Sunday, Light-Hearted Sunday

Thomas Aquinas was in favor of eutrapelia,
though he doesn't look it.

In keeping with his pedagogical proclivities the priest in the Sunday sermon introduced another concept rooted in antiquity, eutrapelia. In this instance the term was Greek (εὐτραπελία), not Latin. Aristotle [bold added]

believed that what was required for proper relaxation and enjoyment was not just a social skill but a special virtue, another kind of temperateness. He called it eutrapelia (another good name for a cat!).

With this virtue a person will know that he or she must relax, and will know when and how to do it. Because it is a virtue, concerned with what is morally good, it will not allow us to enjoy ourselves at the expense of others or in a way that is wrong (destructive or obscene, for example). Like all virtues it stands between two extremes, buffoonery (stupid carry on) and boorishness (inability to take a joke). Eutrapelia strikes the right note, helping us to relax in a healthy way.

Lent with its unremitting seriousness would be too much for us common folk to endure, so Sunday is the day for taking a break with light-heartedness, humor, and eutrapelia.

Note: I drank from the cup of Aristotelian virtue by watching Coming 2 America on Amazon Prime.

Eddie Murphy produced this PG-13 sequel to his R-rated Coming to America. The humor is self-deprecating, and the racial and sex jokes are toned down from the 1988 original (but push the boundaries of wokeness in 2021).

I chuckled a lot, but I suspect many viewers won't find it as funny as I did.