Contagious Laughter, Infectious Joy, Resurrection Life
An Easter Reflection
by
Fr. Maximilian Buonocore, OSB
The last three days we have been re-telling, re-enacting, and re-living the Gospel mysteries of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. But, if we are truly living a Christian life, every day of our life will be an “Easter Triduum” in which we re-tell, re-enact, and re-live the events of these Gospel mysteries through the daily events of our life, especially those events which bring the most challenges and stresses our way. Let me share a couple of personal examples. In 2020, I had to deal with an acute episode related to the congenital condition called Tarsal Coalition in my feet, as well as a bout with Lyme disease. At that time, my meditations tended to focus on the solitude of suffering. I recognized that, even though others can be with me when I am suffering, as the wonderful monks here are, they cannot do my suffering for me. I have to do my suffering. But I also came to the insight that suffering is solitude because it is the occasion of a most profound encounter with God, a loving Father, who makes his deepest encounter with me in the passion of Jesus. But this most profound encounter can only occur in solitude – in the solitude of my suffering. It is in the context of suffering that, stripped of the distraction of the worldly pleasures of the senses of the flesh, my spiritual senses can then be freed to perceive and contemplate the Father’s eternal embrace of divine mercy. But recently, as I was suffering with COVID-19, a different kind of encounter with the loving Father emerged: the encounter with God as a laughing Father whose laughter and joy are contagious. Laughter became a theme in my recent suffering. I know that sounds strange. Contrary to what happened in 2020, when I would frequently awaken from sleep with a startle response from something scary happening in my dream, during the last four weeks, I have frequently awakened from sleep laughing because something funny happened in my dream. I think that the recent experience of having a fever and developing bronchitis brought me back to my childhood. I think that this is a good thing. When I was a child, I was prone to get high fevers, and would sometimes develop bronchitis. My mother would be fearful because of her experience of me having high fevers when I was an infant and my going into convulsions. My mother would make me stay in bed and I would feel very bad because I would think about my brothers playing and enjoying themselves and I couldn’t be with them. When my father would come home from work he would come to my room to visit me. When he would see that I was feeling sad he would sit on the bed near me and tell a joke or a funny story to try to cheer me up. If the joke or story didn’t help to cheer me up, he would just start laughing, and I couldn’t help but start laughing too. His laughter was contagious. His joy was contagious. The same thing would happen with guests. My father loved to entertain guests and loved to tell stories, and would often tell a joke or funny story. If nobody started laughing at a joke or a story that he himself thought was funny, he would just start laughing, and then everyone else would start laughing. His laughter was contagious. You couldn’t help laughing with him. But most importantly, his joyfulness was contagious. I have always felt that when it comes to joy, I hope that I am infected and become contagious. I won’t mask up for that! While it is true that God the loving Father makes his deepest encounter with me in the passion and suffering of Jesus experienced in my own suffering, that same loving Father channels resurrection life and resurrection joy through the same human passion of Jesus; and I would say that the laughter of my loving earthly father was and is now an echo of the resurrection life and joy that the heavenly Father communicates to me through the human passion of his Son. I do not experience resurrection life directly in this life, but the joy of resurrection life constantly resonates in and through me by means of my daily spiritual encounter with the crucified and risen Savior Jesus Christ who constantly conveys to me the joy of the Gospel. Laughter is an echo of that joy.
Spreading the contagion of the Joy of the Gospel
Evangelii Gaudium, the Joy of the Gospel - the papal exhortation by Pope Francis - has increasingly become the central theme of my vocation. Joy is an infection I want to get. I want to be contagious. I want to be contagious and spread the infection: I want to spread the joy of the Gospel. That is my vocation. That is the kind of contagion that we should, as a community, both individually and collectively, be spreading. We need to go forth unmasked: shedding the mask of grievances, grudges, and bitterness; shedding the mask of self-righteous rationality, and judgmentalism; and let the breath of joy of loving encounter with Jesus flow forth. We are now very conscious about spreading contagions. We mask up a lot, as a result. The contagion that we should not mask up for, and should spread unhesitatingly, is the contagion of joy - the joy of the Gospel. As Pope Francis exhorts us: “I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day . . . The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew . . . I wish to encourage [all] the Christian faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by this joy.” And let this joy be infectious. When I think about what gifts I have to use in the loving service of other people - intellectual ability in math and science, ability to help special needs students, ability to listen and establish a therapeutic relationship with a client so as to be an effective counselor, capacity for work in general - I consider none of these as important as the capacity for joy and laughter. This is the gift that I hope that I can use in loving service for others. This is the gift that I pray that this community continues to foster: the gift of joy - the joy of the Gospel, the joy of resurrection life - that we can spread infectiously. This is the contagion that I pray that this community be infected with and spread to all those served by this community.
Let us all become infected today with that contagion and not masked by fear, self-pity, selfish interest, petty grievances, or anger, let us spread the infection of resurrection joy to all around us.
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