Congratulations to our graduates! Know of my prayers, as well as your family, loved ones, friends, our parishioners, and our community.
In this article, I would like to write to you, graduates, about happiness (and I hope all of our parishioners would learn about happiness as well).
In the history of our Catholic Church, we may know some insightfulness even two thousand years ago with philosophers as well as saints. I write to share this, as I hope you can grow, not just for the first and second levels of happiness, but all four of them.
Here we go:
· #1: Laetus: this level is about both materialism or pleasure that is within short-lived. For instance, I enjoy drinking a Coca-Cola. That gives me comfort with its taste, bubbles, refreshing beverage, and some energy with its caffeine. My happiness takes place, but only a few minutes to enjoy it or to use caffeine for a few hours. Or, if you haven’t heard about a big issue today in colleges, as well as in our culture: a “hookup” with casual sexual activities. Please avoid this one within our morality and the challenges of diseases or using another person as we should never use a person because you are a son or daughter of God, as well as that other person.
· #2: Felix: this level regards competition or comparison. Today I enjoy and challenge myself with running and triathlons, but when I was younger, I wanted to beat someone else to the finish line. I was excited to see how the data after these events, especially when I was #1! While this happiness occurs, it offers joy a little longer than #1, but it still occurs in most of society whether in a classroom, a job, a sport, dancing, concerts and more. It also happens when we compare ourselves within our ideas of our body, mind, or soul against other people. Uniquely, please do not compare yourself to another person as I wrote just above—you are loved by God and many other people in your life! Know how important you are as a person, the only person in the world, and more important than stars, or superficial levels all around our culture, and many people stop with happiness for these two levels.
· #3: Beatitudo: Beatitude = happiness at a deeper level than #1 or #2 and sometimes is at war with the second. Let’s go back to my experience with races. While I often said, “Good job,” or “Keep going,” (when I could still talk!) back then, and now. But back then, I used those words when I was passing someone else! Now, I also add this to people that are passing me. Beatitude/happiness in the third level is to recognize the good of another person, that may indeed be better than us. Here is where we can grow in our relationship with God to praise Him for another person, beyond us and continue to learn how essential we are as God and our parents created us and gave us life. Again, we are the only person, and God has chosen us to do His will.
· #4: Sublime Beatitudo: Sublime = to lift up or elevate. Sublime joyfulness is the type of happiness that Jesus Christ taught us, even to offer his own life to serve not just a few people, but everyone in the world, even today. While this level is the hardest to learn or offer, it is the glory of happiness. One area I think about this happiness is the men and women in the Boston Marathon, in which a bomb was placed towards the finish line, who ran towards that bomb. They served the people that were killed. They served the people who lost their legs. They served the people that were injured. These individuals were able to offer their own lives, and that is the closest we can experience happiness, even if it feels painful. Once again, that is what Jesus Christ taught us on the Cross.
As you graduates move on to college, a trade school or a job, please consider these levels of happiness, mainly to grow as an adult, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, as an individual that can experience the depths of happiness, joy, and beatitude with God.
God Bless!
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