Yep. Sorry. I guess I’m uncharitable. I laughed out loud when I heard the pencil neck comment. It was the intonation. And then it got worse, or… better. Hahaha. Sorry. Having said all that:
Meanwhile, there are those who send me bits and pieces from SNL. I’ve never in my life ever found anything on SNL funny, just terribly sad. They all seem depressed, desperate, lost, expert in all that which is truly evil and bad and therefore deathly boring. That has always been my opinion, since it came on the air until now.
Meanwhile, anyone plying any sexual innuendo trying to be comical I also surmise to be depressed, desperate, lost, expert in all that which is truly evil and bad and therefore deathly boring.
It’s not that I’m virtuous, mind you. No. Not at all. But, as a priest, I do come across situations which are truly evil – straight out of hell – and those almost always involve abuse of the sex, and abuse of others, including minors by way of sex. I see the destruction of lives. Not good. Really evil.
More than that, personally, I’ve already written about how I was unwittingly made into the kiddie-porn star when I was a little kid. So, no, I don’t find that kind of thing humorous. Even if people are way the other way, so that they are so jaded by the horror of the aggression of the world in these matters that they make a joke so as to be sarcastic with the stupid ways of the world, still, even then, it is better to concentrate on the things that are above, not on those below.
- It is better to hidden with Christ in God (see Colossians 3:3).
- It is better to be built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (see Ephesians 2:22)
What is better than all mere levity is true humor, which necessitates a sense of irony before the Sacred Mysteries: God would use the likes of us specifically in our fallen human nature to evangelize His goodness and His truth, His kindness and His truth, His respect for others and His truth. Did I say truth? Did I mention how it’s ironic to us because of our fallen human nature that we find it odd that justice and mercy are but one in God? When we get a hold of this even just a little bit in our lives it is an occasion for great joy in the Holy Spirit. This joy is seen in this great smile of Hilaire Belloc:
“But this IS my smile.”
The humor that he’s smiling about so enthusiastically is this bit he wrote about irony, specifically Christian Irony. When you read this – as some of you have done many times – remember to keep Jesus and Him crucified front and center, or else you won’t understand in the least what Hilaire is saying.
- “To the young, the pure, and the ingenuous, irony must always appear to have a quality of something evil, and so it has, for […] it is a sword to wound. It is so directly the product or reflex of evil that, though it can never be used – nay, can hardly exist – save in the chastisement of evil, yet irony always carries with it some reflections of the bad spirit against which it was directed. […] It suggests most powerfully the evil against which it is directed, and those innocent of evil shun so terrible an instrument. […] The mere truth is vivid with ironical power […] when the mere utterance of a plain truth labouriously concealed by hypocrisy, denied by contemporary falsehood, and forgotten in the moral lethargy of the populace, takes upon itself an ironical quality more powerful than any elaboration of special ironies could have taken in the past. […] No man possessed of irony and using it has lived happily; nor has any man possessing it and using it died without having done great good to his fellows and secured a singular advantage to his own soul.” [Hilaire Belloc, “On Irony” (pages 124-127; Penguin books 1325. Selected Essays (2/6), edited by J.B. Morton; Harmondsworth – Baltimore – Mitcham 1958).]
[Deadpan statement:] So, you might say, Hilaire Belloc is hilarious.
[Then: wait for it…]
