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    Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life
    Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life
    Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life
    Audiobook7 hours

    Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life

    Written by James Martin

    Narrated by James Martin

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    About this audiobook

    “Between Heaven and Mirth will make any reader smile. . . . Father Martin reminds us that happiness is the good God’s own goal for us.” —Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York

    From one of America’s most beloved spiritual leaders and the New York Times bestselling author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything and Jesus: A Pilgrimage Father James Martin, SJ, comes a revolutionary look at how you can change your life and save your spirit through joy, humor, and laughter.

    Martin shares how you can strike a healthy balance between spirituality and daily life and live as a joyful believer. In Between Heaven and Mirth, he uses scriptural passages, the lives of the saints, the spiritual teachings of other traditions, and his own personal reflections to show us why joy is the inevitable result of faith, because a healthy spirituality and a healthy sense of humor go hand-in-hand with God's great plan for humankind. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMar 6, 2012
    ISBN9780062099747
    Author

    James Martin

    Rev. James Martin, SJ, is a Jesuit priest, editor at large of America magazine, consultor to the Vatican's Dicastery for Communication, and author of numerous books, including the New York Times bestsellers Jesus: A Pilgrimage, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything and My Life with the Saints, which Publishers Weekly named one of the best books of 2006. Father Martin is a frequent commentator in the national and international media, having appeared on all the major networks, and in such diverse outlets as The Colbert Report, NPR's Fresh Air, the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.  Before entering the Jesuits in 1988 he graduated from the Wharton School of Business.

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    Reviews for Between Heaven and Mirth

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    • 5/5
      This book is amazing, it gave me new perspectives about my spirituality. 100% recommended.
    • 5/5
      Love it and it affirmed my belief that Christ is a fun and joyful person ?
    • 5/5
      Chuck full of wisdom, clearly explained and interesting. Wonderful and delightful.
    • 5/5
      One of the fruits of the Spirit is joy, but it is difficult to find in many Christian churches. So many people believe being holy is being grim and serious. But Father Martin believes God has a sense of humor—and I do, too. I really enjoyed this book. In fact, I’ve read it twice. I gave the first copy away and then missed it so much, I bought another. Yes, there are jokes, but there’s a lot more. It’s entertaining but filled with wisdom as well. I’m not giving this copy away.
    • 4/5
      James Martin’s Between Heaven and Mirth attempted to persuade readers about the importance of joy, humor, and laughter in a believer’s religious life. He was sure to emphasize such virtues whether they are from Catholic, Pentecostal, Buddhist, and Hindu faith traditions, or atheistic in persuasion. To the writer one way of capturing this spirit was to be grateful. There was no need for church services to be dour, uninteresting, and always serious in nature.The author delineated the ways how mirth could be a part of a Mass. He found references of joy, humor, and laughter in the Scriptures of the different faiths. At times he referred to humorous situations in his life, and in the life of saints. So Teresa of Avila came to his mind, St. Teresa of Calcutta, Thomas Merton, and Pope John XXⅢ. Martin emphasized how the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth were hilarious when he spoke about a camel passing through the eye of a needle, the Kingdom of God as exalting the poor over the rich, a shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep in search of the lost one, and having Sarah in Genesis of the Old Testament laugh when she was told by an angel she would have a child in her old age.But Martin warned that not all humor was appropriate in religious circles. If it is intended to humiliate or berate believers they will be inappropriate. He noted that there was a time for mourning, and being in sympathy with others, and a time to rejoice. The author expressed ideas that the latter could be shown though the playfulness of believers and God, and with God and his believers. In short Martin’s book is provocative, thoughtful, and self-deprecating with its jokes. He showed that God was bent on loving us, and that way for believers to respond was with joy, humor, and laughter. Being joyful fosters good relationships.
    • 5/5
      Roman Catholic Father James Martin is incapable of writing a bad book. Between Heaven and Mirth follows his usual, engaging style of teaching theology and spirituality in a straightforward, user-friendly way. I highly recommend this book, as well as all of his previous books.
    • 3/5
      James Martin may be the best Jesuit proselytizer of the last few decades. He's enthusiastic, humble, funny, hardworking, and completely unintimidating. He writes a book every year or two, and they're all interesting and read well. As he presents himself via Facebook and appearances on the Colbert Report, I like him very much. But no one can be all things, and one thing he is not—is deep. His is a faith of simple virtues, and one of them, to his great credit, is humor. This book is his attempt to convince and reassure his readers that Christian faith need not be gloomy, and at that, he succeeds well. In fact, if you want to learn forty or sixty new jokes and funny stories about religion, this is the book for you.The trouble is that he doesn't distinguish between the general good-hearted happiness that puts a smile on your face and the deep laughter that can only really arise, at root, from a contrast with the sad. Think of the times you've laughed hardest in your life, and they were probably times when you felt a sense of relief from fear. Or perhaps the hilarity was in the slightly wicked contrast between the gravity of a situation and an irreverent comment. Perhaps your favorite jokes, like many of mine, skewer those you feel really need to be skewered. Maybe you appreciate the black humor of the soldier or the paramedic. The plain fact is that most of the best humor arises from tragedy or occurs at someone's expense. Martin doesn't seem to realize this or its implications—among them, that humor is our way of dealing with life in a wounded world, and that in the kingdom of heaven humor must be greatly diminished.In fact, the funniest jokes in this book are at someone's expense, however gently. I'm thinking of one in which a cardinal pokes fun at the speaker preceding him at a banquet, who couldn't remember a single name without looking at his notes, by himself pretending to forget the name of Jesus Christ. (It's a good story that's a little too long to relate here in full.) Or another where Pope John XXIII makes a surprise visit to the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Rome. The nun in charge of the hospital, flustered and nervous, says "Welcome, Holy Father—I am the superior of the Holy Spirit." To which John replied, "How lucky for you! I'm only the vicar of Christ!"
    • 3/5
      A good book on the joy and humor to be found in the idea that all is well. Not cruel or demeaning humor but honest laughter direct at the humanness in all of us. Sometimes a difficult read, Martin goes on too long on some subjects and becomes redundant at times, still a 3 star book.
    • 4/5
      One of my favorite religious writers takes on the misconception that religious people must always be somber and serious. Richly illustrated with examples from scripture, the lives of saints and holy people, and the author’s own life, Fr. Martin demonstrates the importance of joy and humor to the spiritual life. The book runs a little long as he often overstates the point but it’s a good read with a nice selection of jokes as well.
    • 4/5
      The nicest compliment I ever received came from a Catholic deacon at a parish in Iowa. My family and I were getting ready to move out of the area (my one-year fellowship at the local Catholic hospital was ending) and he was explaining why our family would be missed: "It's been so nice having you here. You and your family live the faith joyfully."This compliment came back to me while reading Jesuit Fr. James Martin's new book, Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life, which hits shelves today. Fr. Martin has crafted a wonderful book highlighting the rich tradition of faithful humor and joyful spirituality. He takes dead aim on the gloomy, pessimistic side of Christianity, arguing that it is not only antithetical to the teachings of Christ, but hurtful to the Church's mission of evangelization.If you're looking for a quick summary of Fr. Martin's insights, skip to chapter four (helpfully entitled "Happiness Attracts: 11 1/2 Serious Reasons for Good Humor"). This is a similar list to the keynote talk I heard Fr. Martin give at the 2011 NCCL conference. At the top of the list is the fact that happiness and humor are ways to witness to our faith:"Joy, humor, and laughter show one's faith in God. For Christians, an essentially hopeful outlook shows people that you believe in the Resurrection, in the power of life over death, and in the power of love over hatred. Don't you think that after the Resurrection Jesus's disciples were joyful? 'All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well,' as the fourteenth-century mystic Blessed Julian of Norwich said. For believers in general, humor shows your trust in God, who will ultimately make all things well. Joy reveals faith."This may seem self-evident, but the number of dour and humorless Christians would seem to indicate that it bears repeating. Fr. Martin goes to on extol humor's virtues in the area of health, spirituality, hospitality, play, and interpersonal relations.What's more, the book is funny. Fr. Martin sprinkles jokes and humor from the saints liberally throughout the text, including stories about Pope John XXIII; Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ; Dorothy Day; various Jesuit saints; and, of course, Jesus!In fact, I think his look at humor in Sacred Scripture (both Old and New Testament) will be especially eye-opening for many people. As Fr. Martin points outs, it is easy to overlook the humor in the Bible:"We've simply heard the stories too many times, and they become stale, like overly repeated jokes. 'The words seem to us like old coins,' [Elton Trueblood] writes, 'in which the edges have been worn smooth and the engravings have become almost indistinguishable.' Trueblood recounts the tale of his four-year-old son, who, upon hearing the Gospel story about seeing the speck of dust in your neighbor's eye and ignoring the log in your own,laughed uproariously. The young boy readily saw the humor missed by those who have heard the story dozens of times."Besides the Bible Fr. Martin recommends numerous books on humor and spirituality (he admits up front that his book is not intended to be an exhaustive treatment of the subject) and even gives a list of his favorite funny movies. A quick note about the book's intended audience: some Catholics may wonder why a book about spirituality by a Catholic priest includes insights from other Christian traditions as well as Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. Fr. Martin writes for a broad audience, and I hope that his Protestant and non-Christian fans from the Huffington Post and the Colbert Report will pick up the book; I think many would be surprised at the relevance of its subject.I heartily recommend Between Heaven and Mirth for anyone interested in furthering their own spiritual journey — or just looking for a few new jokes from their repertoire. The Church's rich tradition of faithful joy is a treasure that deserves to be shared, for humor is a gift from God.Or, as Hilaire Belloc so succinctly put it:Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,There's always laughter and good red wine.At least I've always found it so.Benedicamus Domino!Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book for free from TLC Book Tours.