In many places, the Monday of Easter week is the day for celebrating God’s laughter. Easter, after all, is not just our deliverance from death, but the ultimate instance of God, in a sort of zen humility, quietly putting one over on the devil. On Calvary, God gave the mighty Lucifer—that great jackass—all the rope he needed to hang himself. On Easter Monday, the Church shouts (in proper ecclesial Latin), “What a maroon! What a sucker! Good job genius! You had it all figured out, you great bullying murderer and tyrant. You finally got the plum prize in your claws and figured you’d won once and for all. You nailed him to the cross, and now you and your kingdom of death are hurled to the ground and the merest peasant, the lowest wretch born in a ditch and living in misery in one of your flophouses somewhere can be born again and become a child of the living God, resplendent in glory, while you—who used to be a high archangel before you decided to start murdering babies to prove how big and powerful you are—are going to be eating out of Hell’s dumpsters for all eternity. Smooth move, smart guy!”
There’s a place in the Christian tradition for rejoicing in the fall of the cosmic tyrant and dancing in the streets for victory over the prostrate form of Satan while singing “Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead!” Here’s how John Donne, one of our greatest poets, did it. I dedicate it to all who mourn and miss a loved one:
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
Happy Easter! The worst thing that can ever happen has already happened: God has been crucified. And from that horror God has brought the best thing that can ever happen: the destruction of sin and death and the decisive defeat of the bullying evil spirit who turned the world into a death camp. We’re in clover! Sittin’ pretty! Our troubles are over! And the devil is such a loser and a buffoon! So let’s party because the joke’s on him. Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ!
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In all my 50 years as a Catholic, I’ve never celebrated or even heard of laughing day. I’ve never heard a Catholic refer to himself as born again. Laughing day must be a Protestant tradition. Faithful Catholics aren’t laughing, because they know Satan takes souls to hell with him every day. Each of us has free will to commit sins and reject Jesus’ teachings. The Catholic life is a nonstop call to repentence until the moment we die. Protestants are the ones who falsely believe that by faith alone they can be saved, so confession and reparation for earthly sins is unnecessary. Therefore, the party is theirs alone.
ThatHatLady, I do believe that you missed the point.
For starters: Laughing Day is not a Protestant tradition.
Second: Faithful Catholics ARE laughing. Haven’t you ever seen Mother Teresa laughing? The saints are known for being joyful because God has conquered sin and death. THAT is what Mr. Shea is saying. Definitely not that we are saved by faith alone. (I don’t know where you got that).
Third: Those who are in a state of mortal sin are in effect, dead in their sin so being born again can mean being baptized or…going to confession and coming back to life in grace.
Sheesh! For a Catholic celebrating Easter, you sure are a sourpuss.
Party On!
Happy Easter, Mark!
From Psalm 30 (29) - RSV-CE
I will extol thee, O LORD, for thou hast drawn me up, and hast not let my foes rejoice over me…For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning…Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; thou hast loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness…
It’d be an odd and unconvincing expression of joy without laughing. And if you’ve ever witnessed festive dancing from that part of the world—they don’t hold back.
Happy Laughing Day! He is risen!
Oh my goodness, what a wonderful thing to share today, Mark! And so true—if Catholics can’t be joyous and laughing on Easter Monday, then when CAN we?!? Death has lost its sting!
And by the way, I would LOVE to see the Latin translation of your whole first paragraph…priceless. Happy Easter Monday, Mark!
The words of the Exultet, which is sung at the Easter Vigil Mass, come to mind: “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”
Thanks Mark Shea for a beautiful mind image…and it made it to my heart too!! Hooo ahhhh!!! Can you just imagine how His Mother, Our Mother felt too…when she was awakened by Him, Hi Mom, just want to let you know that Dad is so faithful!! Praise Abba!!! I’m baaaaaaaaaaaack!!!
I first learned of this tradition almost 20 years ago, when I was still in college and attending Mary, Help of Christians Parish in Fairborn, Ohio. One year they held a special “Day of Joy and Laughter” celebration on Easter Monday evening. I went, and took my friend Daryl (who is not Catholic) along.
One other thing, Hat Lady:
All Catholics are “born again” through the waters of Baptism. So, yes, I am born again. So are you. So is our Esteemed Host. So is anyone else baptized with the Trinitarian formula.
Mark: I will share enthusiasm with you after the salvation trilogy of the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Marcy Sunday.
Sorry,I botched up mercy a bit.
Amen Brother! Love it! Soooooooo true! Ha ha! LOL! :))
To That Hat Lady, Mark Shea is absolutely 100% correct. Of course he did depend on the reader having the basic knowledge that Adam, Eve, and every single one of their descendants were in Hell until Jesus (who is God Himself) fooled the Angle of Light (Lucifer, who refused to worship God because He became a man) and got Lucifer to cruxify Him. Then God (Jesus) went down into Hell and freed all of those worthy souls, and us too, by His grace, if we decide to be worthy of it. Of course you are correct That Hat Lady, if we decide to be unworthy of God in our short 120 year life on Earth, then we will spend our never ending life suffering the consequences of our actions - Hell. One thing a human being learns by experience and age, actions have consequences. Kids don’t know that.
Thanks Mark Shea and hat lady I agree a lot of souls are choosing to
Go to hell. I have a Savior who wants me to “count it all joy” during trials
Why not laugh at the irony, a trickster tricked himself.
Hey…don’t party too hardy yet. The Hat Lady has a salient point.
We are rejoicing in the spirit because He has risen but also ever mindful
that Satan has been losed upon the Earth in these last days to take as many with him to hell as he can. Meantime we are called to repentence and as Catholics that means we pray without ceasing for not only our own souls but for all the rest of the Church militant. One of the great mysteries of our Faith: we know the way the war ends but there are battles to still be fought and won before it is all over, until Christ comes again. With that in mind I must agree with Hat Lady, in my 70 plus years in the church no one has ever mentioned the Monday following Easter as time for laughter. A time to rejoice spiritually, yes, and laughter as in derisive maybe, but we cannot let our guard down. To me that is all The Hat Lady implied. For Mark to deride Satan and his minions is appropriate as long as we remember that we are still in a huge battle
with the Evil One.
It is sad that no one has mentioned Dyngus Day, a Polish American celebration on Easter Monday that joyfully celebrates some Old World traditions.
It was founded in Buffalo, I believe, by immigrants from Poland. I learned about Dyngus Day in South Bend, Indiana.
Easter Monday is also wet Monday, or whipping Monday in Poland and Slovakia. I went to a Slovic Catholic Church yesterday and when I walked in the Priest squirted my, and not just a little, with Holy water.
I say we should all party for at least a week, and offer our joy up too. Who said only suffering helps in the battle for souls (including our own)! And yeah, the devil is a pitiful loser.
Faithful Catholics aren’t laughing, because they know Satan takes souls to hell with him every day. Each of us has free will to commit sins and reject Jesus’ teachings. The Catholic life is a nonstop call to repentence until the moment we die.
Indeed. We must spend our every waking moment focusing on St. Leonard’s injunction regarding The Fewness Of The Saved.
The Fewness of the Saved.
All of Catholicism is adequately summed up in that sentence.
(As an aside, so many souls are lost makes me question the wisdom of birthing more souls in the first place, but such are the precepts of marriage.)
Nevertheless, even if we leaves us with the earnestly-squinty mien usually associated with (Protestant) airport pamphleteers, count it all….well, not joy, but something like that, only sans the potential for distracting frivolity.
Now excuse me, because my hairshirt has become unacceptably tolerable.
Christus risus…. isn’t that the expression: Christ laughs?
I have had it stored away in my mind for a while.
I think I will have to continue laughing into Tuesday, since I didn’t read your post until today. Thanks for the marvelous visual of Satan eating out of Hell’s dumpsters while poor sinners all around him are waking up and leaving for the banquet of the Resurrection. He is risen, indeed.
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