For What Can We Give Thanks?

Yeah, it’s a bummer COVID-19 cases are spiking again, causing a whole new wave of infections with a new, mutated virus that is even more contagious. This is affecting even the Olympics and seems to be causing an increase in crime across our nation, not to mention an awful increase in deaths and stressing hospitals once again. So what do we give thanks for when we sit down to Sunday dinner with our families? Give thanks that, despite it all, we are basically happy. 

Do you remember the second question in the Baltimore Catechism? It was, “Why did God make you?” And the answer was, “God made me to know him, to love him and to serve him in this life and to be happy with him in the next.” 

Now, there has been a slight shift in the official Catholic teaching on happiness. The first sentence of the new Catechism of the Catholic Church published after Vatican II says God created Adam (and all of us) “to make him share his own blessed life.” This search for Godly life and the happiness it brings begins here on earth where God “never ceases to call every man (and woman) to seek him, so as to find life and happiness” (CCC 30). The Catechism then quotes St. Augustine who explains why happiness and God are connected: “You, yourself encourage us to delight in your praise for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” 

Happiness has always been a primary goal of humankind. Aristotle made it the focus of his ethics of the good life. St. Thomas Aquinas made happiness equivalent to the good which everyone seeks because it is part of our nature. At the same time however, St. Thomas taught that happiness was so elusive that it could be attained only partially and imperfectly in this life. Only God, he taught, was perfect good and perfect happiness. We are destined to pursue happiness through a partial knowledge of God on this earth, while hoping for a full share of happiness in heaven. 

When he wrote the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson made happiness one of our three inalienable rights, but he too recognized the elusiveness of happiness. In an article entitled “In Pursuit of Happiness” in the U.S. Catholic, Robert Mc Clory pictured Jefferson trying to describe happiness: “search for happiness? ... right of happiness? ... hope for happiness? ... chasing happiness?” 

We have life, and it is the nation’s obligation to protect it by law and force. The same is true of liberty in a democracy. But happiness, Mc Clory said, “is like a fox—sly fast and elusive.” So Jefferson settled for saying that we have the right only to pursue happiness. 

Many things reflect happiness; relationships, security, achievement, possessions, fame, power, wealth. They have their place in a passing world but are partial and temporary, never completely satisfying us. We are addicted to the real thing and as St. Augustine said, always restless without complete and permanent happiness which is God alone. 

People today are concerned about happiness. Go to Barnes & Noble and look at the self-help section. Rows and rows of books will tell you how to become happy by improving your mind, your muscles, your interpersonal skills, your ying-your yang and your karma. People are gobbling up books on knew-age meditation, eastern spirituality and religion. McClory, in his article, cited a book called “14,000 Things to Be Happy About.” 

I believe Catholic tradition is on the right tract. God created us and put a homing device in us. Furthermore, he sent Jesus to show us the way home. In him we can see how God’s law is to be  lived – with compassion, forgiveness and love. Because of Jesus, not even the mystery of the innocent suffering can take away our hope. God can bring good out of evil, happiness out of despair. 

So, get your vaccinations, wear your masks and “Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice” (Ps 105:3).

Father Carville is a retired priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge and writes on current topics for The Catholic Commentator. He can be reached at [email protected].