not suggesting that “a man would have to be a real fool to trust his wife.” In fact, I believe just the opposite. Husbands ought to trust their wives. What I’m referring to here is the fact that Satan is the master of deceit, so Eve at least has an excuse. Genesis, therefore, is not indicating anything in this regard, I believe.

It’s probably true that women are more trusting by nature than men, and therefore also more susceptible to being taken in (vices being, as it were, the flip side of virtues). But that’s as much an argument in favor of Jesus’ choosing women to be apostles as it is an argument against it. Being more easily duped would not be an asset for an apostle, but on the other hand, being capable of great trust (in Christ) definitely would be. 

As for the idea that more women are being fooled by society today, at least on the question of abortion, fewer women than men think it’s okay. I would certainly not be surprised, however, if Satan and the world in their opposition to the kingdom of Christ especially target women. Pope John Paul II has stated that women are, as it were, charged by God with caring for the human person. If the powers of evil can corrupt the one who is the guardian or shepherd of all that’s human, then the whole human project willed and cared for by God is made infinitely more vulnerable. It would be a smart strategy on Satan’s part; and we know Satan is smart. It’s certainly important, then, that women, and men, protect what the Holy Father has called “the genius of woman.”

Q: In the prayer “Glory be . . . ” we say, “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.” Why do we say “world without end” when we believe that this world will come to an end?

A: Good question. To be honest, it’s hard to figure out how the English version you quoted above came about. The original Latin phraseology is somewhat ambiguous and susceptible to different translations, but “world without end” is certainly not the most obvious one. In other languages (French and Spanish, for example) it’s translated more literally as “for all the centuries of centuries” — in other words, “for endless time.” I can only assume that this was the way “world without end” would have been understood when this version first appeared in English. 

The meaning of English words changes with time, but while less-familiar texts are updated, English versions of the most popular prayers tend to survive well past their “expiration date.” There’s a lot of natural resistance to changes in such well-known formulas, even when the evolution of the English language appears to make them say practically the opposite of what they intend. The Lord’s Prayer is another example of this. Even though everyone agrees that the English translation “lead us not into temptation” doesn’t mean “lead us not into temptation” (if you want to know what it does mean, read the Catechism, 2838-2845), and even though the International Commission for English in the Liturgy has discussed and proposed a new translation for many years now, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

In point of fact, in the present case the American Bishops apparently found the phrase as difficult as you do to understand and produced a new translation of the doxology, the prayer popularly referred to as the “Glory Be.” (One result of the new translation is that it can’t any longer be called the “Glory Be.”) The prayer now goes: “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.” Unfortunately, though it was published a few years ago, I don’t think many people are aware of it. And so it goes with new translations of the most-used prayers! (This would be the perfect opportunity to talk about the limitations of using the vernacular in worship when it comes to expressing the deep truths of the Faith, and the benefits of keeping Latin alive in the Liturgy wherever possible — as Vatican II’s document on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, says it should — but that is another answer to another question in another issue of Envoy).

Q: What is heaven? I need the best answer you can give me, because my friend who asked me this is kind of hard to convince!

A: The modern mind understandably — almost commendably, one might say — has a lot of difficulty with a heaven imagined in popular terms. The benign, bearded Grandfather on a throne in the clouds, surrounded by plump babies with wings and larger ones in their nighties blowing trumpets, is both difficult to place in the cosmos and singularly unattractive to most of the denizens of the twenty-first century. 

Just when I was wondering where I would come up with a “best answer” that would persuade your friend, the Pope bailed me out. Last year he explained that heaven is not, as many people imagine, “a place in the clouds.” The press — well the cheap press, anyway — immediately got excited and produced headlines leading one to believe that the Catholic doctrine of heaven had been abolished. Fortunately for all of us, it’s still there. 

Except “there’s no there there,” at least not in the sense that you and I are used to using the term. We know that in heaven are present the physical, glorified bodies of at least Christ the Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary (and also, perhaps, Enoch, Elijah, and Moses), and we know that after the General Resurrection on the Last Day, the bodies of all people who have ever died will be reunited with their souls for eternity. So in some sense we can speak of heaven as a “place,” but what we don’t know is what kind of a “place” heaven is when it comes to concepts such as space and time. Recall how jarring it was for the Apostles to see Christ, in His glorified, resurrected body, walk through the “place” where a wall was, as he entered the room unannounced in Acts 20:19-20). Clearly, the physical characteristics of the life of heavenly glory in the Resurrection are radically beyond anything we have experience with in this mortal life.

In short, we simply don’t know and can’t understand what it will be like until we get there ourselves.

One thing is for sure, though: Heaven is not a “place” in the way we understand the term. It’s much more that that. It’s a state of total happiness that transcends anything we are familiar with. The Holy Father described heaven as “the fullness of communion with God which awaits all those who have welcomed Him into their lives and who have sincerely opened themselves to Him. Divine Revelation teaches us that heaven is neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but a living and personal relationship of union with the Holy Trinity. Heaven is our definitive meeting with the Father which takes place in the Risen Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit” (General Audience, 21 July 1999).

To put it in words your friend might understand better: Heaven is the most dizzying love affair with the most marvelous Person we will ever know, in its most exhilarating expression and with the certainty that it will go on for ever. “Definitive, supreme happiness,” says the Catechism. Beyond that, I’m delighted to say, I can’t really go, because “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9; cf. CCC 1024 -1027). 

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Have a question you'd like answered? Send it to Fr. Brian Wilson, L.C., " I Have a Question," 1453 E. California Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91106; or email it to frwilson@familink.com.