What Is Happiness, Really? Series

Happiness Is . . .

When I was in my teens, it was still legal to advertise cigarettes on television, so we were often overwhelmed with those kinds of commercials. I think the one that was most offensive was the one that used a popular jingle to say “Happiness is the taste of” a particular cancer weed. With the benefit of six decades to look behind, we can discern the millions of human lives that have been at least damaged, if not destroyed, by tobacco, and confirm what happiness is NOT.

Moreover, happiness doesn’t derive from substituting one weed for another, one chemical for a second. Happiness does not come from anything this-worldly. If you restrict happiness and joy to material things, you are doomed to disappointment. A good meal, a good wine only produces euphoria for a little while. The same goes for being honored. The good feelings may last longer, but after a while you realize the joy is temporary, limited. In time, we all live long enough to understand that what we really want is unending joy, everlasting beatitude.

Jesus defines happiness in Matthew’s Gospel today, and it’s just the opposite of what the world does. The world demands unlimited wealth so anything can be bought–houses, cars, even people. So Jesus says “blessed are the poor in spirit.” The less you have, the more you rely on Divine help. The more you receive your validation from the word of the Lord. Poverty does not make us happy, but if it brings us closer to our ultimate end, our goal in life, union with God, then losing a lot of material stuff has freed us for what actually will make us happy–the Beatific Vision.

The world offers us unlimited distractions, like Internet pornography, to please us. St. John calls this “lust of the eyes.” But using that smut depersonalizes the men and women who are being exploited for pornographer’s gain, and does the same for the men and women who consume it. True human relationships, pure and free of lust, are far more fulfilling. And, properly pursued, they give us a purity of spirit that prepares us for the ultimate relationship with Our Lord after we pass into God’s kingdom.

These beatitudes, these challenges to lead a life like that of Jesus, are difficult to make into habits. But those of us who have been baptized into Christ, filled with His Holy Spirit, are only truly happy when we daily strive to take up the challenges and lead that life, yes of struggle and pain. It’s never really easy, but it is rewarding in ways the world can never know. The world may revile us, but God celebrates us, and here we celebrate together, especially happy because we know what our end will be, and have a faint idea of just what kind of happiness awaits in the arms of the Lord. That, as St. Paul tells us in his letter to Corinth, is our earthly comfort and consolation.