AmericanPapist Comments
Thomas, I didn't look at the link, I don't personally are for Sr Joan, but I do find offensive that you feel free to ridicule others - what kind of Lenten spirituality is that? Why not hold a mirror up to yourself? Isn't that what Lent is about? Your sarcasm has gotten worse over the years I've been reading your blog and this is just the last straw.
It's not uncharitable to feel sorry for people who would willingly spend their lent with someone who has a good chance of leading them away from Christ. That sentiment seems a very authentic Lenten spirituality.
And plus, it is a joke. I try to keep a happy face during my lenten penances, as should we all. As for sarcasm, I've actually attempted to restrain myself over the years, not give into it. Except for jokes.
I think that spending Lent with her would be a great idea--if you're giving up being Catholic for Lent.
"How to make 40 short days seem like an eternity."
WAC
So, seeing as how I too love irony and sarcasm, I think there is a need to back AmP up here. In the first place, there is, outside of puns and wordplay, no such thing as the victimless joke. (Although that is arguable if you happen to be the hearer of the pun.) That is how humor works. Even popes have told jokes that are not mere wordplay, and that is fine. That being said, irony and sarcasm function well at appropriate times and places because they point out the true nature of sin or of hypocrisy, which occasionally amounts to the same thing. Irony and sarcasm function as humor because they are purgative; they identify many of the things we find abhorrent either in others or, occasionally, in ourselves, and allow us to laugh at the failure rather than dwell upon it. Such measures, I think, are a sign of someone readily willing to forgive and be forgiven, not someone who refuses to do either. The cynic is the sick one who takes the content of irony and sarcasm seriously enough that it angers and emboldens them to the point where forgiveness is not an option. the cynic identifies the sinner as the ONLY mode of humanity, not as it's weakest. The cynic has not hope. The ironist, and particularly the intelligent ironist, laughs at human failure because he not only hopes for something more, but KNOWS that it is worth hoping for. Human silliness and human failure will always be one and the same. It is true that there is a fine line between hardened mockery and poking fun. Occasionally some things are funny because they are simply true. I am guessing that AmP does, in fact, hope and pray for men and women like Sr. Joan precisely because he knows the truth of his own share in original sin. Growing up means learning how to understand the relative harshness and relative tenderness of the world. Irony and sarcasm can't ever erase sin itself, but they do help us point out and overcome individual ocurrences of it. Irony and sarcasm point out the harsh in an effort to make room for the tender, if you ask me.
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