While working as a priest in the Diocese of Orange I served Bishop Norman McFarland for many years. He succeeded Bishop William Johnson, who was the founding bishop of the Diocese of Orange, established in 1976. Bishop McFarland came to Orange after having served for a number of years as the bishop of Reno-Las Vegas (later split to form two separate dioceses).
When he arrived in 1986, I was working at Catholic Charities managing the immigration department. In 1989, Bishop McFarland re-assigned me to work with him at the Diocesan Pastoral Center as the Episcopal Vicar of Hispanic Ministry. Among the many duties of the office was the translation into Spanish of Bishop McFarland’s monthly English column published in the diocesan newspaper.
This task was undertaken long before Google or Microsoft had any translation functions embedded in their programs. Artificial Intelligence – AI – was science fiction associated with HAL from the movie Space Odyssey. Translation was hard work, and at that time, my Spanish was not very good. I relied on my office assistant, Juanamaria. She struggled through the first draft and then I plodded through it, redacting her work.
Bishop McFarland was a very good writer who enjoyed metaphors and giving new twists to common colloquial expressions. The problem for Juanamaria and me was that the subtle and, sometimes multiple meanings intended by the bishop did not easily make the transition from English to Spanish. Juanamaria and I would wrestle with the languages trying to bridge the linguistic chasm between the American and Hispanic expressions.
For example: Bishop McFarland wrote a beautiful essay on the well-known Christian poem, the “Hound of Heaven” by the English poet, Francis Thompson. Not long after Juanamaria had received the text from the bishop’s office, she hurried into my office with panic all over her face. Stammering, she said, it was just not possible to refer to the Almighty God as a dog. There was no linguistic way to eloquently convey in Spanish an English canine metaphor for the Divine. Both of us were stymied by this, until I suggested that we take a little literary license with the bishop’s letter: the “Hound of Heaven” became the “Cazador Celestial,” in English, the “heavenly hunter.” In my defense, it was not too much of a stretch from a hound to hunting dog to hunter.
Fortunately, Bishop McFarland never had to know. Not until he retired did I confess to him the linguistic liberties we took with a number of his articles. Rather than being upset, he delighted in the cultural challenges his musings had posed. I claimed that no one read his articles with as much careful attention as Juanamaria and me.
Over the years of carefully reading and translating Bishop McFarland’s thoughts, I learned a few things. As mentioned earlier, the bishop enjoyed making curious associations between seemingly disparate notions. One of the bishop’s insights that has remained with me was the idea that a good sense of humor requires the ability to see the transcendent.
Consider what makes us laugh or smile. Oftentimes, it is the ability to see beyond a particular situation or circumstance and imagine something else: a word with a double meaning, two words that rhyme but have different meanings, or an unexpected surprise. These bring a chuckle, giggle or a guffaw because we see beyond what is to something else.
A particular American form of humor is sarcasm, by which we say one thing, but the tone of voice intends something else. I learned quickly during my time as a young priest that sarcasm does not always work with people from cultures that do not understand this style of humor. They understand the meaning of the words but cannot interpret the tone of voice. When telling a typical American joke to someone who is still learning English, he or she may not get the joke because of an inability to see beyond the meaning of the words.
A good sense of humor enables us to see beyond the apparent to something else and this makes us smile. Often someone with a grim or dour outlook chooses to see the world as black and white. What is seen or heard is all there is to see and hear. A sense of humor makes the world translucent. This insight led Bishop McFarland to claim that a good sense of humor was essential to seeking holiness. A sense of humor gives us the perspective to see beyond appearances to something or someone more.
To understand the sacraments of the Church one needs a good sense of humor, according to Bishop McFarland. We see beyond the water, the oil, the bread and the wine to discover streams of grace, the anointing of the Spirit, the bread that breathes and the chalice that bleeds with the body and blood of Christ. More than make us smile, seeing beyond these humble elements to the transcendent and merciful God gives us joy.
This insight came from someone who was not known to smile easily. I learned to watch his eyes and the slight turn of his lips so as to know whether “Stormin’ Norman” or the “Absolute Norm,” as we affectionately called him, was smiling. He would often grumble, “This was not the cruise I signed up for.” When someone wished him a pleasant weekend, his frequent refrain was, “I have other plans.” Maybe there was a bit of humor behind the wry, sarcastic wit. If so, this was most certainly a saving grace.
The virtue of a good sense of humor is a recurrent theme in the lives of many saints. Especially among those who exercised asceticism, a cheerful humor often graced their lives and those who surrounded them. St. Francis of Assisi is perhaps the most well-known of the good-humored saints. Saints John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Benedict, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas More, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta were all known for a cheerfulness that attracted others to follow their example.
If it is true that laughter is contagious, this may suggest an appealing approach for evangelization. A sense of humor is good for our spiritual as well as physical health. It helps our minds and our hearts transcend limitations – our own as well as the world’s -- to discover an almighty God who loved the world so much that he gave us his only begotten Son. The tender mercy of Jesus is a reason to smile and even laugh. May we all discover the Evangelii Gaudium, the “Joy of the Gospel," written about by Pope Francis in his 2013 apostolic exhortation.
G.K. Chesterton concluded his delightful book, Orthodoxy, with the following words suggesting that good humor may even be eternal: “There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was his mirth.”