“Celebration, it seems to me, is also an antidote to what you might call the deadly seriousness that grips our lives. Traditional Catholic morality has always taken its own discipline with a healthy sense of humor, knowing that we are all sinners who, in spite of our best efforts, will only ever be able to throw ourselves on God’s mercy.
“But here in our day, the world doesn’t appear to be able to laugh much at all. This surely has a variety of causes, probably not a little to do with the underlying presumption that this life is all there is and so we had better get it right, and fast. It is a mad rush for pleasure, achievement, consumption, and experiences, because in the end it’s tragic. Death is simply the end, so life is a war where we have to hurry up and get all we can. And the inevitable seriousness that results is killing our souls. We’re not made for this.
“So once again, Catholics have got to be people who plan light-hearted celebrations of all kinds at all possible opportunities. In this, we will seem to the outside world a people of a crazy hope, and that is exactly what we should be — romantics who foolishly believe our lives are not in our hands; that all will turn out right (and indeed already has done so); that even in the midst of suffering, good wins, and not just at the end but every day.”
