HAPPY EASTER
“TRY TO MAKE OTHERS HAPPY.” FOR EASTER LET’S JOIN ROBERTO BENIGNI IN URGING EVERYONE TO BE HAPPY AND TO GIVE HAPPINESS.
Montalcino- Sant’Antimo
In 2014, Roberto Benigni was the protagonist of a RAI program entitled Ten Commandments. One of his most famous speeches is the one on happiness, broadcast on December 1st.
The central line is this: “Make others happy. I said ‘happy’, not ‘better’. Don’t try to make others better. There’s only one person you should try to make better: yourself. You have to make others happy, and to make someone happy, you have to be happy yourself! Be happy, be happy, and become the adult you wish you had by your side when you were a child.”
According to Roberto Benigni, happiness is a gift and an achievement. All men and women are born happy, but if they don’t work on themselves to be better, they lose their happiness and, with it, the ability to make others happy.
A statement so simple it seems banal, but it’s actually profound and particularly connected to Easter. Even those who don’t believe in Jesus as the Son of God must recognize that accepting torture and death for the love of others is something enormous.
“Love one another as I have loved you,” says Jesus, and it’s the same phrase that Benigni uses: “Make others happy.” The verb is different, but the meaning is the same, because love given generously makes those around us happy.