The World Today
A missile cuts through the night sky, sending people scrambling across open space and towards safety. Elsewhere, a father scans his grocery list, second-guessing purchases and wondering if he can fit everything within budget. In another part of the world, behind closed doors, ultra-wealthy and influential billionaires are named in investigations and scandals that reveal how much of the world’s injustice operates out of sight.
This is the world we live in today.
The irony of writing an article about the joy of April Fools’ Day in this context isn’t lost on me, and it feels as if this is a punchline to a bad joke.
And yet, Christianity has always carried within it a strange and uncomfortable claim: that in a world like this, joy is still possible, and that those who live in this way may even look like fools.
A Different Kind Of Joy
We like to think joy goes hand in hand with an easy life. We reduce joy to laughing so hard at a joke until tears come out of our eyes. We mistake joy as the result of our circumstances, a happiness we attain like a reward, or something borne out of certain contexts.
But the Christian understanding of joy is different: a joy that is counter-cultural, deeper than sorrow, something that arises not from circumstances. The saints had this deep kind of joy– almost foolish– radiating from them despite hardship, war, persecution, and unimaginable pain.
Soon-to-be-Saint Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, “A divine sense of humor belongs to poets and saints because they have been richly endowed with a sense of the invisible, and can look out upon the same phenomena that other mortals take seriously and see in them something of the divine.”
What The Saints Show Us
When we think of the saints, joy usually isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.
We might know the saints for their devotion and piety. We remember their steadfastness in the faith in the midst of sufferings and trials. We recall accounts of stigmata, their visions, their mysticism. Hagiography, the writing of the lives of the saints, often focuses on these things. But we tend to overlook how the saints were filled with a joy that comes from the depth of their relationship with God.
This April Fools’ Day, let’s look at these saints, our models for living holy, joyful lives.
3 Catholic Saints For April Fools’ Day
St. Philip Neri
“A heart filled with joy is more easily made perfect than one that is sad.” -St. Philip Neri
If there’s a saint most fitting for April Fools’ Day, it would be St. Philip Neri.
Born in 1515 in Florence, Philip Neri, an Italian priest,became known for his cheerful personality, quick humor, and playful spirit. But his humor was not meant simply to entertain; it was a shield against pride and a means to cultivate humility.
Philip sometimes deliberately made himself look silly in public. He shaved off half his beard before going out. He wore unusual clothing or behaved in ways that drew laughter.
These were intentional acts of humility. He was starting to get a reputation for holiness, despite his attempts to downplay his fame with jokes and pranks. With his ability to gain followers and lead them to God, Philip was aware of how easily pride can creep into the spiritual life. By allowing himself to be a “fool for Christ” (1 Cor 4:10), he chose ridicule over admiration, keeping his identity rooted not in public praise but in God alone.
St. John XXIII
“Lord, it’s your Church. I’m going to sleep.” -St. John XXIII
St. John XXIII, the pope who convened the Second Vatican Council, was known for his warmth, humility, and disarming sense of humor. Born in Italy in 1881, he was affectionately called “il Papa buono”– the Good Pope. He often used humor to put others at ease, to remind people not to take themselves too seriously.
When someone advised him to lose weight because many people depended on him, John XXIII was said to have replied, “Many more depend on my being cheerful.”
He also once remarked, “Anyone can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.”
Behind the humor was a deep, spiritual freedom that often marks God’s saints. John XXIII understood that the Church ultimately belongs to God, not to any single person, even if one is the Pope. His lightness of spirit came from knowing that he did not have to carry the world’s burdens on his shoulders. He wrote rules for himself for spiritual growth, and the first one speaks of his disposition of surrender: “Only for today, I will try to live through this day only, and not tackle my whole life’s problems at once.”
No wonder the Good Pope was able to live a life of cheerfulness and joyful humility despite his lofty role, trusting that God will give us enough grace to carry even great responsibilities with joy and peace.
Blessed Chiara Badano
“If you want to be happy, do not look for happiness in the things of the world… it is not what we have, but what we are and what we can become with time.” -Blessed Chiara Badano
And lest one thinks a life of holiness and supernatural joy is reserved only for priests and religious, this lay Italian teenager will be happy to break down these stereotypes.
At 16, Chiara Badano felt a sharp pain in her shoulder while playing tennis. After a series of tests, she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of bone cancer, which left her in much pain, and her condition deteriorated rapidly.
She accepted her sickness, saying, “Jesus, if you want it, I want it, too.” She refused morphine so she could remain lucid enough to pray. Chiara offered her suffering to Jesus “because I want to share as much as possible in his sufferings on the cross.”
She became an encouragement to hospital staff and visitors. She would go on walks in the hospital to accompany and talk with a young patient who was depressed. Her parents discouraged her from doing so as the walks caused her pain, advising her instead to rest. Chiara refused, saying, “I’ll be able to rest later on.”
Those around her consistently remarked on the joy that radiated from her despite the pain. When friends came to visit, they said of Chiara, “At first we thought we would visit Chiara to keep her spirits up, however, we soon realized that in fact, we were the ones who needed her. Her life was like a magnet drawing us towards her.”
This was not a forced or performative cheerfulness, but the fruit of offering the little of what was left of her life in the service of the Lord, and God supplied Chiara with the necessary graces to be joyful despite her sufferings. When she passed on October 7, 1990, at age 18, her last words were, “Bye mom. Be happy, because I am happy.”
Fools for Christ
Galatians 5:22-23 lists joy among the fruit of the Holy Spirit– supernatural signs manifested in a life lived in the presence of Christ. In other words, it’s not something we manufacture or produce on our own, but something that stems naturally from a life transformed by God.
The early Christians knew this well. St. Teresa of Calcutta spoke about the witness of early Christian martyrs: they were recognized as Christians not only by their faith, but by the mysterious joy and peace visible on their faces, even in suffering.
St. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth to encourage them in living their lives for the Lord, calling themselves “fools” for Christ:
“We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour, we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.” (1 Cor 4:10-13)
Christian joy is not naivety. It is not ignoring the reality of pain and suffering around us, but of setting our minds on things above, not on things that are on earth (Col 3:2), knowing that pain and suffering on earth are temporary and passing by. Perhaps it is this otherworldly mindset that sets Christians apart, as the way of Christ is vastly different from the world’s ways.
This is the source of joy of the martyrs and the saints, and is something we can learn from even in troubled times: it is looking to Jesus as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith that we can endure the crosses and trials of this life, for the sake of joy that is ahead (Heb 12:2).
Where this leaves us
This is the kind of “foolishness” St. Paul speaks of.
Not a forced cheerfulness, but a choice to trust in God; a joy from Him that confounds suffering and pain. It is a joy that, when shared with others, becomes a rebellion against hardship and refuses to let despair have the last word.
Maybe this is what April Fools’ Day can remind us of.
That in a world dealing with war, poverty, injustice, suffering, and pain, choosing to radically trust in God can look like foolishness.
And yet this is precisely where our saints, our fools for Christ, found their joy.
SOURCES:
Agony and Ecstasy: Blessed Chiara Badano and Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiara_Badano
Blessed Chiara “Luce” Badano https://giveninstitute.com/chiara-luce-badano/
The saint who laughed his way to heaven
Image: Photo by Igor Rodrigues on Unsplash
