Smile!

This week I am the principal celebrant at Mass. When I am not at the altar, I lead the community in singing the communion chant, always in Latin. When I am at the altar and therefore unable to do this, I read quietly the verse given in the Sacramentary. Tonight, I read it and couldn't help smiling (I am one who believes that our Lord has a real sense of humor, aimed especially at those who take themselves too seriously: a gentler cure for pride than humiliation).
"Look up at the Lord with gladness and smile.....[!]"
--the literal Latin phrase is more like 'turn toward the Lord and be illumined'

If you know me, you know that I often grouse about the translations in both the sacramentary and lectionary. Well, I should admit that even poor translations convey the Word of God if we allow them too.

People have often told me that I ought to smile more. I am not an unhappy person, but sometimes when I am thinking deep thoughts or in the mood of a Romantic (in the root medieval sense of the term: a character in a dramatic roman--the early precursor of the nienteenth-century novel), apparently I look frightening. I once was introduced to someone who lived in my neighborhood, and he said to me, "Oh, so you're the guy who scares everyone away by walking like a maniac."

On another occasion, a stranger, perched on a short wall marking the boundary between two properties called to me: "You really ought to smile!" My instinctual reaction was pugnacity, but as this was the time of my life where God was reconverting me to discipleship, I caught myself, smiled a big smile and said back to her, "Yes, you're right! Thank you!" To this day, I believe that she was in fact an angel.

One of the marks of the martyrs is their joy. A similar mark of the atheist is brooding seriousness. Why not "Look up at the Lord...and smile?" He came with Good News, after all.