Dear
Friends,
World
Happiness Day, brainchild of the United Nations, is celebrated annually on
March 20. On that day this year, our Church will begin Holy Week and this blog
will be absorbed in the meaning of this holiest, most profound of weeks. So now
is as good time as any to talk about happiness. We all want it. We find it,
recognize it and name it in varied aspects of life. The Gallup-Healthways Well
Being Index taps the happiness level of the world daily. 500 people worldwide are
contacted each day and asked whether, on the day before the call, they
experienced happiness without a lot of stress, or whether they experienced the opposite. Gallup posts the results daily
on the web. Your answers to the questions I pose here won’t get you into the
Gallup Poll, but how about you? What in life has made/now makes you happy? What
part did God play in these experiences? Maybe these questions don’t go together
in your mind.
For many, happiness
means things are going our way and Christianity has nothing to do with
happiness. Rather, happiness is satisfaction with work, family, level of
success, the newest “toys,” travel.
Happiness that includes these things is good, but over the centuries and
in varied cultures, happiness has meant much more.
In the
Jewish mentality of Jesus’ times, happiness and blessedness were
interchangeable. They had to do with success, good health, many children. All
of these were understood as signs of God’s love.
No one in
Jesus’ mind has ever been categorically excluded from happiness. In the Gospel,
blessedness/happiness is possible for everyone, but happiness is not
necessarily what we expect. Happiness, believers in Christ over the centuries
have found, is intrinsically connected with the well-being of others.
Combing
through the Gospel and summing up the characteristics of the people whom Jesus
encountered along the road and in the villages and cities of his time, Jesus,
in effect says:
Blessed/Happy
are the people who are good
the hand that does not strike,
the mouth that does not betray
the person who does not deny his/her friend.
Blessed/Happy
are the merciful who see each other’s needs and act to fill them
those who care for each other in good
times and bad
those who are open to change and become loving
in that change
those who are willing to share their own
food and drink.
Blessed/Happy
are they who do not give way to dominant power
those who let go of dominant power
those who speak truth and love all
without restraint.
Today, I wish you
blessedness/happiness. May you recognize it in yourself and others, celebrate
it, engage it, and turn it over to God, the source of all happiness.
~Sister Joan Sobala
