The Secret of Happiness An Introduction to the Good Life
Copyright © Anthony Saroki 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher.
Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition© 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner. Cover illustration by Joseph Naval. Text illustrations by Jennifer Piranio.
An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a fisherman in a small boat came in. Inside the small boat were several large, yellowfin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The fisherman replied, “Only a few hours.”
The tourist then asked, “Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The fisherman said, “With this I have more than enough to support my family’s needs.” The tourist asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?” The fisherman replied, “I sleep late, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos.” 3
The tourist scoffed, “Take my advice. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Then, you could open your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York where you could run your ever-expanding enterprise.” The fisherman asked, “How long will this all take?” The tourist replied, “Fifteen to twenty years.” “But what then?” asked the fisherman. The tourist laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich; you would make millions.” “Millions?...Then what?” asked the fisherman. The tourist said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small, coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your grandkids, take siesta with your wife, and stroll into the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos.”
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Restless Hearts Are you completely happy right now? Will you be completely happy an hour from now? A day?...A year?…A hundred years from now?
Everyone seeks happiness. You experienced it as a child in so many ways. Eating your favorite home cooked meal with your family gathered around the table… your first trip to Disneyland…the Christmas when you got everything you asked for…the sleepover with your best friends when you played games late into the night and laughed so hard you almost wet your pants… the satisfaction when you learned how to multiply 5
fractions…playing at the beach on a hot summer day…when the hero from your favorite story overcame the impossible situation to defeat the forces of evil. But even the sheerest ecstasy and purest joys in this life do not last. Even as we enjoy them, our hearts ache and yearn for more. And so we think, “I’d be completely happy if I had more money,” or “If I lost 20 pounds, then my life would be great,” or “I just need to find more and varied amusements and pleasures, these will keep me happy,” or “The perfect mate is out there, and when I find him/her we’ll live happily ever after.” And so we keep searching for fulfillment. Many centuries ago a young man reached the heights of professional success, had many friends, and enjoyed all kinds of sensual pleasures. He came to the realization that no creature could satisfy the infinite desires of his heart. Only the Creator could. That man’s name was Augustine, and he expressed his discovery this way: “You made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”1 I’m no Augustine, but I made the same discovery. When I was in college, I had everything I thought I wanted. My grades were great. I had lots of friends and more than a few drunken hookups. But in quiet moments of reflection, I realized that this was not the meaning of life. Success and popularity and pleasure made promises of happiness that they could not keep. And so I began searching for deeper meaning. While I was searching, a funny thing happened. I was found. 6
I was found by the One who never stopped seeking me after I lost myself. And my encounter with him changed my life. What If God Was One of Us? You might be thinking, “What does God have to do with happiness? Isn’t God the great killjoy, laying down hard rules that make life miserable?” God’s primary interest is not that you keep a bunch of rules. What he wants more than anything is to be in a loving relationship with you. In fact, God created the entire universe for love of you. Through the prophet Isaiah, he said: “As a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you” (Isaiah 62:5b). Every loving relationship has an inherent structure, which includes honesty, faithfulness, respect, gratitude, and mutual giving. Someone who is head-over-heels in love doesn’t complain, “Gee, honey, why are you spoiling my fun by not letting me date other people?” When we get the love part right, the attitudes and behaviors that contribute to the health of the relationship make sense. The key is to be head-over-heels in love with God. How can we do that? After all, isn’t God invisible? I can’t see God like I can see another person. I can’t hear God like I can hear another person. He might appear in visions or speak to prophets and mystics, but not to me. How can I have a relationship with someone I can’t see or hear? 7
In the mid-90s, Joan Osborn sang the hit song, One of Us. It had a catchy tune and thought-provoking lyrics: “What if God was one of us? / Just a slob like one of us/ Just a stranger on the bus / Trying to make his way home.”
The central claim of Christianity is that God did in fact become one of us. More specifically, about two thousand years ago, the eternally begotten Son of God came down from heaven and took flesh in the womb of a young woman named Mary. He grew up in the small town of Nazareth where he worked as a carpenter. When he was about thirty years old, he began to preach and teach and heal and cast out demons. Unlike other founders of religious movements, Jesus didn’t present himself as a mere messenger. Jesus claimed to be the message as well. He said that the way into the Kingdom of God was through him. The Kingdom of God is where God gets his way, where his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. 8
The harmonious order of God’s kingdom brings true fulfillment to all who accept it. It provides what we need to be perfectly happy forever. What do we need? The four L’s: Life, Light, Liberty, and Love. Life The survival instinct is powerful. Try not eating for a day. What happens? You get very, very hungry. Your body is telling you it needs food. Our survival programming is evident through hunger and thirst, sensitivity to pain and extreme temperatures, and the fight/flight response in the face of danger. Beyond our physical instincts, we have a consciousness of our existence and a powerful desire to continue to exist. We avoid thinking and talking about death. Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker studied different societies’ attitudes toward death. He wrote that “the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else.”2 Death lurks about even in the midst of our greatest joys and triumphs, because in the back of our minds we fear that all that we have in this world can and will be taken away by death. The ultimate miracle that Jesus did was to rise from the dead. Witnesses claimed to have seen him, to have touched him, and even eaten with him after his resurrection. Over five hundred people saw the risen Lord (1 Cor. 15:3-9). In 2003 N.T. Wright, a worldrenowned scholar, published a 740-page book entitled The Resurrection of the Son of God which contains a lot 9
of evidence and reasons in support of the historical reality of the Resurrection.
Jesus promised that his disciples would share in the Resurrection: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26). This means a couple of things. First, it means that those who die in friendship with Christ will one day experience an eternal, transformed existence that is unimaginably better than the happiest day of earthly life. Second, it means that the life of heaven begins here on earth through grace, the gift of God’s own life and love. Before he died, Jesus said: “I will 10
not leave you orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live and you will live” (John 14:18-19). The life-giving power of Christ has enabled Christians to do amazing things. In the summer of 1941, in the hell-on-earth known as the Auschwitz prison camp, sirens sounded to indicate the escape of a prisoner. The Nazi guards chose ten men to die as punishment for the one who escaped. One of those men, when he was chosen, began to cry and beg for his life. He spoke about his wife and children. Another man stepped forward to take his place. He was a Catholic priest named Maximilian Kolbe. Kolbe was taken with the nine others to an airless, underground bunker, where the men were kept without food or water. Fr. Kolbe encouraged them constantly and led them in songs and prayer. One by one, they died of dehydration or starvation. Kolbe was the last one remaining. The frustrated guards wanted the cell for more prisoners, so they decided to give Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. An eyewitness describes the scene: “Fr. Kolbe, with a prayer on his lips, himself gave his arm to the executioner. Unable to watch this I left under the pretext of work to be done. Immediately after the S.S. men with the executioner had left I returned to the cell, where I found Fr. Kolbe leaning in a sitting position against the back wall with eyes open and his head drooping sideways. His face was calm and radiant.”3 11
Light Little children are sponges. They are constantly learning about their environment. When they get old enough, they begin to ask “why?� about everything. We have a desire to know the truth about our world, about other people, about ourselves. We want to know the truth about the ultimate questions. Who am I? Where did we all come from? Is there a purpose to life? What is the best way to live? What is God like?
Light is a symbol of knowing the truth. When light is present, we can see what is there. When the electricity 12
goes out, we stumble around trying to find a flashlight or candle. But when the light shines, we can walk about in security. Jesus said: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Jesus makes it possible for us to really know who God is. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Jesus is the light who reveals humanity. He “fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (Gaudium et Spes 22). Jesus shows us what it means to be authentically human. The teaching of Jesus made a strong impression on his listeners. “The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes” (Mark 1:22). Jesus presented a whole new way of looking at things. For example, he taught his disciples not to worry about what to eat or drink or wear. He pointed out that birds have plenty to eat and flowers are clothed with great beauty. “Are you not more important than they?” (Matthew 6:26) Jesus asked. So what should be the focus of our concern? “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you as well” (Matthew 6:33). The light of Christ has shone brilliantly throughout the ages. The profound insights of Augustine and Aquinas are among the great contributions of 13
Christian philosophy and theology to answering the ultimate questions. The works of Michaelangelo and Caravaggio, the writings of Dante and Tolkein, the music of Mozart, and the great architecture of the medieval cathedrals convey the light of Christ in various mediums. This light is the truth which is at the same time astonishingly beautiful. And contrary to popular opinion, the Christian worldview provided the framework for scientific discovery and humanized the West by insisting on the sacredness of all human life. Liberty We Americans are very concerned about our freedoms. Our Declaration of Independence includes “liberty� among the God-given rights that governments should respect. During the time of Jesus, the Jewish people lived under the occupation of the Roman Empire. Many hoped for a messiah who would defeat the Romans and make Israel a great world power.
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Political freedom is important, but it is not the most important kind of liberty. Inner freedom is even more important. Jesus was more concerned with setting people free from the tyranny of evil over the soul. One manifestation of the power of evil is demonic possession. If you don’t think this is a real phenomenon, I encourage you to read the book (not watch the movie) The Rite by Matt Baglio. The Gospels record several instances of Jesus casting out demons. When the Pharisees accused Jesus of being in league with Satan, he answered that he cast out demons by the power of God, and that this was a sign that the kingdom of God had come (Luke 11:20-22). There are less spectacular manifestations of the tyranny of evil. When someone is addicted to drugs, driven by anger, or compelled by lust, they are not truly free. They are controlled by something that is at odds with their best, rational selves. St. Paul spoke of this lack of inner freedom in these words: “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me� (Romans 7:19-20). My friend Art became addicted to meth in high school. His life spun out of control. One day, while high, he found himself near the Mexico-US border. His mind began racing with paranoid and terrifying thoughts about the end of the world. He stayed awake for 24 hours straight. He had the desire to go home, and for some reason, he associated that with a church. He made his way to the nearest Catholic church and asked 15
to see a priest. The priest prayed over him and Art experienced a sense of peace and calm which he had never experienced before. This was the beginning of a process by which Art became free of addiction. Art describes it this way: “That day did bring up a lot of questions in my life which eventually led me to get clean. I can tell you that it did not happen overnight. There were multiple interventions that reinforced this process. Although Christ seemed to make himself known at the most random places through pictures or even crucifixes and I honestly felt myself being much more drawn to him, I needed to let go in order to be open to God’s grace. If I had held onto that image or that person who I thought I was or what other people thought me to be, I would not have been able to be the person that Christ has led me to become.” Jesus said that “everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin” and that in Him we are set free (John 8:34). Art is one of many set free by Christ. Love Freddy Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, was a very successful rock star. He said, “You can have everything in the world and still be the loneliest man. And that is the most bitter type of loneliness. Success has brought me world idolization and millions of pounds. But it’s prevented me from having the one thing we all need: a loving, ongoing relationship.”4 16
A teacher asked a class of Catholic first graders how much Jesus loved them. He held his hands about two feet apart and asked, “This much?” “No, more!” said the class in unison. Each time he spread his hands wider the class said “More!” Finally, he stretched his arms apart as far as they could go, and his eyes caught sight of the crucifix on the classroom wall. Seeing Jesus with his arms stretched on the cross, he realized that Jesus loves us “this much.” “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). The greater the sacrifice, the greater the love. Jesus took upon himself the terrible reality of the sin of the world, something that caused him to suffer more than any of us can imagine.
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It wasn’t until I was in college that I came to a deep realization of what Christ did for me. I was at home for break, and had recently returned to the practice of the faith, but not all the way. I was bored and so I starting looking at the books in the family book case and I came across one entitled The Life of Christ by Bishop Fulton Sheen. On the cover was a painting by Salvador Dali of Christ on the cross, suspended above the clouds. The perspective was above him, looking down, as if from the Father’s point of view. As I began to read the book, I cried. And I kept crying, for a long time. I wasn’t a weepy 20-year-old; this was a spiritual experience that was new to me. I cried because of my sins, and I cried because God loved me so much. Soon after that, I went back to confession for the first time in six years. If we ever really look at the crucifix, if we see what it means, we cannot help but be profoundly moved; we desire to love God in return. This is what inspired saints such as Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa to spend themselves completely in service to God and others. What Should I Do Now? If this booklet were written by an Evangelical Protestant, I would now invite you to say the sinner’s prayer, which goes something like this: “Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for your forgiveness. I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead. 18
I turn from my sins and invite you to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow you as my Lord and Savior. In your name, Amen.”5 This booklet is not written by an Evangelical Protestant. It is written by an evangelically-minded Catholic priest. Guess what? I think the sinner’s prayer is great. Please pray it. And mean it. Praying in this way can open you to experience the risen Lord Jesus Christ here and now. But I also know that praying the sinner’s prayer is not enough. An individual praying in faith can experience the presence of Jesus, but in order to be fully united to Jesus, we have to encounter him in his body, the Church. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). Jesus founded his Church on the rock of Peter and it continues today in the Catholic Church (Matthew 16:18). The Church? Do I really need the Church? I have met many people who say to me, “I was raised Catholic, but I don’t go to church anymore.” They have lots of reasons why they left. There are others who consider themselves “practicing Catholics” but have never had a life-shaping relationship with Jesus. I think about both groups a lot. I pray for them often. For a long time I pondered the question: What can I do to help these people fall in love with Jesus in the Catholic Church? I discussed this question with parishioners, read books on the topic of sharing the faith, and investigated 19
various programs designed to help people encounter Christ. The fruit of all of this is The Good Life MiniRetreat. Participants gather for about ten hours over a Friday evening and a Saturday. Men and women have separate retreats a week or two apart so that parents with small children can take turns attending.
The basic story of Jesus is told through multimedia presentations, with individuals sharing some of their 20
personal faith journeys to show how the story of Jesus relates to real life. Participants also gather in small groups for discussion, and there is time for prayer. A lot of prayer and preparation went into our first retreats. We wanted to know how they were received, so we surveyed the participants. The response was overwhelmingly positive. One-hundred percent of participants rated the overall quality of the retreat as “exceptional” or “good.” One woman wrote me the same day, saying, “I’m so grateful for the complete dose of happiness that I experienced in just one day and I know it will leave a permanent impression on my faith journey. Thank you.” The Good Life Mini-Retreat is very inexpensive. The biggest sacrifice is your time. Does ten hours seem like a big time commitment? If I told you that I had a program that would teach you how to become a millionaire in ten hours, what would you say? Discovering the secret of perfect, complete happiness is worth at least ten hours. To find out more about The Good Life, and to watch some very engaging videos, visit goodlifeusa.org.
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Endnotes 1 Confessions (Lib 1,1-2,2.5,5: CSEL 33, 1-5) 2 The Denial of Death (1973), ix 3
www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/kolbe2.htm
4
As quoted in Rock on Freddie (1985)
5
Billy Graham Institute