What Makes Us Happy?

welcome back to the word on fire show I'm Brandon Vaught the host and the content director here at word on fire and joining us fresh off of his retreat with all the other priests of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is Bishop Robert Baer and Bishop Baron welcome hey Brandon always good to hear from you always good to see you you too now tell us you you just got together with some 400 priests were around the archdiocese what was the atmosphere like what did you guys do good good we were in Palm Desert which is about 130 miles east of LA but a place that can accommodate all of us and it was a chance to kind of renew our priesthood in the wake of the scandals and to talk through this period and the focus really was on that was how do we move forward and and how did we renew our sense of what our priesthood is about so we heard some talks we had liturgies of course we had blood Sacramento raishin we had confession but we all said a lot of time in these table conversations talking among ourselves chance of socializing we're a huge Archdiocese so priests all over the place where there are lots of us and we're from a lot of different backgrounds and so we need to get to know each other a little bit better and that was part of the purpose of the day so they were they were very good days I thought it was super hot when I arrived in Palm Desert it was a hundred and fourteen degrees so when I pulled in you basically stayed inside you know in your air-conditioned space because I walked a couple times outside and forget it I just said I can't handle this when I came home it was left is 105 when I got back to Santa Barbara it was 75 so it was a 40 degree difference you know what was there what was the feeling like among the other priests there now you know we're a year year-and-a-half into this latest sexual abuse crisis what was your view of how many of these priests are handling it it was good and I say this I mention this to Archbishop Gomez our original plan was to go last year but the mckarrick thing broke right around this time remember last year and so we made a decision let's postpone it and that was a really good decision because I think if we had gone last year we have been right in the kind of white heat of the of the controversy and I think it would have been I don't maybe a lot of anger and frustration and that's or thing having had a year to work through it I think was really helpful to our work I don't think I'm surprised me I must say we all got a little swag bag you know when we arrived like with a with shirt or something and information and also in it was my letter room to a suffering Church I didn't realize they were gonna do that but all the priests got a copy of it so that did come up a bit in the conversation that's a good chance to mention the letter to a suffering Church we haven't updated our podcast listeners in a while about that little book but the numbers have been so encouraging to us I think it's been ordered by over three thousand parishes we've distributed over four thousand four thousand is the latest and then close to I think nine hundred thousand copies were right around there yesterday we passed nine hundred thousand copies that's incredible marvelous now again you can get a free copy you just pay shipping and handling by visiting suffering Church book calm that's the website and a hundred percent of the proceeds and profits go to support charities that help victims of sexual abuse so it's a no brainer if you haven't received your copy yet go ahead and get your free copy okay the topic of today's episode is what makes us happy what makes us happy Bishop I think it was wasn't it Thomas Aquinas who says something like finally everybody seeks happiness that that's the one thing everybody wants sure goes back to Aristotle in the ancients I find intriguing Brandon prior to the modern shift where the sciences took over and kind of explaining the mechanics of the world became the dominant intellectual concern moving from final causality in Aristotle which was the prime you know cause to efficient causality okay but prior to that shift I think it's fair to say the brightest people in the West were concerned above all with the question of happiness what makes me happy or to change the language a bit what's the good life it's very interesting of course I've often said that when Jefferson it's life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that's a typically modern move because what he's saying basically is I don't know what real happiness is and I'm not gonna tell you because I don't know and we all disagree about it so at least allow me to pursue it as I see fit that's a modern move prior to modernity boy people were very interested in determining what makes us happy and I think hence dead right and corresponds to what remains the great abiding concern of the human heart we're gonna get into some of the specific figures throughout Western history Plato Aristotle Jesus Agustin Aquinas and what all these people thought about happiness but to start off with I wanted to use as a springboard a recent podcast episode from the Freakonomics podcast so this is kind of like a popular economics podcast and they did a whole episode on how to be happy and they based it around the annual United Nations world happiness report so the United Nations surveys countries from all over the world and ranks them in order of happiness I won't get in the details of what criteria they're using but what's interesting is that every single year the Scandinavian countries topped the list so you have Denmark Norway Sweden Iceland Finland every year they've been in the top ten now researchers attribute some of that to high job rates strong levels of social trust they have universal health care universal education all that kind of stuff but for our purposes what's most striking to me is that the most happiest countries in these surveys also tend to be the least religious that there's sort of a inverse correlation on the flip side in the United Nations report the African countries inevitably always rank at the bottom yet those are also the most religious I guess first of all what do you make between this connection between their purportedly happiest countries being the least religious well a couple things one is I'm very suspicious that what's driving that is the classic sort of secularization hypothesis which has been disproven about a million point four times but yet comes again and again namely well you know as society advances becomes more sophisticated and complex religion will fade away and then you know relatedly this thing of the less religious we are they actually they're happier we are and then if you're unhappy that gives rise to religion as a sort of compensation and so it's both the secularization hypothesis and the great Marxist hypothesis that it's our deep unhappiness economically and so on that gives rise to religion so I mean right away I'm very suspicious of those correlations but here's the second thing which i think is even more important how do we measure happiness and what are we targeting as we measure it the things you mentioned about the Scandinavian countries but they all have to do with you know our physical well-being what makes life comfortable and nothing wrong with that of course those are legitimate things to be concerned about we're all concerned about comfort the very fact that is we record these words these are among the few days in Santa Barbara California when you really need air conditioning and no one hands it up here because it's so beautiful most of the year we don't need air conditioning but today I do so I'm you know I'm kind of uncomfortable would I like to be more comfortable and have air conditioning in the house yeah sure another wrong with that so seeking our physical comfort yeah it's part of what it means to be happy but it's such a narrow control of the criteria of happiness you know go back to I'll give you a quick story one of the spiritual masters talks about there's a Fritton since 20th century about this fellow he met in India who was AB gently poor in fact so poor that in advance of his own death he had sold the skeleton I'm sold his skeleton to someone who said look after you die can I use it for whatever purpose for science or something and so he did but but the point was when when this when this writer met that man he said he was the happiest person I've ever known and it was making this point that at the level of physical comfort he was about as low as you get on planet Earth but yet he was at the same time reading lee happy there's something more going on that's the point and I'm very wary of these surveys and say oh oh the happiest countries are where people have the most physical satisfaction well yeah that's a very very narrow bit of the happiness spectrum if you want this being measured all right well if the United Nations survey gets happiness wrong or maybe is misguided about happiness let's let's look at how many people over the last several centuries have defined happiness let's start by going all the way back to the ancients to Plato and Aristotle how would these great philosophers have understood happiness well Plato is a very interesting case we've all read the Republic you know in philosophy 101 and the great argument there is that happiness for one of a better term would come Plato would say from a kind of interior justice what I mean is a balance of the basic elements that make up the soul so remember he he looks at it in a very broad political manner first and looks at the three classes of society like the workers and then there's the military class there's the ruling class and when those three classes are in proper harmonic relationship each doing its proper task in the right harmony something like justice obtains in the city so he says now let's telescope it down to the individual when the three elements of the soul of the person you know that the more material and sensual desires the spirited element and the intellectual element when they all come together in the right harmony something like happiness emerges you might say what we just were complaining about is a reduction of happiness to the satisfaction of the of the working class you know the satisfaction of the lowest element within the self they the sensual desires but see for Plato is happiness in the fullest sense comes from opening up much wider horizons of one's life take a quick look at Aristotle Aristotle of course is very concerned about happiness he makes it the central focus of his nikka McKean ethics and this is a big impact on the West including Thomas Aquinas eudaimonia is his greek term and it's interesting dime on our demon comes from that but it means like that spirit you write you like euthanasia and so on it means a happy spirit or having it having a positive spirit within you so what's eudaimonia our cell considers various options then he says finally eudaimonia is the activity of one soul in accord with perfect virtue because he says look what makes human beings happy qua human beings has to be a function of something that's unique to us so if we say well look you know monkeys and lions and tigers also seek sensual satisfaction right they seek food and drink and sex and comfort and protection well if that's all I'm seeking I'm at the level of an animal right Seoul says aerosol what's distinctive to us namely intellection in mind so our happiness should be coordinated to that hence activity of the soul the higher faculty but now what kind of activity in accord with perfect virtue avoiding the extremes on both sides walking the middle path of virtue so that's Aristotle now he also knows and this is important that you know he knows physical well-being comfort has something to do with happiness that's why he says you can't really say someone's happy till he's dead see the point was hey I'm I'm come physical comfort taken care of I'm a virtuous person I'm well-liked in my society but but tomorrow a terrible disease could befall me tomorrow I can lose all my money tomorrow I could I could be caught up in a terrible war so I can't really pronounce someone happy till he's dead I can say that was a happy man right but Aristotle I like about him is he does name the soul level it's where we should look for you Dame but also acknowledges the other dimensions too let's move from Greece to ancient Israel before the time of Christ how would the Jewish people have understood happiness I'd say following God's law they would say God's given us the law this path to walk and the path is governed by God's will I say a surrender to the divine will makes you happy and you know the biblical Jews knew all about the sufferings of life I mean they they knew that they also read the Psalms I mean they knew about having a full table and had plenty of wine to drink and your children gathered around you and you know that physical well-being I'd say finally they would have said following Torah the man who follows Torah is a happy man so then Jesus comes on the scene and Jesus speaks about happiness all over the place happy are you who are poor happier you and your persecuted what what new insights does Jesus bring into happiness how does he define happiness well you're right in putting your finger on the Beatitudes and you know beatitude oh and Latin means happiness that's our word macario's is the Greek that's used they're happy blessed lucky some have even said how lucky you are now what's different about Jesus think of this line also from the sermon seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and the rest will be given unto you what makes you happy is seeking above all God's will for you which is righteousness which is right order once you've found that Jesus is implying the other dimensions of your life will tend to fall into right harmony and order around it go back to the Beatitudes blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and there's that same idea seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness so it should I be seeking first food and drink and sex and shall and comfort no no seek first the kingdom of God should I seek first even like intellectual attainment no no that's fine but seek first the kingdom of God and then the rest will be given unto you your life will now find its proper harmony and order around that Center you know I've been kind of hinting at this with these various figures let me say it explicitly know I've always loved the distinction it's in Pascal and then Kierkegaard where the mirrors are mimics Pascal a scale talks about body mind and heart as three dimensions think of them as concentric circles maybe body in the middle and then surrounded by mind which is surrounded by heart what do you mean body would be that whole range of sensual desires that we have right to keep the body comfortable and and well fed and protected and enjoy and pleasured right good good nothing wrong with that we're embodied creatures but how sad Pascal says when someone gets stuck at that level that's all I ever seek now I could do it in a smart way in a more mature way but I'm still at the level of a baby think of a little baby that's all the baby wants is sensual satisfaction that's all though baby once I can become a very very very smart sophisticated baby I'm saying if my whole life is still a quest for comfort pleasure a food drink sex protection right now what happens Pascal says in a mature person is you move beyond the mirror concern for the body to level the mind now what's that think of now all the wonderful range of intellectual and more spiritual goods when you begin to read for the first time and these worlds open up to you that the glory of philosophy and physics and mathematics and everything else right the more refined pleasures of the mind I think it may be even on this show I've told that story I've always loved it of this little group of Dominicans arriving at Paris and Thomas Aquinas is in that group and they come to arise just before they enter the city of Paris and they see displayed the skyline of medieval Paris which by the way I'd love to see when I get to heaven I'll it's God show me what medieval Paris look like you know but one of the young friars says oh what what wouldn't you give to have all of this and acquaintance said I'd give it all for Chrysostom's commentary on Matthew and so that shows you someone who's moved beyond the merely physical right because like Paris in all its splendor okay that would mean physical comfort at various levels right but but acquaintance could say I'd give all that I issue all of that for the the intellectual delight of this long-lost manuscript okay so body now mind but now go next up let's go heart and II guess it's misleading he heart does not mean it as we tend to mean emotions emotions belong to the body and again they're great I love emotions but we're not talking about just making me emotionally happy that's a relatively low-level kind of happiness hurt and his French would have been curved right the curve and curl sounds like core doesn't it and that's the idea the heart would be that very deepest most powerful and abiding dimension of my life that connects me to God and the things of God and I'm shifting metaphors that I'm doing body mind heart but you could do it going down deeper deeper right bodies relatively surface concern the mind is deeper but then the deepest of all is liquor the core the heart right the deepest happiness is the happiness that that addresses the heart now go back to Jesus seek ye first the kingdom of God and his right seek first what makes liquor happy and the rest will be given unto you you you'll find that your intellectual passions and your bodily passions find their proper place once you've found the co that's why you know I've spoken often of those three paths of holiness the first one being find the center that's what I'm talking about find Luca mertens thing you know or the the point in me where I am here and now being created by God that's gonna curve the previous is Merton calls right the the virginal point that's that that great tradition and it's a scale but it goes right back to the Lord Jesus himself and true happiness and I know every single person listening or watching we all have that in common we all want that right that's the deepest and most abiding answer I'm not issuing the bodily or the intellectual the cultural those are all important but seek ye first the kingdom of God your relationship to the Lord God and then you will find true happiness that radiates out through all the different dimensions of your life all right let's go from Jesus to some of his followers over the last several centuries that have tried to unpack and formulate exactly what he's driving at I want to focus on three happy people in particular Agustin Thomas and - and then in the 20th century maybe the most joyful happy man I know of that time GK Chesterton each of them thought in wrote extensively on the topic of happiness so let's are with Agustin what did the Gustin have to say about happiness well keep in mind first of all I mentioned Pascal and Kierkegaard both of whom are deeply indebted to Augustine of Hippo Agustin I mean many ways the mastermind of our great tradition right what do you find see I recommend it to any any seeker especially get Maria Bolden's translation of the confessions which makes it read like a novel I think here's a story of this young guy you know accomplished and educated and refined seeking he's seeking happiness what we all see how did he seek it first well the way most of us do through sensual pleasure look at the young Agustin right as he says so beautifully in the opening books of the confessions that he sought joy in all the the beautiful things that God has made you know and he meant he meant sensual world the also meant the sensual pleasure of sexuality and everything else he was like a lot of people today who are seeking happiness in the sensual world then he became more refined and began to seek happiness through intellectual pursuits so once he was introduced to Cicero and then the philosophical tradition then he's drawn into the the manic ease and and he goes down all kinds of intellectual paths seeking happiness until finally he comes that's the whole trajectory of the confessions he comes to Milan and st. Ambrose and through the prayers of his mother he comes to the Catholic faith and concludes what only in God is my soul at rest Lord you've made us for yourself and therefore our heart mind you Luca right he would have said cor in his Latin the core is restless till it rests in thee so the core of you is seeking God ultimately and it looks for love in all the wrong places as the song says right I'm seeking it all over but it's it's restless until it rests in God so Agustin is is the is the one behind Kierkegaard and and Pascal and any seeker any seeker which means any person I think resonates deeply with that story because most of us walk some version of it ourselves come to the same place at Agustin found that's where happiness is how about Thomas Aquinas I know in his great masterwork the Summa theologia he's got whole sections dedicated to the topic of happiness dozens of articles in the second part of the Summa on it what is Thomas Aquinas say about how to find happiness well first in observation you know to those who might be tempted to say the Catholic moral life it's all about laws and prohibitions right Bert says no all the time don't do this don't do that Thomas broaches the question of law in the in the premise of good day the first part of the second part of the Summa right he brooches it for the first time law in question 99 zero that means he's asked 89 questions before he gets to the law what are the first ones he asks he asks what's the nature of beatitude oh and see everybody thereupon hangs a very important tail the Catholic moral life does not begin with the law and with prohibition despite the popular you know characterization it begins with clarity about happiness now reread those questions what you're gonna get there is a Scholastic academic version of the confessions because Thomas will say let's see does beatitude Oh consists in you know sensual pleasure and then he'll tell the reasons why that can't be true okay there's a consistent wealth there's a consistent power there's a consistent honor and the answer keeps coming back no no no no until finally he comes to it can only consist in what corresponds to the deepest longing of the heart namely the infinite God so read the confessions for the kind of novelistic version of this read Thomas for the very kind of strictly intellectual version of it but it's the same answer namely seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness seaward of both Augustine and Thomas get their ethics from the Sermon on the Mount there they're both commenting on Jesus seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and the rest will be given unto you I think if you had shown Agustin or Thomas the Scandinavian surveys you know what well we're the happiest countries because we have the best health care yeah we have the best you know I'm a mega fun a baby best health care fine that's great but man it's such a low level understanding of what happiness consists in and and what have you told the Gustin or Thomas oh by the way these people are very unreligious he's off I don't care what they tell these pollsters trust me they're unhappy if they've shut down that dimension of life trust me these are unhappy societies no matter how happy they might be at the sensual level they're not truly in possession of beatitude oh you know all right we've looked at it from the novelistic perspective and Agustin from the philosophical perspective and Aquinas how about the personification of happiness and the figure of G K Chesterton I I know you've read a lot of Chesterton so if I had a Chesterton view happiness oh gosh I think you're right Brandon first of all I'm saying what a beautiful icon of happiness Chesterton is I've used that image of it's like every page of chessmen is like opening a bottle of champagne because it's just so lively and tasty and intoxicating you know but it's every picture of Chesterton is like that every account of Chesterton is like that that he himself embodied the joy that we're talking about and because he look at his first ball the size of gesture that he was a guy that liked sensual pleasure you know this is not some manichaean puritanical figure he liked food and drink and he liked dancing on tables after a night of eating and drinking I mean so this is a man of enormous sensual delight more to it a man of staggering intellectual attainment and and the pleasure he took right the sheer joy he took in reading these great figures and commenting on everyone from you know Dickens to Thomas Aquinas intellectual pleasure this delight and and this very deepest joy that comes from the Co from the heart from from the connection to God see that's what animated the whole of Chesterton's life was that he had the kingdom of God first and then the rest were kind of deliciously given unto him as well so he's a he's a beautiful icon of the Augustinian and two mystic paths both of which go back to Jesus I really think what's that quote though Brandon because we both stumbled on it this morning from Chesterton it's so good you must there's a quote I have it pulled up in front of me here in his study of Charles Dickens Chesterton was responsible for much of the Mackenzie and revival but he says their happiness is a state of the soul a state in which our natures are full of the wine of an ancient youth in which banquets last forever and roads lead everywhere where all things are under the exuberant leadership of faith hope and charity Wow there's I didn't know that quote before this morning there's no better summary of everything we've been talking about right state of the soul thing that's very Sicilian right it's gotta be a state of soul but look what he does there is under the leadership of faith hope and charity the theological virtues which do what they connect us to God that's what those three things do they connect us to God once that's in place they're like the leaders of a great parade once your your connection to God is clear then then what those other descriptions weren't again about the banquet yeah the wine of an ancient youth in which banquets lasts forever and the roads lead everywhere sensual pleasure and and the roads lead every word to every type of attainment and interest but all of it under the leadership of faith hope and charity the theological virtues connecting me to God I've told people this over the years if a genie came out of a bottle right or let's put it in a Christian context if an angel appeared to you and said I will give you three wishes right what do you ask for and I mean this now with dead seriousness the only thing in fact it's three is wonderful I think that you should ask for our faith hole and love because anything else you ask for under that rubric will turn to ashes eventually I mean that literally but also it'll turn to ashes in you psychologically but you asked for faith hope and love you got what Chester is talking about you got the the the quality that will now make your whole life a place of joy even when you don't have a lot of sensual pleasure or intellectual pleasure even when you're under persecution look now at the lives of the saints right so if the angel comes and asks you that's the answer say I'd like faith hope and love please and then I'll be totally happy or Thomas Aquinas in the model that I chose when I became a bishop right when the Lord Himself said what do you want Thomas non knees eat a dominate I want nothing except you good that's a guy super clear about what makes us happy let's close with this practical question suppose someone listening to this came up to you Bishop and said you know at the end of the day right now I'm not happy you know my life's a mess there's darkness swirling inside of me what should i do concretely right now to become happier perform the simplest act of love we've been using a lot of highfalutin language but go right back to the Bible again god is love faith hope and charity connect me to God that means they connect me to the source of all love right when we love we participate in the very to be of God so you're lost you're depressed you feel your you've lost your way perform even the simplest act of love which means willing the good of somebody else that's you know what that is that's the first step that's step one on the road to happiness then do another one then do another one and then do another one until eventually the whole of your life becomes simply an attempt to perform acts of love now you're on the road of happiness all right it's time now for one of our questions from our listeners today we have a question from rad Milla in Richmond California asking about why we see so much violence and competition in nature among God's creation here's the question this is Brad Miller in Richmond California there is competition and annihilation in nature I mean among animals and plants how do you reconcile this with a God of peace who created and is concealed creating the world yeah good thank you I think it hinges upon a distinction what you're describing would be just a basic dynamic we find in nature that life lives on life I remember Joseph Campbell put it that way I mean life lives on life animals consume each other and so on we consume plants which are living things etc so that happens in nature violence is something other than that violence is a is a form of cruelty it's a will desire to harm right someone else so animals aren't violent they're they can beat they kill each other you know but to say they're violent would be a kind of projection of our psychology and spirituality onto animals so I would say nature is not violent it's um it's marked by this conflictual quality as you quite rightly say but we can be violent and that is indeed out of step with god's nature and what God wants for us so I just I guess I'd make that little distinction that would bring some clarity well as you wrap up this episode if you're looking for another way to be happier I invite you to check out the brand new word on fire institute journal it's titled evangelization and culture it's a new publication we've just released Bishop do you want to say maybe a word about it I love it the first edition came out it's beautiful to look at even the pages themselves I think are beautiful the design is extraordinary the content is great a mixture of academic and spiritual and more pass it's designed for our we're in fire institute members so it's it's not so much like you know just for the general public it's for those who are willing to make this commitment to be part of the word on fire institute and the journal is providing guidance and inspiration uplift information to them so it's a that's a little plug you know join the Institute and you'll get this gorgeous journal what you come out is four times a year right brain there are three times four times a year and it's boy I think it's in self worth the price of admission but it's for those who are willing to make a commitment to become evangelizers themselves so you can learn more about it and see samples from the journal at the website word on fire show.com slash journal but as one we subscribe to many magazines and periodicals journals i can say this is by far the most beautifully designed journal i've ever seen and it doesn't compromise on intellectual substance either it's smart and beautiful so check it out word on fire show.com slash journal well thanks so much for listening we'll see you guys next week on the word on fire show [Music]

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 169,203

Keywords: Happiness, United Nations, Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, G.K. Chesterton, Aristotle, Plato, Joy, Christian, Christianity

Id: tx-aLDpsI0A

Length: 36min 20sec (2180 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 02 2019