Episode Transcript  

One

We Make Our Own Weather

There’s a funny character in one of Charles Dickens’ novels named Mark Tapley. Mark Tapley is comical because of his mission in life: to put himself in an unpleasant situation while remaining cheerful. He figures there’s no merit in being cheerful in a pleasant situation, so he wants to find an unpleasant situation, and then his cheerfulness will really be something noble. The problem is that wherever he goes, his cheerfulness contributes to making his situation more and more pleasant, until Tapley is forced to give up his quest and settle for just being cheerful in pleasant situations. 

Mark Tapley is a great illustration of Blessed Fulton Sheen’s statement, “'Each of us makes his own weather, determines the color of the skies in the emotional universe which he inhabits.” 

In other words, cheerfulness is one of the best ways to transform our lives. And, more than that, it’s the right and proper attitude of every Christian.

Two

The Right Response to the Truth of Reality

When you hear the word cheerful, you might think of somebody who tries to ignore life’s harsher realities with a superficially sunny disposition. These people always act bubbly, but because their cheerfulness is really just superficial and trite, they can’t hold it together when hard times hit. But the virtue of cheerfulness we’re talking about isn’t like that. It’s not fake. And it knows that awful things happen in life, and that sometimes, sorrow is appropriate. But Christian cheerfulness is based on the conviction that the ultimate reality, God, is good. The creation He made and the providential scheme He has arranged are good. The people made in His image are, in their design and their existence, good. And you are good. 

A Christian is willing to suffer and lament the evil which mars the goodness of creation here and there, but we know that even the temporary evil will eventually be swallowed up by the total victory of God at the end of time. So cheerfulness isn’t denial or phony. It is the resolve to maintain a default, a baseline of happiness that matches the fact that goodness is more fundamental than evil. In other words, cheerfulness is just allowing the real world to be reflected in the disposition of our souls.

Three

Cheerfulness and Courage

The virtue of fortitude, or courage, is about not giving up on what is good, even in the face of hardship. Courage says, “I will not let evil win. Not in my house. Not in my life. Not on my watch. I will keep fighting to make sure that goodness has the upper hand.” And in that sense, cheerfulness is just courage applied to our emotions and our outward self-expression. Cheerfulness is the refusal to let evil win. Which means it has to be a central battle we keep fighting. 

Cheerfulness says, “I have not given up. In fact, I’m not even losing. Not in my mind, not in my will, and not in my emotions. Because God is good, and He is always victorious, which means He will always win. I have surrendered to divine providence, and therefore I am not worried, and I am not downcast.”

Relentless cheerfulness is like relentless honesty.  It’s the brave man and woman’s decision to never let evil get the advantage. 

Four

Cheerfulness as Strength

The real test of cheerfulness is patience, when you can be cheerful in difficult situations over a long period. And this is, in some ways, the ultimate test of our strength of character.

Why is that? Why is cheerfulness a mark of strength? Well, because ultimately, fear and sadness drain our strength. It’s true, as we said, that not all sorrow is bad. Brief periods of sorrow are appropriate responses to particular evils, and can even motivate us to reform our lives or strengthen others through our compassion. But if we’re habitually fearful or sad or down, it drains our strength, our energy, and it brings other people down too.

So if you really want to be strong enough to make the most of your life, and to be a source of strength to others, then ask God for the grace to be cheerful.

Five

The Sign that We’ve Found what We Were Made for

We should always be joyful, positive, and hopeful because we possess God, we live in a good world made by God, and He made you and I and everyone else fundamentally good, and He is guiding your life and the whole world to a very good end. So, we should act that way.

Then everything around us will become brighter, and we will be stronger, and everything we do will give greater glory to God. 

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