The smile of the earth and the joy of heaven.

Serve the Lord with joy » Ps 100, 2.

Teachers of the spiritual life point out that there is more than a verbal difference between a smile and laughter, because the joy of the earth is not yet the joy of heaven, and therefore it inevitably retains a certain kind of attraction. Besides, the world is too marked by sin, death and injustice, tears and suffering, for joy to be expressed more outwardly.

Nevertheless, there is no lack of joy in the lives of deeply religious people. Albín Luciani, later Pope John Paul I, did not lack joy and a smile. His rich journalistic activity was published collectively in the nine-volume work Opera omnia. He writes about joy: “Learn to turn what you hear and see into laughter in due measure and form.” Sv. Philip Neri, a saint, on one occasion to Pope Clement VIII. he said: “I hope they would kill you!” Everyone present gasped, but Philip continued: “For faith in Jesus Christ. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and laughed.” After all, one can wish the Pope to die as a martyr. It is not a crime to pretend to be a comedian if we want to entertain people.”

He continues: Mark Twain with his humorous magazines and books, Charlie Chaplin with his brilliant and at the same time human pieces, Carlo Goldoni with his comedies, according to St. Thomas could have become saints if they had added the right intention and other Christian virtues to their art and talent. We would have sympathetic, smiling patron saints in them who teach Christians how to laugh and how to laugh. We would need them.

In today’s chaos, what Thomas Aquinas said is true: Italians are like toothless old men. They cannot laugh without spitting. Sv. Tomáš goes even further and claims that even rudeness or excessive seriousness can be a sin. “Those who do not take part in jokes, who do not say anything to make others laugh, sin. Those who talk are sorry for not responding to appropriate jokes.” One can only agree with that. Humor belongs to faith, says the well-known moralist P. Bernard Haring: “Christians who do not know humor live far from the mountain of the Beatitudes!” Karel Vrána adds: “A Christian who has no sense of humor, who cannot smile at the world and the world that he can’t laugh at human snobbery and steaming, he’s probably a bad Christian. We could say the maxim: Tell me how you laugh and I’ll tell you who you are.’