The Saints' Guide to Joy That Never Fades

Do you need some lighthearted encouragement? The Saints' Guide to Joy That Never Fades will boost your spirits. In it, renowned "saint expert" Ann Ball gleans from the writings and sayings of her heavenly friends to create a delightful volume full of hope and inspiration. Charming stories and pithy quotes direct us on our way to lasting joy: perseverance, fidelity, and hope. The author observes, "Christians in today's world are often stressed out, sad, and grieving. The example of faithful yet very human saints can bring us closer to the One who is all joy. Let us learn from them, that this echo might reverberate in our lives."

"From somber, serious, sullen saints, save us, O Lord!" -Teresa of Avila

"Joy is the echo of God's life in us." -Blessed Abbot Marmion

Format: Paperback, 144pp.
ISBN: 1569552630
Publisher: Servant Publications (2001)

A Sample from a Chapter of
The Saints' Guide to Joy That Never Fades

Laugh at Yourself

"Out of gratitude and love for Him, we should desire to be reckoned fools. Laugh and grow strong." - St. Ignatius Loyola

Time and again the saints have advised us not to take ourselves too seriously. We must laugh at ourselves. An old saw says that God must have had a sense of humor because he made us. The clown, the buffoon, the holy fool for God are simply those who first input the love of God and then "output" it with contagious joy, laughing and enjoying themselves along the way.

Concepcion Cabrera de Armida, the Mexican mother and mystic, showed her ever-present sense of humor in commenting about the difficulties in nursing her first son who was born in 1885. He did not want a wet nurse and so had to be fed donkey’s milk, evidently the most like mine." 

The insignia of souls united to God are most often gentleness, kindness, and good humor, especially about the frailties of the human experience. Such holy men and women, having no need for the poses and demands of the world, can move freely as friends of God. Crispino of Viterbo was such a friend. Born in Viterbo, Italy, in 1668, Crispino’s mother consecrated him to the Virgin Mary at the age of five. He was so spiritually advanced as a child that the villagers affectionately called him "Il Santorello," the little saint. Later, he was accepted into the Franciscans as a lay brother, assigned to menial tasks. In this capacity, he called himself the "little beast of burden of the Capuchins." As he went about his chores without a hat, a passerby asked why he went bare headed. Crispino replied, "An ass does not need a hat," confirming his own nickname. 

When Pope John Paul II canonized Saint Crispino of Viterbo in 1982, he said, "The first aspect of sanctity that I wish to emphasize in Saint Crispino is his joy. His affability was known to all the people of Orvieto and to those who approached him and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding kept his heart and his thoughts (cf. Phil 4:5-7). His was a Franciscan joy, sustained by a character rich in ability to communicate, and open to poetry, but above all, springing from a great love of the Lord and an invincible trust in His providence. `He who loves God with purity of heart, he used to say,` lives happy and dies content.’"

A Humble Visionary

The nearly illiterate, asthmatic fourteen-year-old peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous was chosen to be the recipient of heavenly favors. She was the visionary who saw Our Lady at Lourdes, France, in 1858. The church did not canonize the visionary of Lourdes, the recipient of such signal favor. Instead, it canonized Bernadette the patient, faithful, nun of Nevers. After the apparitions, from the time she was sixteen, the local priest arranged for Bernadette to live with the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction of Nevers, because of her poor health and to protect her from the constant interruptions of people who wanted to see the young visionary. Eventually she joined the order who taught and sheltered her. Bernadette was just about ready to leave Lourdes for Nevers when one of the nuns informed her that she'd seen photographs of her being sold by vendors for one franc. Bernadette laughed and responded: "That's much more than I'm worth!"

In the convent, Bernadette was treated with extremes for the rest of her life. Some treated her as if she were a saint; others; especially her superiors, treated her as if she were nothing, dealing with her harshly. She accepted everything including her chronic illnesses with humility, never considering herself to be someone extraordinary, fitting into convent life just like the other sisters. Here she was noted for her sense of humor and for refusing to take herself seriously. At recreation she told funny stories and sang songs in her native dialect, making the sisters laugh by saying that when she sung they all ran away. She had a natural gift of mimicry and provoked much laughter by her imitations of people’s mannerisms. Bernadette had a funny and sometimes pithy manner of speaking. She described an agitated sister as "wriggling like a cut worm." Becoming sick at her stomach after eating roast fowl, she asked for a basin, telling the sister that "my little bird is flying away." 

Bernadette was also known for her quick wit and her ability to immediately make a clever comeback in all sorts of situations. She took snuff as a treatment for her asthma. Once, another sister told her "Because of that snuff you will never be canonized. They almost didn’t canonize Saint Vincent de Paul for the same reason." Bernadette’s quick reply was, "Well, since you don’t take snuff, does that mean you will be canonized?" When the Bishop of Rodez was visiting the nuns in Nevers, he passed in front of each Sister allowing them to kiss his ring. He wanted desperately to meet Bernadette, but she decided to avoid him, and slipped out through a nearby door. When informed later that the Bishop was disappointed that she had not presented herself, and that she had lost forty days' indulgence, Bernadette responded: "Jesus, have mercy on me! There! Now I've gained three hundred days' indulgence!"

When one of the sisters brought up the topic of the apparitions, Bernadette rhetorically asked her what she did with a broom when she was finished with it and gave her the answer: "You put it behind a door, and that is what the Virgin has done with me. While I was useful, she used me, and now she has put me behind the door." The saint knew the source of her joy: "Let the crucifix be not only in my eyes and on my breast, but in my heart."

Laughing on the Run

When the going gets touch, the saints start laughing. The joy that they have internalized in good times remains with them during the worst of times, even unto persecution and death.

The wily and daring English Jesuit missionary Edmund Campion was one of the first priests to be chosen for the difficult English mission during the time of the persecution of Catholics there. The night before he left his comfortable scholar’s life in Bohemia, a colleague wrote in Latin over the door of his room: "Father Edmund Campion, Martyr." He, along with the other missionaries, joked often about the death which awaited them. Once in England, his life was spent on the run, changing his name and location frequently. He admitted that the different disguises he was forced to adopt mad him feel ridiculous. He wrote to his Jesuit superior June 20, 1580: "As we want to disguise our persons and to cheat the madness of this world, we are obliged to buy several little things which seem to us altogether absurd. Our journey, these clothes and four horses which we must buy as soon as we reach England may possibly square with our money; but only with the help of Providence which multiplied the loaves in the wilderness. This indeed is our least difficulty, so let us have done with it." How Edmund must have laughed when he frequently read, or was told by people who seemed quite sure of their facts, that Campion, the notorious Jesuit, had been captured. 

Another man on the run was Miguel Gomez Loza, a heroic married man and staunch Catholic lawyer in Mexico. His spiritual direction, Father Vicente Maria Camacho testified that Miguel was jailed no less than fifty eight times for organizing protests against the government. He was often beaten and several times at the point of being shot for his faith. He told Father Camacho, "It doesn’t get me excited." While in jail, he remained serene and composed, leading his fellow prisoners in prayer and singing. He had an image of the Virgin of Refuge on a pin which he always wore over his heart until the day of his death. In December of 1922, Miguel married Maria Guadalupe Sanchez Barragan in the small chapel of the ACJM (Association Catolica de la Juventaud Mexicana ). At breakfast that morning, one of his friends jokingly told Miguel that the first thing he should buy his wife was a lunch kit so that she could bring him his food in jail. Miguel heartily enjoyed the laugh at his expense.

On more than one occasion, Blessed Miguel Pro had to deal with babies abandoned on the streets of Mexico City. He laughs at himself as he describes one of these occasions: "I have had six [babies] given to me. The first time it happened, I had no time to send for anyone to fetch the baby, I had to take it away myself. I was imprudent enough to put it, well wrapped up in a big shawl, in a corner of the car. At the first bump the baby gave a leap and if I had not caught it on the wing, I should have had nothing left to do but take it to the cemetery. I took it into my arms; and I need not tell you in what a state I was when I handed it over to its adopted parents!" 

Yes, laughing at ourselves is one of the best laughs there is.
May God grant us all the humility to do so.