I keep an ever-growing list of jokes on my phone. It is a holdover from when I was a youth minister. Whenever I hear a good one, I write it down and keep it for later. You never know when you’ll need a good joke! My current favorite is: Most plants can’t hear, except corn — corn has ears. This is okay because most plants can’t talk, except beans — beanstalk.

While I have a healthy sense of humor, I used to take ministry Very Seriously™. I went to a Very Serious™ college with Very Serious™ professors teaching Very Serious™ subjects like philosophy and theology, and so I followed suit and acted Very Seriously™.

And then I worked at a Catholic camp in Texas for a year.

I came with my Very Serious™ way of thinking and was met with a very unserious group of coworkers and (if you can believe it) unserious children. Watching ten-year-olds run down the steep hill toward the dining hall gave me horrific visions of scraped knees and tear-stained cheeks (and a long walk to the nurse’s station for us). So I constantly shouted, “Don’t do that!”, “Don’t jump off there!”, and “Absolutely not!”. 

One day, a coworker pulled me aside and said, “I totally understand where you’re coming from… but you are taking away their fun. Just let them play.” That admonishment changed the summer for me. I learned to relax. As I continued working in youth ministry, it became easier to find the balance between having fun and still taking my relationship with God seriously.

Eutrapelia: The Most Fun You’ve Never Heard Of

People hesitate about becoming “too religious”, thinking that being virtuous is synonymous with being boring, that you have to give up everything that makes life enjoyable in order to be a disciple and follow Jesus. We see this sentiment reflected in popular movies and TV shows that portray outwardly religious characters as rude, judgmental, and just overall party poopers.

There are many things that we should take seriously about our Catholic faith: keeping our commitments to daily prayer, weekly Mass, and frequent Reconciliation; not taking the Lord’s name in vain; and acting respectfully while in a church. On the other hand, this does not mean there is no place for fun in the life of a “good Catholic”. Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote about the need for humor and fun in his “Summa Theologica”, as they are the rest that the soul requires.

“Augustine says: ‘I pray thee, spare thyself at times: for it becomes a wise man sometimes to relax the high pressure of his attention to work.’ Now this relaxation of the mind from work consists in playful words or deeds. Therefore it becomes a wise and virtuous man to have recourse to such things at times.” (ST II-II q.168, a.2)

Saint Thomas borrows a word from the philosopher Aristotle to name this virtue: eutrapelia. Under the umbrella of temperance, which helps us to moderate pleasures and the use of material goods, eutrapelia is the virtue of healthy, good-natured fun. It reminds us that life should be enjoyed and that rest is necessary. Just as the body needs rest from constant physical labor, so our soul needs rest from constant mental labor. Eutrapelia is the virtuous middle ground between being a stick in the mud and reckless buffoonery. He goes on to say that a lack of humor can actually be sinful!

“In human affairs whatever is against reason is a sin. Now it is against reason for a man to be burdensome to others, by offering no pleasure to others, and by hindering their enjoyment… Now a man who is without mirth, not only is lacking in playful speech, but is also burdensome to others, since he is deaf to the moderate mirth of others.” (ST II-II q.168, a.4)

Becoming holy should not mean becoming boring, stern, or a party pooper. If this is happening to you, then you are doing holiness wrong.

Are there things we give up doing for the sake of living virtuously and striving for holiness? Sure. But the truth is that what we are usually “sacrificing” for the sake of holiness is sin, which is never going to make us truly happy because it harms our relationship with the one person who can (aka God).

So — have fun! Climb the tree and see how high you can get. Walk along the curb of the sidewalk and pretend to balance on a tightrope. Tell jokes with your friends and laugh until you can’t breathe. Practice heartily the virtue of eutrapelia and embrace being childlike (just not childish!).