A Look Inside the New John XXIII Montessori Center

Not one for many words these days, but here's a look at some of the interior spaces in the new John XXIII Montessori Children's Center location.

Programs got off to a good start on Tuesday, September 15th.

A wall in the Elementary environment. Still very spacious for children and materials.

Elementary environment work area with sink and floor tiles, for experiments.

Library area

Elementary Atrium

Sunlight streams through the windows into the Primary environment

Office at front entrance

Students came back ready to work!

Mental Illness: The Intimate Reality of Human Affliction

The Almost-Invisible Man?

I mentioned "depression" in a recent post. I'm glad that I did, because it's always good to talk about depression... especially when I'm depressed. It's not really so bad right now. I've been much, much worse before.

There may actually be some fairly new readers of this blog who don't know that I'm disabled. I'm not happy about this, and I prefer to say that I'm "retired" (even better, emeritus, as I have been designated though I'm only 52 years old). I try to be as "able" as possible. If anything, I push myself too hard to do certain things (while, of course, rationalizing my laziness about not doing other things -- because disabled people don't stop being human beings and therefore sinners).

But the basic point remains. A long-misdiagnosed and untreated infection is now in remission but has left permanent physical damage (which is there in spite of the fact that I may "look great" when you see me now). I talk about this in a bit more detail in my book, which has been around now for five years (that time went by fast). The book is still selling because the great subjects of struggling with human illness and human suffering never go out of date. (The most noticeable difference is in my personal stories, above all the fact that the kids are older now. If you read this blog, of course, you know that.)

The greatest challenge, however, has been my lifelong struggle with mental illness. It was more difficult to write about this in my book, but in the end I decided that I really had to bring this out in the open. I knew too much about how hard this is to deal with, how much it remains an ongoing battle, and how poorly understood it is.

Depression. What kind of a name is that for a serious disease? Sometimes I wish it had been discovered by two German scientists with unpronounceable names. Then it might have been called something like Kruezenheimer-Schlotmichenmachers Disease. People would say, "Oh wow. That sounds serious." Instead "depression" sounds like you need air in your tires. People say, "Oh, get outside. Cheer up! Smile." Which is fine, but it's not even the beginning of treatment for the very real disease of "depression."

Ok... best gameface today! ? Maybe...

In fact, you can be outside climbing mountains, and acting cheerfully, and smiling all the time, and still be suffering from major depression. Yes you can.

I have a saying: Mental illness happens to "normal" people. There are people who look "fine on the outside" who have problems you can't begin to imagine. We try to classify this constellation of afflictions: I have Depression and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Because of the episodic and varying nature of symptoms, I'm on what could be called the "bi-polar spectrum."

I know that there is a lot of baloney that passes for psychology and psychiatric medicine. There is also a lot of truth. I have tried in the past (see my book) and I continue to try to articulate and communicate in a comprehensible way something of my own experience of suffering from the real things. But I don't think I can ever really communicate how horrible it is, how relentlessly awful.

I'm very hopeful, however, that the worst of all that horror is behind me. That's why I try to articulate it: I need to speak for the sake of the multitudes of people -- people you know and love -- who are in the middle of it right now. They can't speak, and though I can't really speak for them, I do want to invite others to share in the compassion that I have for them, that I have learned from my own pain.

This is something I am able to do.

Click HERE for my book

It has been a long ride for me. I have been blessed with good doctors and therapists. I know how difficult it can be to find the right medication (or combination of medications) that help stabilize the most essential features of functional living, without intolerable "side-effects." It's hard, but it's important because we must attend to the distinctively physical, neurobiological aspect of these illnesses.

Different treatments and regimens work for different people. Maximizing brain health is a necessary part of treating mental illness, but it is not sufficient. There is no "magic pill" that takes it all away, although we ought not to underestimate the remarkable improvement that medication can provide for many people, that can aid the coping and healing process.

Really, mental illness is teaching us something about the intimate reality of the affliction of the human person. Because it is "close" to the distinctively personal sphere of human life, mental illness is making us more aware of the need to treat the whole person.

The subject of any kind of sickness, pain, or suffering in human life is always a person. Through my own life I am learning how important it is to remember this, both for myself and for others.

The Glory of the Cross

On this Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, my prayer is that every human person (beginning with my own self, who is always so desperately in need) might be touched, awakened, and changed by the light of the Glory of the Cross -- the revelation and the enduring gift of Divine Mercy that springs from the very mystery of the God who is Love.

Gilded mosaic, Marko Rupnik, Redemptoris Mater chapel (personal chapel of Saint John Paul II)

Blessed Be the Name of Mary....

Holy Mother Mary,
your name is an ocean.
You are windy and cool
and everywhere flowing.
We are moving through your water
in the starless night,
and you surround us and remain with us
in silence,
and we do not know how we are carried.
We are in a darkness deep in you,
sand grains in your great sea,
where your water caresses us,
where
slowly
we find
the lines
of our eyes.

Depression Is Not Always "Sadness"

Anybody who knows me well enough would not be surprised to learn that I'm struggling with a bit of depression in these recent weeks. It's enough to note that September has come again with its daylight and weather changes and its new routines (which are especially challenging this year). Various circumstances are piling up, making me defensive, withdrawn, and a bit more reclusive.

And there's more self-doubt. Always self-doubt, now growing in new directions as I get older and see so much of my life behind me.

What a waste it all seems to have been.

For so many years I prepared and prepared for... what? I don't really know what. I have all this knowledge and professional skill, as well as lots of experience and the capacity to express myself. It just doesn't seem worth all that much. All the time burned away by vanity. I never expected to be overtaken so soon in life by weakness of health and the passage of time.

How did I get broken? I wanted to work with young people, students, to listen to them and mentor them, to be a teacher. Now my son is at the college that I helped to build -- the place I loved so hard that it really almost killed me -- and I feel more disconnected and confused than ever. It's like, "Why am I not there?"

I'm not saying I want to be there now. I don't know (although I have so much to offer, but then again, maybe I'm not able to give in that way any longer).

So where am I? Here mostly at home, with my wife and children, and helping on the edges of my wife's work and some other projects. I am writing often, but even a part time regular commitment to my column in Magnificat stretches me. Everything is intense; everything requires a personal preparation and an entire engagement, followed by exhaustion and a slow recovery.

People my age are doing all sorts of things! I can only do a few things, and I barely have a grip on them. And then I have these "waves" of moderate depression that I have to ride out. Not exactly a confidence booster for when I do take something on.

Depression is not always about "sadness." Sometimes it feels like you're just fading into invisibility, like you're losing your substance, your energies, your spark, your connection. You might be able to drive yourself by willpower, but then you end up frustrated with so many obstacles and you get angry. You lash out at petty things, or you make yourself rigid or stoic or resigned.

So what does one do? One suffers. It helps ward off discouragement to remember that suffering has meaning, and to draw close to the sources that nurture that memory.

Our suffering is, I believe, more important in the shaping of our destiny than any of our accomplishments or any of the success of our plans.

Still, while we live we must work. I don't think I can really push myself anymore, but I do hope to be drawn by Love, and to be patient with its small steps and its silence.

The World of 25 Years Ago, as Seen By a Young Man

JJ, somewhere around 1990ish.

I have lots of printed photographs of the "old days" but it's not easy to dig one up from real (i.e. "non-virtual") storage. This fuzzy "picture-of-a-picture" will have to serve for now as a representation of the 27 year old John Janaro.

Young Janaro's journal is now a quarter century old. In September of the year 1990, while still in graduate school, I began what no doubt would have been a blog if such things were possible back then.

In fact, I never dreamed there would be anything like the media access we have today. I never thought I would have the chance to experience the instant gratification of vanity that blogging affords. Still, my journals were similar to my blog in that they were a kind of "workshop" for putting thoughts and words together.

Below is the introductory "Statement" to those pages, written probably on September 5, 1990. I don't know if I had plans to experiment with a genre or whether I was hoping—being a bright young man and all that, who expected to play a big role in the future—that posterity would benefit from my observations.

In retrospect, it's clear that my life hasn't been nearly so "interesting" (thank God for that!). But what strikes me 25 years later about these ruminations is that the basic content—the same overarching themes—remain relevant to the circumstances of the world today.

We humans are more dizzy than ever with the experience and the access to unprecedented power over the material world and even over many facets of our own humanity. We have more power, and are even more confused about how to use it well.

This is a long "statement," so here is Part I.

This would be very distressing if Young Janaro had nothing more to say, but he did. The "statement" is far from over, so look for it to be continued....

Happy Labor Day!

Mother Teresa's Action Plan

Mother Teresa has a plan for dealing with the problems in our world. Maybe we should try it.

"The way you help heal the world is you start with your own family."

"Being with someone, listening without a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love. The success of love is in the loving—it is not in the result of loving.... Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done."

"I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness."

"I can do things you cannot; you can do things I cannot. Together we can do great things."

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

"Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depths of our hearts."

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."

The Long Darkness of Sorrow Upon the World

It's hard to say "goodbye" to Summer.

But the days are getting shorter and the calendar says "September."

John Paul's new life in college is rolling along. I miss him.

The older girls are back to Chelsea Academy. Agnese is a junior this year and Lucia a sophomore. The "little kids" still have another week. They are helping Eileen to set things up for the opening of John XXIII's new campus. It's a beautiful place.

Eileen works with such dedication, and I know that what I can do is support her and try to be strong for her even when there seems to be no strength in me for anything.

Am I really powerless, or just lazy? Where is the line? Jesus, I don't know and so I will just leave it with You.

Labor Day weekend is here. By 8PM we are well into the dusk of the evening.

Life is strangely hard.

I have days of inconsolable sadness. I know it's pathological, but that doesn't mean there is no deeper connection. A solidarity with the world's sorrow runs through me.

The great world is in turmoil, and the more immediate world of those entrusted to me also suffers. I have an overly sensitive disposition, physically and mentally. Everything stings me or weighs on me with a strange amplification.

And I seem almost to want this sensitivity. I can't separate it from the peculiar intensity of my own nature. Most of it comes from a penchant for sentimentality and melodrama. But also somewhere there is an impetus of real sorrow for others, sorrow that opens up to the suffering of others near and far, that doesn't want anyone to be alone.

It scares me, this "impetus," and I try as hard as I can to run away from it into distraction, but I can't seem to escape it entirely.

But why so much? Why is this long darkness of sorrow upon the world?

Questions reach the point of exhaustion, and in the silence what remains is endurance and a heart that begs and waits and hopes....

Light at the Road's End

Trees shimmer and puddles dry in the
sun that follows an evening shower.

John XXIII Montessori Children's Center at White Oaks Farm

This is a good moment to update with a few pictures the status of the new and permanent location of the John XXIII Montessori Children's Center at White Oaks Farm.

Things were busy during the month of August and work continues and will continue until the Center opens in two weeks. The new property includes two barns and several acres of land. We're looking forward to new activities in practical life skills, gardening, farm work, and other outdoor activities.

Here are a few pictures of how things are shaping up:

View of the front entrance of the main building

From early August: main building from the back (top) and the two barns with fields and woodland area (bottom)

Front corner of main building: lots of space for environments. Below, a view of the front lawn.

The careful work of setting up the environments has gone well and continues. This Montessori child looks happy!

Kids from the new Adolescent Program working on new windows in one of the barns. They'll do lots of good work here.

Under the shade of this pine tree, the shrine for well-weathered Mother Mary takes shape.

And the Good Shepherd watches over us all.

"Self-Sufficiency" isn't Enough

We are often tempted to think that becoming a mature human person means achieving independence, autonomy, and self-sufficiency. We view relationships as merely useful interactions with other autonomous persons that help us or please us or are otherwise subordinated to our ultimate purpose of self-possession and self-affirmation.

When we have this attitude, nothing seems more alienating than sacrifice. Indeed, the claim of Jesus that our vocation consists in the sacrifice of self-giving love for God and our neighbor appears incomprehensible, if not insulting or threatening to our human dignity. The idea of losing-myself-in-order-to-find-myself appears to be a self-negating paradox.

And yet this "losing of myself" in self-abandonment to God is not something that demeans my freedom or results in the loss of my dignity as a person. On the contrary, it is the realization of freedom and of the person. For God Himself is Infinite Self-Giving Love. The Trinity reveals that total self giving is at the very root of what it means to be a person.

Jesus says, "I am in the Father and the Father is in me" (John 14:11). And we will fulfill the true meaning of ourselves as persons, we will achieve the destiny and fulfillment for which we have been created, by abandoning ourselves to Him and trusting in Him: "Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39). We don't "lose ourselves" into nothingness. We lose ourselves by belonging to God and to other persons in Him.

We have been created to become gifts, to realize our freedom as love, to live in relationship as persons, and to "find ourselves" forever in relationship to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Saint Augustine: Hunger and Thirst for More

Late have I loved You,

O Beauty ever ancient, ever new,

late have I loved You!

You were within me, but I was outside,

and it was there that I searched for You.

In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things

which You created.

You were with me, but I was not with You.

Created things kept me from You;

yet if they had not been in You

they would not have been at all.

You called, You shouted,

and You broke through my deafness.

You flashed, You shone, and You dispelled my blindness.

You breathed Your fragrance on me;

I drew in breath and now I pant for You.

I have tasted You, now I hunger and thirst for more.

You touched me, and I burned for Your peace.

~Confessions, Book X

My Kid... in College?

John Paul's college: Deja vu all over again?

John Paul started college this past weekend.

Yes, my son. A freshman in college.

This has always been a difficult time of year for me, for a number of reasons. I have to negotiate every alteration of seasons and/or routines. Change is always hard in my condition.

I have gotten better at handling these kinds of changes since my health has been pretty stable for several years now. But they can still be hard.

This time of year has also been particularly difficult since my illness because-- as the school year begins-- I am reminded once again of my unnaturally young retirement from teaching. I have always felt strange having nothing "special" to prepare for at the beginning of September. Each year, however, I find that I am letting go a little bit more. It's not such a big deal that I'm no longer a player in the drama of higher education. I've seen enough to know that I could not have survived that way.

In fact, I'm "letting go" just in time.

Just in time to take up the new task of being a parent of a college student. A Christendom College student. It's a new approach for me to an institution that I have seen from almost every other perspective.

John Paul is living on campus at least this semester, which will give him a chance to immerse himself in the atmosphere of things. He will probably have to live at home after that. In any case, our house is only a few miles from the school. It was convenient when I was teaching and it should still be convenient for him too.

The college has grown in many positive ways in recent years. I'm confident that John Paul is going to have a great time. I can't predict what it will mean for me, but it's the beginning of a new chapter in a long story. It is also the beginning of the third generation of the Janaros at Christendom.

It's a wonder that we got mixed up in this whole crazy story in the first place. It's certainly not the story that I would have written for my own life.

Instead, it's a wonderful story. I thank God that we have been blessed to be part of it.

Limits of the Sea

A Measure of Loneliness

There is always some measure of loneliness in life.

None of us should think that our spouses, children, family, or friends can fill the deep spaces where we are incomprehensibly alone. There are often times when we are brought to the awareness of that space of need that cries out inside us.

But what feels like the depths of solitude is in fact the place where we are radically held. At the heart of life, of every moment of life, there is companionship with the Merciful God. If it feels terribly empty, that is because it is the place where He, and He alone, dwells. And He is the Mystery.

We cannot contain Him, even here. He "contains" us, and is beyond us, but He is also with us. In His nearness we are born out of nothing, and our loneliness - no matter what occasions the experience of it - is always the echo of those sighing depths that yearn for His ineffable, fundamental, irreplaceable presence.

There is Someone with us in our lives, every moment. There is Someone “on the other side” of our longing, our cries, our prayers-- Someone listening, full of tender love, wanting to bestow mercy on us every moment with an attention, a gentleness, a care beyond anything we can imagine.

Light in August

The days are growing shorter, and the arc of the sun in its setting is moving back "up" the Valley (remember, "up" is south in the Shenandoah Valley). And the sun goes down around eight o'clock in the evening, which still makes for long evenings even though -- compared with their high point in June -- the days "feel" like they're getting shorter.

On this August evening, the sun was setting in a perfect spot, crowning a hilltop cresting in the distance beyond clusters of trees.

I shall never grow tired of things such as this:

Mary Queen and Mother

Mary, the Mother of God, shapes the Christian identity of the believer and the vocation of every human person. For every human person without exception has been created to know and love Jesus Christ, and in Christ to share forever in God’s very own life of Ineffable Love.

Mary, indeed, is at the center of what it means to be a Christian, which means that she is also the center of the whole human race. In accordance with the mystery of God’s magnificent, gratuitous plan of love, she brought forth into the world and continues to bring into our lives the One who concretely constitutes the true meaning of our humanity.

By cooperating with her whole being, her whole affections, her whole heart and her whole will, Mary brought into the world the only One who can give meaning to the universe. For from the beginning, the universe has been destined to be transformed by God's gift of Himself. God created the universe and everywhere permeated it with a mysterious impetus corresponding to the design of His Love. 

And in the beginning, the human being was created to be a tupos, a sign, of the-One-who-was-to-come, the One who will bring all things into unity and fulfillment in Himself.

Here and now, Mary brings to me the only One who knows the profound mystery of who I am; the One who knows, from within its very source, the gesture of Divine Love that created me, and that calls me to eternal life, to a participation in His Glory.

Saint Bernard's Love

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux died on August 20, 1153. That's 862 years ago if my arithmetic is correct. Yet he left a mark on Christian history that remains fresh and vital even today, his feast day on the Roman calendar.

Bernard de Fontaines-les-Dijon was a young nobleman who left all his wealth to join a radical new monastic movement. The movement was trying to recover the ancient Benedictine tradition of living in prayer and solitude, in poverty and by the work of their own hands.

These radical monks dwelt in the wild marshland of a place called Citeaux (from the word for cistern), near the border between medieval France and Burgundy. They were ragged and unknown when Bernard first came to them, but they were dedicated to living by the original rule of Saint Benedict. They had gone to work clearing and draining the swamp, and building a humble dwelling place to worship and pray and labor. In and through Bernard, these small seeds planted by the founding monks bore a remarkable fruit.

Though he was not the founder of the great religious order that came to be known as the Cistercians, Bernard's presence, his dedication, his wisdom, and above all his radiant holiness were fundamental to the order's explosive growth in the 12th century. He became counselor to popes and kings, peacemaker, preacher, teacher, and guide along the paths of Christian life.

His sermons, letters, and commentaries remain classics. No one since Saint Augustine had spoken so profoundly and so eloquently about the love of God, and the grace by which He enables us to love Him.

And thus he continues to speak to us today:

If one seeks for God's claim upon our love here is the chiefest: Because He first loved us.

For when God loves, all He desires is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of His love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love Him are made happy by their love of Him.

I know that my God is not merely the bounteous bestower of my life, the generous provider for all my needs, the pitiful consoler of all my sorrows, the wise guide of my course: He is far more than all that. He saves me with an abundant deliverance. He is my eternal preserver, the portion of my inheritance, my glory.

Therefore what reward shall I give unto the Lord for all the benefits which He has given me? In the first creation He gave me myself; but in His new creation He gave me Himself, and by that gift restored to me the self that I had lost. 

He is all that I need, all that I long for.

My God and my help,
I will love You for Your great goodness;
not so much as I might, surely,
but as much as I can.
I cannot love You as You deserve to be loved,
for I cannot love You more
than my own feebleness permits.
I will love You more when You deem me worthy
to receive greater capacity for loving,
yet never so perfectly as You deserve of me.

Show Us Your Beautiful Face

Breathe forth your Spirit into me,
Lord Jesus,
from your body broken into the gift of the Father's love.

Have mercy on me and on the whole world.
Let me feel in my heart the Father's love for the world,
and be united in my own human frailty and suffering
with the struggle and the seeking
of the whole multitude of human hearts
crafted in your Image.

Jesus, you love every single human person,
without exception,
especially those who are the most lonely,
the most troubled and confused,
the most burdened with affliction.
You love those who do not know you,
but whose hearts have been made for you.

I feel the burdens and sorrows
of my brothers and sisters
in my own loneliness and troubles,
in my own confusion and restlessness,
in my affliction of not loving you enough.

Jesus, deepen my love for you today.
Draw my heart,
and every human heart,
closer to you.
O Great Lover, win our hearts,
conquer our fears,
show us your beautiful Face.

We Can Make a Difference in the World!

We're all so worried about the world, about its evils and injustices. These are evil times, we say. People are full of selfishness and violence, and our political leaders are driven by destructive agendas.

It would not be realistic to deny any of these points. And indeed, we are all called to do what we can to build up the good, and to struggle against the evils that afflict our society, our communities, our families, and our own lives. There are many things we can do.

Here is something all of us can do: Pray the Rosary! Every day.

Some more specific gestures involving the Rosary are proposed at various times and places: e.g. right now many in the United States are praying a 54 day "Rosary Novena" (which began on the Solemnity of the Assumption, August 15, and will end on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, October 7). We are praying for marriage and family, peace, the recognition of the sanctity of human life, and respect for religious freedom. (Click HERE for more information about this gesture.)

This is genuine, dynamic social action. The Rosary is a powerful prayer, because Mary is our Merciful Mother and she cares about our whole lives as human beings, including our living together in society. When we present the needs of our world to her heart, and through her to Jesus's Sacred Heart, we are performing an important work of mercy.

Praying for people, praying for the needs of the world, is a vital, crucial "spiritual work of mercy," and "spiritual" does not mean unreal. Its effort and its fruits are often hidden, but by faith we know that if we pray from the heart our prayer is every bit as real and concrete as the bread we give to the hungry. In all its forms, mercy is a way of looking at reality, at others, with compassion. The world desperately needs the touch of mercy through the works of mercy.

So let's pray the Rosary!

I'm not suggesting that "piety" is a substitute for grappling with specific human problems, or a pretext for hiding from them. We must engage the circumstances of our lives. But as Christians we should know that if we don't pray, we'll be neglecting the most important dimension of our circumstances...and our lives.

Whatever our "intentions" may be, when we pray the Rosary we are first of all praying for ourselves; we are always lifting up to Jesus through Mary our own profound need for mercy and healing, and our heart's cry for the Mystery who is Eternal Love.

Pray the Rosary! Pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This is something Our Lady of Fatima asked us to do. She often asks for simple things: "Build me a church...." "Make this medal...." "Say this prayer...."

"Yes," we reply, "but the Rosary is not simple. It's hard!"

Not really. It's not so hard. What's hard is to be confronted, day after day, with the smallness of our love. We always make a bad job of the Rosary, because we don't love God very much.

So let us ask the Lord, through His loving Mother, to give us the grace to love Him more, and the grace to say the Rosary better. That won't make us perfect tomorrow. But the daily Rosary will teach us to be humble and to be faithful in one small thing. And thus we take little steps, with trust.

Let us entrust it to Mary's heart. Let us entrust everything to her, and through her, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I think one reason Mary asked for the Rosary and devotion to her Immaculate Heart at Fatima is because she wanted to draw our faith into sharper focus.

It simply won't do to turn "being Catholic" into an ideology or an abstract program, even if we have every doctrine memorized backwards and forwards. The faith must be recognized as reality, and adhered to with affection--because what we believe in is the Love of a Person. Jesus.

Mary makes things concrete. The Rosary is a way of joining with Mary in the "pondering of her heart." If we pray it, we will grow. It is an extraordinary, healing, miracle-working prayer.

Jesus calls us through Mary's heart, through this prayer. As we try to dwell on the mysteries of His life, we may find ourselves quite distracted. Still, we are searching for Him with our small hearts. We want to look at Him.

And we can depend on this: He is looking at us. He is with us in Mary's heart. He is our brother. He draws us closer to Him, and He changes us.

The "Dormition": Mary is Born into Eternal Life

Today's beautiful Feast Day is known in the Eastern churches as the "Dormition" of the Theotokos (the "falling asleep" of the Mother of God). The point of this complimentary emphasis is not to decide the theological question of whether or not Mary actually died (i.e. in the same way we do). "Falling asleep," after all, is a metaphor for death in the New Testament and among the early Christians (see e.g. 1 Corinthians 15:6). Rather, it is to focus on the unique nature of Mary's passing from this life into eternal glory, body and soul, in the fullness of resurrected life.

The icon of the Dormition often presents images of Mary's earthly life coming to an end, surrounded by the apostles. Above her is the image of the glorified Christ carrying Mary, who is represented as a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes (which are not unlike burial cloths). Just as Mary gave birth to the Incarnate Jesus in this world, so the Glorified Jesus brings about Mary's "birth" into eternal glory in a manner that is likewise fully incarnate, involving the glorification of her whole concrete humanity even "now," by anticipation, in this present age. The Theotokos is borne by her Son into the completion of Divine transfiguring life.

Thus the Kingdom has come in its fullness; the New Creation has begun, and the New Adam and the New Eve already dwell bodily in this "Paradise restored," where every aspect of death has been conquered. 

I am always struck by how much Mary is invoked in the Eastern Byzantine liturgy (which is such a contrast to the Roman liturgy, which rarely makes explicit reference to Mary, although she holds a crucial place in Western devotional practice). The presence of Mary in Byzantine prayer traditions is pervasive, above all in the Eucharistic liturgy and in the offices.

Though Eastern tradition as such did not develop Marian devotions such as the Rosary, it is striking to see how the all the elements of the Western "Hail Mary" are contained in a beautiful way in many of her liturgical prayers, as for example the prayers for the Feast of the Dormition:

"Hail, O Woman full of grace, the Lord is with you, the Lord who, because of you, bestows great mercy upon the world" (from Vespers). "Blessed are you among women and blessed is your womb that contained Christ, in whose hands you committed your soul. O pure Virgin, intercede with Christ our God that He may save our souls!" (at the Apostichon).

The Byzantine tradition emphasizes Mary as the "Panagia," the All-Holy One, free indeed from sin and corruption and also radiant with the fullness of grace by virtue of her singular accompaniment of her Son as the Theotokos.

The face of Mary fills the heart with hope:

"O you who gave birth to the Doer of Good, to the Cause of all Delights, let the wealth of his generosity abound within all souls, for since you have borne the almighty Christ, you have power to act according to your will, O you who are blessed of God!" (see Paraklesis).

Let Christ Speak to Man

The mission of Saint John Paul II is encapsulated in these brief words. "Let Christ speak to man." If we know Jesus Christ, then we know that He is what the world needs. He is what every human person needs.

He gives meaning to human life. He alone is our hope for eternity, and for building a civilization of love in this world.

With humility and trust, we must let Christ speak to man today, to our world, to human hearts... beginning with our own.

Without Love, We Can Do Nothing

"We want to build something beautiful and what emerges from our hands is a grand and spectacular monstrosity. Such is the world in which God is obscured...."

This world is our world. As Christians, we must not try to escape the significance of this fact. We have been given a gift, the gift of faith. If we know God, it is not because we are wiser or stronger than everyone else, as if by our own power we have found a technique to clear the obscurity away. It is not our own greatness that has brought us to know God. And God is not a secret that we possess that allows us to exalt ourselves over others.

We "know God" (i.e. we have a relationship with the Mystery who is the origin and fulfillment of all things) only because He has come to meet us. In the places and times of this world, we have encountered God in Jesus Christ who reached out to us through the communion of His Church.

We can only offer something to others if it is the fruit of what we have received, of the work of Jesus that awakens our hearts, heals us, changes us, makes us live as a new creation, and live together as a new people who share His love. This is the love that God wills to communicate to the whole world, to every human person. 

Without God's love, "religion" becomes just another spectacular monstrosity, and we are profoundly tempted to misuse the gift of faith to build our own misshapen constructions that only cast more dark obscure shadows upon our world. If we make the greatest arguments, and put forth the most coherent political programs and social theories, but do not have love, we accomplish nothing. We can say, "Lord, Lord," and construct megachurches, universities, and social programs; we can defend human rights and exhaust ourselves day and night fighting against evil, but without love we achieve nothing.

The world will remain in darkness. And, having hidden the lamps of His light, we will make it darker still. We will be all the more blind because we think we see.

But what is this "love"? It is God's gift that grows in us and is given through us in the measure that we surrender ourselves to Jesus in self-abandonment, offering, trust, obedience, and in the living faith that does the works of mercy, that lets others encounter the compassion of God.

On the Feast of Saint Lawrence

Martyr

A blood-red ember-glow
grows
to a fullness within my breast
as though Mars had been captured in glass,
removed from the dome of moonlit sky,
and set free below to frolic among dry sticks
at the woodland's edge.

Mars, of war.

And I am flame that rises like a fountain
from a candlewick consumed
and a raging river of fragrant wax,
and my effulgence fires the eyes of those who watch
and of those who keep their distance.

In a moment I am gone,
yielding to triumphant dawn
like the pink streaks of morning's first light,
and in the wake of my radiance
ashes
to color the hand of man.

~August 10, 1990

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This is a poem I wrote twenty five years ago in honor of Saint Lawrence, the great third century deacon and martyr of the church of Rome. It is reproduced here from my personal papers.

For My Dominican Mentors and Friends