A Heart Full of Maternal Love

Mary, our Merciful Mother. Where would we be without her? 

When all else is plunged into darkness, when life is confusing and overwhelming, when we don’t know what to hold onto, there remains this Mother’s love, this Heart that draws close to us and gives us maternal tenderness even when we don’t know it: when all we hear is our own cries and all we feel is our own agony. 

A mother’s care is not always appreciated or even noticed by those who benefit from it, but it changes their experience, and hopefully they can look back years later and see how a mother’s tenderness carried them through the perils (as well as the joys) of growing up. The women who gave birth to us (or adopted us with the openness of maternal commitment) have been essential to us, and they have loved us even if they themselves are flawed people—even if they may also have harmed us in some ways. There are always people who can welcome, care for, and make a difference to those who are wounded; many of these people are also women who are dedicated doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, physical therapists, caregivers, social workers, psychologists, counselors, teachers, or other professionals whose work is centered on attention to the human person. In principle (and increasingly in practice) the whole world of human achievement is open to women. Perhaps, in time, women in society may help shape ideals of achievement and success in ways that are more personalistic and communitarian, more patient and collaborative, more sustainable, less belligerent, more kind

Women are the great protagonists of hospitality, builders of environments where healing and works of mercy flourish. And now that we have reached the moment in history when women’s dignity is being recognized in its fullness, and as women rightly take up positions in every place in society, we all can have a great hope for the future: that women will bring their special “maternal” magnanimity, tenacity, and tenderness everywhere, so that this gigantic, technologically explosive, conflicted, alienating world might be “humanized” in new ways. Women will be leaders in building a civilization of love that places the gift of the dignity of the human person at the center of social life. 

This is a hope we must stir up even now, even in these difficult times of tumultuous change. We are living in the midst of a baffling, turbulent period, taken up into the ambivalent emergence of a new global epoch full of the exponential increase of human power, bringing raw new opportunities and unimaginable dangers. We need the strength of women, if the world is not to perish. The great women of our time have already begun a work that—if it is to take shape at all—may take many generations and endure many setbacks: the work of building a civilization of love. 

The Blessed Virgin Mary is always working, and she works with her maternal solicitude for the realization of the whole human vocation, which is that we become brothers and sisters of her Son. We are all her children. I have no hesitation in speaking “universally” here, because Mary is the mother of each and every one of us. She nurtures, fosters, encourages, and accompanies each one of us “in the Spirit”—in the beginning, growth, and fulfillment of our unique and personal vocation according to God’s definitive GIFT (His grace) that decides the real, ultimate meaning of existence, of every event in history, every thing, and every one of ourselves. The Word of the Father—through whom and for whom all things have been created—took flesh in the Virgin Mary’s womb, through the unbounded freedom of Mary’s “yes” to God’s wise and loving plan. He was “born of the Virgin Mary.” By virtue of His humanity, He who is God—He who is the Person of God the Son, begotten by God the Father from all eternity in the Mystery of the Trinity—He assumed our human nature as His own (Christ is true God and true man); He entered our history and “took flesh” specifically by becoming Mary’s Son. She is therefore affirmed in ancient Christian tradition and teaching as “Mother of God,” Theotokos. And her motherhood accompanied her Son Jesus to the cross with a love joined to His love for us in His redeeming death which is our salvation. 

Many Protestant Christians and others are perplexed by the Catholic (and Orthodox) appreciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary as our Mother. Nevertheless, the problems and misunderstandings that people have about Mary do not put her off. People sometimes refer to their difficulties by saying, “I have a ‘problem’ with Mary.” To which I am inclined to respond (without being glib or dismissive), “Don’t worry. You may have a ‘problem’ with Mary, but Mary does not have a problem with you.” Mary is a real person, with a real human heart that embraces each one of us. Her motherhood is a fact. Certainly, we wonder about this, and want to understand how it coheres with (and even springs from) the fact that Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior and the source of all redeeming grace. Catholic teaching is abundantly clear on this point (which is succinctly expressed in the Catechism, nn. 963-975). Yet, while endeavoring to explain in greater detail the role of Mary in our lives and clear up many misconceptions about what Catholics believe, we cannot deny that there is a mystery—a beautiful, gratuitous mystery—to Mary’s unique and universal “spiritual maternity.” She transfigures—and thereby also fully vindicates—the fundamental human significance of motherhood and maternal love. 

Therefore, we have no reason to fear Mary. She is the greatest of mothers. She loves and cares for all her children. What a joy it is that we can always turn to her. She is close to each one of us, and all the ardor of her Son’s redeeming, healing, and transforming love burns in her all-holy, Immaculate Heart. 

Mary is the Mother who will never fail us. She will bring us to Jesus and make us know Him more intimately. She will walk the path with Jesus even with those who don’t realize she’s doing it, and—I hope—with many many others who don’t yet realize that it is Jesus that they really seek and love through their many-faceted endeavors to adhere to the Mystery of reality and fulfill their destiny. And Mary will enlighten us along the way, in whatever we are called to accomplish and endure in this life, to live as children of the Father, as brothers and sisters of Jesus: as her children. She will show us, in simple, humble ways, how to lay the foundations for a civilization of love.

Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Theotokos, All-Holy, Merciful Mother, we entrust ourselves to the strength and tenderness of your Immaculate Heart.

Jesus, Meek and Humble of Heart

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

Saint Anthony of Padua, Pray For Us!

Buona Festa di Sant’Antonio di Padova!

My Dad was Walter Anthony Janaro, as is my brother. Dad seemed more drawn to Anthony as his patron saint. No one in the family could ever remember how a German name like “Walter” made its way down to Naples and the Neapolitan Janaro family (though it was also my paternal grandfather’s name, and perhaps had precedents before that). There is a “Saint Walter” around in European history (at least one), but the Janaros don’t know much about him except that he was from somewhere north of the Alps.

I suspect the name “Walter” has long history with our clan, dating back to the days when Italy was “just” a peninsula that saw many diverse ethnicities on its shores, who came as pilgrims to see of Rome and—at various times—rulers after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

On the other hand, “Antonio” needs no explanation as an Italian name. For 800 years, this early Franciscan saint has been known and loved by the Italian peoples of every region on the peninsula where he preached and served for most of his life in the 13th century (though Antonio himself came from Coimbra in Portugal).

His feast day is June 13.

Seven Years Later: Thank You Christina Grimmie

It has been seven years since Christina Grimmie was called home to God. It was a moment like so many other moments in the life of the 22-year-old singer, musician, and YouTube pioneer: a moment in which she stretched out her arms to “welcome a stranger” at an open meet-and-greet after a concert in Orlando, Florida on the night of June 10, 2016. Her final gesture was an offering of unconditional love.

Dear, dear Christina… I wish I had known you better in this world. It was only after being stunned the next morning by the news of an awful tragedy — and seeing the incredible outpouring of sorrow and tribute from so many people on Twitter, including some of the most famous people in the music industry — that I really began to pay attention to all that you had given in your brief life: all the amazing music and all the ardor of your great heart that continually reached out to encourage and inspire people.

Dear Christina, seven years ago you were taken from this world, and I stand in solidarity with all those who continue to mourn or feel the pains of grief (especially your Dad, your brother, family, friends, and all the “frands” of Team Grimmie who were so precious to you). Yet for me, personally, this day marks not only sorrow. Seven years ago, your witness began to change my life. In a gradual but steady way during that Summer of 2016, you became a great inspiration to me. And over the past seven years, you continue to grow more important to me, and more relevant to my life. 

You continue to “help” me to see meaning in my suffering, and encourage me to trust in God even when terrible things happen. You have awakened my heart to a hope for the younger generations (including my kids’ generation) that I didn’t have before. You have helped me to see that the future of our society is not without hope, that the light still shines in the darkness, in deep places of darkness that I thought it couldn’t penetrate. I can’t point to any particular video or song or gesture and say “there it is; that’s what makes Christina Grimmie different — that’s what makes her so special” in this personal sense (musically it’s a different story — musically you were prodigious, incredible, a legend, but that’s obvious to anyone who will listen). But it’s the “whole Christina” who is extraordinary as a person: it shines through in your whole self, not only your faith, generosity, and openness to people, but also in the countless small gestures and tenderness that we can still revisit in your YouTube and social media archives.

You had many great talents and outstanding qualities, but you were also funny, vulnerable, and genuine in your struggles to become a fully grownup woman (just like my own daughters—each in her own way—are doing now). You worked very hard on your music and in mentoring young people. You were never self-absorbed, and never fake. You were confident in your craft but also self-effacing in your overall attitude, and always full of gratitude. Above all your faith shaped you, it was the joy in all you did, it was the impetus that was transforming all your concerns into a vocation to love and give yourself, to go deeper, to love the Lord and others (especially your frands) radically, beyond the “limits” of ordinary human love. And I think that extraordinary love moved you and was with you in the end…

Christina Grimmie, you were a human being, deeply human but also different — by which I mean “different” in a way that points toward what my own heart yearns for: you loved greatly, you gave of yourself and welcomed and affirmed others with such vitality, because you had a powerful awareness of the immenseness of God’s love for you in Jesus Christ, and of God’s love for everyone. That’s what struck me about you, and after watching many videos and reading many posts it finally got through to me, that your life was suffused with an extraordinary, even heroic, quality.

Because of you, Christina Grimmie, I am a little less afraid of my own death. I am a little less afraid to open my arms and welcome whatever God offers me each day, to welcome each moment with love.

Thank you, Christina. Thank you for everything.

He is Always Patiently Working in Our Lives

Jesus is really at work in our lives. We believe this in faith. We believe in His particular love for each one of us and for every person. 

He is present in this moment, and—whatever circumstances we may be facing—He is using them as elements of a truly personal dialogue with us. 

God became man in order to seek out each one of us; He has personalized the whole, vast, apparently random and chance-filled universe. He takes all the multitudes of forces that come together and make up the situation of reality at any given moment, and fashions them—from all eternity—into a love song that He wants to sing to each of us personally. 

There are no "coincidences" in real life. In the ultimate truth of things, which has to do with their place in God's plan, no event is insignificant; no situation we find ourselves in can be called "meaningless," because God in Christ has chosen to dwell in this world, and to shape everything into the possibility to discover Him through love, through joy, through suffering freely embraced, through sharing His mercy. 

It is not just in some distant, far-off way that we long desperately for God, while otherwise passing-the-time in this world enduring our apparently aimless and insignificant lives. God has come to us, to dwell with us (mysteriously but really) in every circumstance so as to call us to recognize His presence, to draw us to Himself—even through the greatest obscurities, afflictions, humiliations—and to evoke from us the response of confidence and love. 

He is here, with us, shaping everything into a path for our steps. At the heart of the experience of life there is this marvelous dialogue that uses everything for its language. As Saint Thomas Aquinas said, "the universe is a word between God and the soul."

The Trinity: “God Himself is an Eternal Exchange of Love”

“Thus the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit testify that they are in no way disunited in power, even though they are distinguished in persons, because they work together in the unity of the simple and immutable substance. How? The Father creates all things through the Word, who is his Son in the Holy Spirit; the Son is he by whom all things are perfected in the Father and the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is he by whom all things flourish in the Father and Son, and so these three persons are in the unity of inseparable substance; but they are not indistinct among themselves” (Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias).

Yesterday was the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, and here is Saint Hildegard (the 11th century Benedictine abbess declared a “Doctor of the Church” by Pope Benedict XVI) seeking—like so many others had tried before and would continue to try—to ponder the “luminous darkness” of this most august mystery and find words to speak of His glory that have some meaning for us.

I find the Catechism most helpful here:

“God's very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange” (CCC 221).

Tiananmen Square: China Still Censors the Truth

🕯#NeverForgetTheTiananmenSquareMassacre

In 1989, nearly all the vehicles on the streets of Beijing, China were still bicycles. But on June 4, 1989, the streets were filled with tanks and armored personnel carriers. On that dark day, the Chinese Communist PartyState invaded its own national capital to crush defenseless students who were gathered in Tiananmen Square to plead with their government for human freedom and for respect for the dignity of every human person. Thousands died that day, including fleeing students who were shot in the back. Today the CCP still blocks and censors all information related to June 4, 1989 from their own people in mainland China.

Hong Kongers held huge memorial candlelight vigils in memory of the protestors on June 4th every year until 2021. Under the new CCP-dictated “National Security Law,” however, they have been banned. Holding candles in a park, apparently, is now defined as an “attempt to subvert State Power.” Meanwhile Hong Kong’s own protest heroes and heroines remain in jail, and some await final conviction and sentencing for the “shocking, State-subversive crime” of demanding political guarantees of recognition and respect for their humanity and their children’s humanity.

We must never forget. May God have mercy on China, and on the whole world.

The “Special Genius” of Uganda’s Martyrs

June 3rd commemorates the 22 Catholic martyrs of Uganda (Kingdom of Baganda, East Africa, 1886). They were canonized during the Second Vatican Council on October 18, 1964. The original “canonization icon” is hard to find in a high resolution photo. I have a beautiful, large, framed print of this image, and it was on my wall in my office (I think), but that was long ago, and—like so many other things—I don’t know where it is right now. Probably in storage — I have maybe a dozen or so books/icons/objects/etc in storage that are priceless to me; the problem is that they are buried in truckloads of ABSOLUTE JUNK, stored in several different places. In addition to having OCD (which is managed but never cured), I also just like to keep stuff, but I’m also absent-minded and disorganized.

Anyway, the original icon is full of African and universally Christian symbolism, and is very striking. I have attempted to “tune up” an originally tiny photo from the internet; much is lost, but perhaps some sense of the beauty comes through.

At the canonization, Pope Saint Paul VI pointed to the ideal of evangelization that—in bringing people to Jesus— also communicates “a new form of vitality which tends to release the spiritual powers and latent talents of the local population and so set people free, helping to give them a mature power of self-determination, and enabling them to express more fully, in their own idiom of art and culture, the special genius they have.”

Justin Martyr: The First “Christian Philosopher”

By the second century Saint Justin Martyr—whose feast is observed on June 1—had already taken up the exposition of the harmony between reason and faith. As a philosopher, Justin stressed that Christianity was the fulfillment of everything that was true and good in the thought of the ancient Greeks, whose intellectual heritage had been adopted by the Rome of his day.

Justin was born about the year 100 a.d. As a young man he became a seeker after wisdom—literally a “philosopher,”—and he traveled from his native Palestine to Ephesus where he studied under both the Stoics and the Platonists. Fascinated by the Stoic doctrine of the immanent and pervasive presence of the Divine logos giving rationality to the whole cosmos, and also by the Platonist understanding of the natural kinship between the soul and the Transcendent Good, Justin was nevertheless dissatisfied by incompleteness of the philosophic quest. 

He was also amazed by the remarkable courage and joy of the Christian martyrs he had seen dying for Christ while he was still a pagan. This admiration, along with the guidance of a Christian friend, led him to read the Scriptures. He soon discovered that Jesus Christ was the fullness of Wisdom, who had become incarnate in order to communicate the whole truth to man. Christ was the Goodness and Beauty sought by the Platonists, and the Divine Logos sought by the Stoics.

Justin converted to Christianity, but he continued to wear the "cloak" of a philosopher. He traveled to Rome where he opened a philosophical school that attracted numerous disciples. Finally, as his name indicates, he suffered martyrdom in Rome in the year 165.

Justin taught that Christianity was the fulfillment of philosophy and the correction of its errors. The philosophers had discovered portions of the truth, on account of the Divine Logos who enlightens the intellect of every man. But because they did not perceive the whole of the Logos—the whole of the Divine Wisdom—they contradicted one another and fell short of the full truth. Jesus Christ, however (said Justin) is the "Whole Logos" incarnate, manifesting in his flesh the fullness of the Divine Wisdom and making this Wisdom accessible not just to philosophers but to everyone. 

Thus, Saint Justin concluded, Christian revelation is "more noble than all human teaching." It alone is the complete truth. In his Second Apologia, he states, "Whatever has been spoken aright by any men belongs to us Christians, for we worship and love, next to God, the Logos which is from the unbegotten and ineffable God... For all those writers were able, through the seed of the Logos implanted in them, to see reality darkly. For it is one thing to have the seed of a thing and to imitate it up to one's capacity: far different is the thing itself, shared and imitated in virtue of its own grace" (II Apology, ch. 13).

Justin the Christian philosopher also emphasized something that no philosopher had ever stressed before: the meaning of history. Since the fullness of Divine Truth had become incarnate as a man in history, Justin concluded that the whole of human history had been a preparation for Him. This was clear enough in the case of the Jews; one could demonstrate that their prophecies were fulfilled in Christ. However, Justin was equally certain that philosophy had been given by God to the Greeks in order to prepare them for the Gospel. Justin saw the Incarnation as the center of God's plan for all of history, a plan that was destined to be fulfilled in the resurrection of the body and the renewal of all creation.

In presenting Christianity as the fulfillment of the philosophic quest of the Greeks, Saint Justin Martyr did not invent new speculations of his own, but sought to convey faithfully what God had really accomplished in history. We should not be surprised, therefore, that even in the middle of the second century Saint Justin would place great emphasis on tradition.

Because Christianity is an adherence to a man in history—to the things he said and did and to the society he constituted—it was crucial from the very beginning to receive and hand-on faithfully the authentic testimony of those He sent forth to bear witness to His name. Thus the measure of genuine Christian thinking and the anecdote to every poisonous distortion of the Christian message could only be fidelity to the apostolic tradition. In his famous account of early Christian liturgical and sacramental practice, Justin indicates that it was already common practice in the middle of the second century for the "memoirs of the Apostles" to be read at the Eucharistic celebration (See I Apology, ch. 67).

It is beautiful to begin the month of June by commemorating the “first Christian philosopher”—the first of a long line of philosophers who acknowledge that human reason (and all of reality) finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

Pentecost 2023: “Holy Spirit, Heal Our Wounds…”

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Sequence of Pentecost:

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Come, Holy Spirit, come!

And from your celestial home

Shed a ray of light divine!
Come, Father of the poor!
Come, source of all our store!
Come, within our bosoms shine.
You, of comforters the best;
You, the soul’s most welcome guest;
Sweet refreshment here below;
In our labor, rest most sweet;
Grateful coolness in the heat;
Solace in the midst of woe.
O most blessed Light divine,
Shine within these hearts of yours,
And our inmost being fill!
Where you are not, we have naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought,
Nothing free from taint of ill.
Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
On our dryness pour your dew;
Wash the stains of guilt away:
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill;
Guide the steps that go astray.
On the faithful, who adore
And confess you, evermore
In your sevenfold gift descend;
Give them virtue’s sure reward;
Give them your salvation, Lord;
Give them joys that never end. Amen.
Alleluia.

The Gift is Ever Greater…

If we sacrifice the gifts that have been given to us—if we “give away” all we have and all we are, for the love of God—it can sometimes feel like we are leaping into the abyss of the Mystery, beyond anything we can comprehend. The faith that assures us, the hope that guides us, the love that impels us sometimes seem so faint and small. We feel that we are on the verge of being overwhelmed.

But we are never abandoned. The signs of the Lord’s steadfast love renew themselves on the journey of our lives. Even in this world, we catch glimpses of the miracle of endurance of God’s love, and the fruitfulness of our participation in His giving. Sometimes we see this through recognizing the simple ways that goodness grows within history through our sacrifices. In the measure God knows we need to persevere on the path toward our destiny in Him, He allows us to experience along the way something of the human richness of this truth that “in giving we shall receive”—that His gift is ever greater.

I am grateful for being blessed—as I grow older—to see anew the wonder of all existence through the eyes of a child. 

Maria! 

What a total, unique, gratuitous miracle she is! I could never “fabricate” through my own power, through all the efforts of my mind to control reality, anything like this new little person. 

Now she is nearly two years old. She is learning new words every day (and she loves to chatter). She knows the different colors of the crayons. She can recite her “ABCs” and count to at least twelve (or at least she knows the letters and numbers, more or less). And so many other things….

Holy Spirit, come. Open my eyes every day to the wonder of your ever-greater gifts, to confidence that the Risen Jesus is renewing all things, and that every pain and struggle and sorrow will bear fruit beyond all measure.

“They Grow Up Fast”—Family Life (& All of Life) is “Sacrifice”

This is from a Facebook post on May 26, 2009. If you are as old as I am, you think “2009 … wow, that was fourteen YEARS ago?!” But, in fact, a lot has changed since 2009. These faces have certainly changed!!

They have changed, and we have changed. The noise level in the house has changed into a kind of “silence” that Eileen and I are still trying to “get used to.” Four of these kids are adults now (and two of them are already married!), and each one of them has a unique personality and vocation. Each one also has the fragility of the human condition. Each has their own problems and sufferings too. Life is hard. 

Don’t envy the people with smiling pictures of their smiling families on social media. Everyone is suffering, everyone is wounded. And human parents who love their children still “worry” about them and suffer-with them, no matter where they are.

The Lord gives us gifts, so that we in turn can give them. We journey toward our destiny through sacrifice, by which the gifts we have been given mature and realize themselves. And along the course of our journey—especially as it approaches its end—we must give everything, or else learn to give by the mysterious process of being divested of everything. Every person is utterly poor at the moment of death. 

It is only through sacrifice that we can “store up treasure in the Kingdom of God” — the ultimate fulfillment that is hard for us to picture to ourselves in this present life. We know “in part” (an often obscure “part”) through faith, hope, and love for the One who has already begun His reign in His Father’s Kingdom, who gives us His Spirit to keep the light of joy and trust burning even in the “darkness” of this giving-everything-away, this losing-ourselves-in-order-to-find-ourselves — in our journey toward that ultimate, transfigured fulfillment of our true selves and of everyone and everything in the unveiled glory of the Mystery who is Infinite Gift and Infinite Love. 

We glimpse all of this now through faith in the testimony that has been handed down to us and the Spirit who dwells in us, who reminds us that sacrifice is not despair, or alienation, or nihilism; sacrifice is love that abandons everything into the embrace of the One who has loved us first. Thus, sacrifice holds fast to hope in the promise of the ultimate meaning and fulfillment of our poor human lives. We know that sacrifice is vindicated, because we follow a Man who is Risen from the dead!

A Dim Yellow Sun in the Evening Sky

There were lots of what appeared to be thin clouds and haze on the horizon this evening. This is a photograph of THE SUN over the tree line at 7:48 PM (some 40 minutes before sunset). I know, it’s not good to stare at the sun even when you “can,” so mostly I took snaps on my phone. But even these glimpses struck me as very unusual.

Later I learned the surprising explanation. Wildfires in Western Canada have been going on for several weeks. Changing weather conditions drew the smoke down through the USA, all the way to the East Coast today (May 24, 2023).

The world is intrinsically interconnected, indeed.

“The One Who Fills All Things”

What we believe in, hope for, pray for, is a mighty thing. Because we are distracted, and because it is not the kind of “might” that fits the pattern of power as we conceive of it in this life, we easily forget about the transcendent and all-present omnipotence of Infinite Love who creates and redeems us. It is a mysterious “power,” which is beyond our comprehension—even though we yearn for it, and are made for it.

But our hope is not in the power of an ideology that we have to draw from within ourselves and measure by our own thoughts. The “power” we depend upon is a Person, a person we encounter, a person we love, because He has come to be one of us, to share our life and death that we may share the fullness of His resurrection. We are “His body,” united with Him, and—let us never forget—“members” of one another in Him. We belong to Him who loved us first, and will love us to the end. This mystery reduces me to silence, and to an attention and gratitude I cannot express.

“May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him. May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might, which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way” (Ephesians 1:17-23).

Saint Bernadine: The Love of Jesus for All

May 20 is the feast day of Saint Bernadine of Siena (1380-1444), a Franciscan born in the same year that his great compatriot—the Dominican Saint Catherine of Siena—died. 

During one of the most openly corrupt and violent periods in the history of Western Christendom, Bernadine worked ardently and tirelessly to preach reform and reconciliation throughout the Italian peninsula. His witness brought many people to conversion, and restored harmony in places that had been dominated by seemingly implacable factions waging what amounted to civil wars that brought great hardship to the poor and powerless members of the population. 

His words resonate in our own time, in the darkness of so many vicious and combative places in the world, where God is ignored, love has grown cold, and the poor and defenseless suffer the consequences of so much human malice, negligence, and chaos which inevitably bring war and violence in their wake.

Bernadine reminds us today that it is through prayer that we become instruments of peace. Certainly, issues need to be addressed and justice needs to be done, but it is the "energy" of the humble love of those who beg for Christ, who surrender to God's love, that sustains all human efforts to seek healing, recompense, reconciliation, and lasting peace. The begging heart opens a "space" for the Lord to pour out all the glory of His unconquerable love, the gift of eternal life that we have all been created to receive.

"Prayer extends not to oneself alone but to the entire city. Let each one ask grace from God for the love of Jesus, notwithstanding that you are a sinner. And because we all have need of the grace of God, we must all ask it. Therefore I say that you should tell your sons and your daughters to recite five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys, to the end that the good God shall send unity and concord among all people, and that he may put into the hearts of all that which shall be above all to the glory of God and the salvation of their souls" (Saint Bernadine of Siena).

The Ascension of Jesus

Marcos de la Puerta, “Ascension” (undated).

In the Silence, I Can Hear the Rain…

These are still silent moments for me. I feel like I am accompanying some tremendous grief that weighs upon another person or a group of people somewhere. They may be near or far (or both), but I do not know their pain or it source. I only sense that there is something more important for me right now—some combination of vigilance and powerlessness—that has placed a “hold” on my writing about so many things that I wish to write about.

Often there is rain in May around here. The other day, I took shelter under a tree during a shower. The silence in me was attuned to all the sounds of birds and raindrops and found them consoling for reasons I didn’t fully understand.

Spring and the vitality of the birds. We are usually suffocated by the noise we make or choose to be immersed in. Here are a few gratuitous sounds that silence invites us to listen to, reminding us of the time of the day, the season, the world that surrounds us, the remarkable gift of our own breathing:

More “Shenandoah Spring 2023” By JJStudios

Mid-May seems a good time to update the digital art portfolio. Still wet, with some warmer temperatures that have drawn out our “Asian transplant” flowers that have long been common in Virginia gardens and woodlands. The trees are fresh and vibrant hues of green.

Some works in various “styles”: (1) “Waxing Moon in May;” (2) “Bright Breaks Through the Haze” on one of the bends of the river; (3) “Rhododendrons in Bloom;” (4) “Peony.”

“Stand By Your Gifts”

I am grateful that the Easter Season continues, and that we continue to be instructed, enlightened, and sustained by the presence of the Risen Christ celebrated in the liturgy of these days. How powerful and beautiful is this humble prayer that God—who has redeemed us and lifted us up in Jesus Christ—might “stand by his works,” indeed “stand by his gifts” by bringing them to fulfillment. Which, of course, our infinitely good, loving, and merciful Father will do for us if we remain with him, through the Risen Jesus, in the Holy Spirit. 

We pray here, in a sense, that we might persevere in our adherence to the God who has loved us in Jesus, enduring in that most firm hope that he will give us what we need in every circumstance of life, confident that he will never abandon us.

[Collect Prayer for the Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter.]

Christina Grimmie: Only Love Conquers Violence

As we mark six years and eleven months since Christina Grimmie was taken from this world, we find ourselves especially in need of remembering the precious gift of her life. In the midst of the many sorrows of our times, we can look to her luminous joy—to the way she embraced every day with gratitude and expectation, and extended love and compassion to the people entrusted to her, both near and far.

We know these things because Christina used her musical talent, her splendid singing voice, and her pioneering presence on YouTube to share her joy, gratitude, and love with us. Her legacy remains for us as proof that her value as a person is immeasurably greater than all the reckless and destructive forces of this world, and thus she encourages us to recognize the ineradicable dignity and unique value of every human person.

Christina’s sense of wonder in front of the mystery of reality and her confidence in the ultimate victory of goodness and love—rooted in her faith in Jesus Christ—help us to stand in front of these present days with courage and hope even as the dark clouds of violence seem to grow more ominous all around us. Her compassion, her open arms, remind us to open our hearts in compassion to one another and to so many who are suffering right now.

Many people from many places all around the world live with this violence every day. The wars, the bombs, the atrocities, the executions, the mass-graves, the refugees driven from homes that no longer exist, the migrants fleeing from poverty, chaos, and oppression in their native lands. From Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Central and East Asia, and—of course—Ukraine, the cries of the innocent are heard every day.

And here in Christina’s home country—the United States—we heard the cries again, five days ago, at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas.

Cries and gunshots.

Eight people died and six more were hospitalized with bullet wounds. Hundreds more were traumatized in moments of terror and helplessness that they will remember for the rest of their lives, before police finally took down the shooter and ended his killing rampage.

“Why does this keep happening?”—people in the U.S.A. ask themselves. This country, my country, is a good country, but something is going terribly wrong in our society. Many things are wrong with the ways we relate to one another. And it seems like it’s just getting worse.

But our first thoughts must be for the real human beings who are suffering because of this most recent catastrophe. We must weep and mourn for the victims (three of whom were children), and we must not let their families suffer alone. Here especially, Christina Grimmie’s awareness of the needs of human persons and her willingness to accompany them “with love” has an ongoing significance in the work begun by her family and friends: the Christina Grimmie Foundation , which is dedicated to providing material and personal support to the families of the victims of gun violence. See the website for ways to participate in supporting people in the distress that remains for them long after the news reports move on.

Christina Grimmie inspires us to the conviction that only love can overcome violence. This victory will one day be made manifest to the whole world and all of history. Yet even now, it is not entirely hidden. It shows glimpses of its light whenever we begin to love one another as brothers and sisters, when we forgive one another, when we reach out in works of mercy to people who are suffering—in love and solidarity with them as persons and attention to meeting their concrete needs.

Love conquers violence. Christina’s whole life witnesses to this, and her legacy perpetuates this witness in many ways, significantly in the Christina Grimmie Foundation, where it is a light passed from person to person in the gathering darkness—a small light, it may seem, yet it burns trusting in the promise that the darkness will end finally with the dawn of an unending day.

Sometimes It Is Good to be Silent

I am finding it difficult to write at the present time. I am feeling more tired and achy than usual. But it’s not just that. I’m still learning many things—but as my awareness grows, I also have to face the fact that I have passed most of my life in immaturity and ignorance. I feel like I need to be quiet (or quiet-er) right now.

I am 60 years old, but still more perplexed than wise. Death may be around the corner, or it may be 20 or more years away. I have seen so much in this life and pondered it, and I think I still have something to offer on the path of history. But nothing seems clear at the moment.

In the past five years I have been through a lot of changes, some of them very difficult. On the one hand, I’m more firmly convinced that “change” is essential to life. Yet sometimes change seems more terrifying than ever. We are all immersed in gigantic and rapid change all over the world, and many people experience it through the sudden ruptures caused by violence. But we all learn—each in our own personal way—that the endurance of changes “beyond our control” lies at the heart of every human drama.

It was really hard to watch my parents die during these recent years. They had all the helps and comforts of modern medicine. They were not in physical agony. But after 80+ years of living—years that were not lacking in sufferings of many kinds—they were brought down, finally, to a level of powerlessness in the end that I had never imagined I would ever see. Well, I can’t explain what I mean, but I have realized in a far more intimate manner than ever before how fragile the whole of life really is. Ultimately, we all must face this utter powerlessness… and we know not the day nor the hour.

If the death and resurrection of Jesus is not something more than a metaphor or a therapeutic trick, then it won’t mean anything in front of this powerlessness. I believe in His death and resurrection as a saving event that is greater than death. But my faith remains weak and immature, and I have nothing in myself that can sustain it. I can only live in Him, adhering to Him, hoping in Him, loving Him.

And to live this way is a mystery. My words cannot possibly measure up to it. Notwithstanding my vocation to discourse and communication, sometimes I need more silence.

Winter in May?!

I had to do a VLOG about this. The weather has been unusually cool for the beginning of May, but the weather forecasting has been downright bizarre.

What’s going on, Weather Channel People?😉

May 2: Athanasius “Taught us to Honor the Trinity”

“Blaring trumpet of the Lord and flute of the Spirit, O great Athanasius, O fiery mind, it is fitting to sing your praises with hymns; for you taught us to honor the Trinity of one essence” (Kontakion, Byzantine Liturgy for Feast of St. Athanasius).

“Jesus the Good Shepherd Calls Us By Name”

Pope Francis in Hungary on “Good Shepherd Sunday” (Fourth Sunday of Easter).

“The Human Glory of Christ in History”

Somewhere in the Dialogues of Saint Catherine of Siena (if I remember correctly) there are words attributed to God that seem to require some sort of ontological “caveat,” but in fact only need to be placed within their proper context. They are human words that struggle to carry the “weight” of supernatural mystical experience—where affectivity bursts the boundaries of human language and is expressed paradoxically. Thus, when we read the Lord saying to Catherine, “I am He Who Is, and you are she-who-is-not” this is not intended as a philosophical proposition denying the reality of created being. Rather, it represents a mystical experience of the radical and total dependence of a created human being on the Absolute Being of God—the transcendent Being whom we cannot contain, but who loves us, who is our Father.

This reminds me of the text we have been working on in our School of Community, which is taken from the annual Spiritual Exercises given 25 years ago by Father Luigi Giussani to the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation. I’m not sure of my memory of this retreat in particular (from 1998) but I do recall participating “remotely” (through recordings) in the retreats Giussani gave in his final years, as he grew weaker with illness and old age. These texts are particularly rich, and also difficult, but they are worth the effort of our attention and prayer as we revisit them in the present day. Guissani’s witness as he grew closer to his death was increasingly “condensed” and experientially synthetic, and therefore perhaps less accessible to those seeking fluid discourse free of paradox. Guissani’s whole life was a continual witness to the miracle of God the Word made flesh, who reveals His love by making possible for us a life beyond the boundaries of what we think we can do “by ourselves,” who empowers us precisely through our surrendering of ourselves to Him, our letting-go of our egocentric claims and pretenses to be the source of our own power.

In the remarkable excerpt below, I have attempted to layer clauses and reordered certain words, so as—I hope—to convey something of how these words remain with me and have been shedding light on my own life right now. The glory of the Lord would seem to overwhelm us, even “annihilate” us, so that we experience the truth that we are “nothing-in-ourselves.” Yet it is this same glory—the glory of Infinite Love—that makes us to exist and to act “in His image,” and is expressed in His coming to dwell with us, live for us, die for us, rise for us. Nothing in human experience and human history is meaningless because nothing is outside the glory of Christ. At the heart of every moment, Jesus asks for our self-surrender, our “yes” to Him, and our loving adherence to He who is Love, who has loved us.

The text below is from Luigi Giussani, To Give One’s Life for the Work of Another, p. 73:

“[We cannot live] without the positivity, 

the indomitable, unsleeping, irreducible creativity 

that in every moment, before any difficulty whatsoever, 

finds its origin, its source in the reality of Christ present in his Church…

Let's ask this inexhaustible mercy who is Christ, 

to be able to renew our awareness of the gratitude we owe to Christ, 

of the gratitude we owe to the Church, our mother, 

but most of all of the complete surrender to God, 

of that complete surrender… in Him as God, in Christ as God, 

in God a complete surrender. 

It is man's last possible breath…

Paradoxically, [in this surrender] man finds the image of his existing, 

the awareness of his existing for the human glory of Christ in history. 

May we live this surrender to the Mystery, to Christ in our activities, 

to the Mystery that revealed Itself in that man, 

and may we be filled with wonder 

so as to feel Saint Peter's ‘Yes’ (Yes, Lord, I love you) 

emerging from the bottom of our hearts. 

This attitude is the marvelous novelty 

that a Christian must give proof of everywhere he goes, 

for the human glory of Christ in history. 

The more this change is seen, the more glory will be given to Christ, 

the glory of Christ in history will be discovered, wanted, 

consciously loved above everything else.”

The “Shenandoah Spring” Digital Art Series 2023

Welcome to my “virtual exhibition” for April 2023. It has been a peculiar month for weather, with a variety of conditions and temperatures. We’ve reached as high as the ‘80s (F) but have also had a few night freezes, even as we near the end of the month. We have had some beautiful sunshine, although lately it has been rain rain rain. “April showers,” indeed.

By this time in Spring, nothing can prevent the riot of blooming things and growing things from taking over the landscape. Flowers show their brief splendor (I have already featured some flower photographs), and even the most hesitant of the big maples and sycamores spread their green canopies. The dormant grass comes to life and shoots up, so that lawn mowers can be heard buzzing all over the neighborhood.

Here are four “virtual artworks” from JJStudios, all worked from foundations in original photos, using digital art tools. They are titled all “Shenandoah Spring” and respectively “No. 1,” “No. 2 (Breezy Autumn Afternoon),” “No. 3,” and “No. 4 (Blurry and Wet).” They are also chronological, from the beginning of April to the present (as I said, it has been rainy lately).

Following the Path of Life

Collect, Saturday of the Second Week of Easter: 

“O God, who willed that through the paschal mysteries the gates of mercy should stand open for your faithful, look upon us and have mercy, that as we follow, by your gift, the way you desire for us, so may we never stray from the paths of life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”

Gospel Alleluia for Tuesday of the second week of the Easter Season:

In these holy days, we continue to beg the Lord for the deep joy of His Risen Presence, in astonishment and gratitude for the gift of Himself—He who is “the life of our lives,” and the source of every blessing—and in the midst of our own sufferings, especially in the wounds unjustly inflicted upon us. Even if those wounds “remain” as hindrances to us, they also open us up to following Jesus in the works of mercy, in loving and forgiving our “enemies.”

As we have already noted in these reflections, it is the Crucified Jesus who rises, with His open wounds transfigured forever in His glorified body as signs of His endless and inexhaustible forgiveness.

In His new life, we are drawn into the love of the Father in the Holy Spirit. As partakers of the Divine life, children of the Father, brothers and sisters of Jesus, renewed ever more profoundly by the gift of the Spirit, we will be healed by His mercy and given the capacity to “see” our neighbors in a new way—the way God sees them. In the light of God’s merciful love, we will no longer want to cling to our divisions and conflicts, our resentment, our grudges and our injuries and the weapons we use to inflict them. Instead we will find in God’s love the power to forgive one another.

Rejoicing in Hope: Easter and Our Suffering Today

The Easter Season continues to proclaim the joy of the resurrection. Christ is Risen… even if we feel that our lives in this world are wrecked beyond repair. Jesus has defeated death, and our trust in Him is authentic and reasonable because we have come to know Him and adhere to Him in a loving faith, sustained and strengthened in us by the working of the Holy Spirit, even as we groan in misery under the burden of so many afflictions and troubles in this present life, in these strange chaotic times. 

So many of us feel overwhelmed in this Easter Season of 2023. How can we find the profound joy of His Risen Presence when our own suffering goes on and on and on, resisting human efforts to ameliorate it or protect ourselves against it? On top of everything else, there is perhaps a certain subjective “emotional let-down,” a psycho-physiological disappointment that after celebrating the Paschal mysteries of our redemption with such intensity, we seem to remain with the same stubborn flaws, the same impatience, the same narrow self-centeredness, and prone to the same petty and stupid sins as before. It is humbling to realize how much we are still struggling. But we are not struggling alone; we are being purified and transformed by the love of God, which brings its own kind of suffering, but also shapes and gives meaning to all our sufferings as a participation in the Cross of Christ. No matter how awful we feel, no matter what afflicts us in these days, we must not give in to discouragement. Easter helps us to remember that the meaning of our lives is not grounded on our own limited powers but on the gift of Another who creates us from nothingness and saves us from death so that we may share forever His eternal life. The Risen Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit who leads us away from discouragement and into the true life of God, the truth of ourselves: “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:15-17).

In Christ we have the hope of joy—which is “already” an initial stirring of joy, because we could never have imagined this promise of eternal life and unconquerable joy to be possible if we had not encountered Him, if He had not claimed us for Himself in baptism and renewed us continually through the life of His Church. Our longing for “more” in life may often be painful and obscure, but it is not a longing that ends in emptiness or absurdity. We long for the fulfillment of what He has begun in us. We have been “saved in hope,” and we must “wait with endurance” to “see” the final fulfillment of our hope (Romans 8:24-25).

This all might seem a bit remote on those days when we feel like we have been hammered on the head with a shovel over and over again. It’s really hard, and there’s nothing wrong with admitting it. Perhaps the only thing we can do at such times is “cry out” in pain (and maybe even our cries are muted). But behind, beyond, and within our moments of powerlessness, God our Father is loving us. He hears the cry of His child, “Abba!” He sends His Spirit to deepen the desire of our hearts for our true inheritance, eternal life with Jesus Christ His Son and our brother.

We groan especially in the evening of our lives, at the increasingly vivid and relentless diminishing of our earthly strength—at what is inevitably the “loss of ourselves” to the limited life of this world. But our Father hears the Spirit praying in us (if we do not drive the Spirit away by willful bitterness, resentment, or despair), the Spirit who prays within our afflicted spirits in “groans too deep for words” (see Romans 8:26). Jesus our joy remains with us, even if we find no apprehension of joyfulness in our reflexive self-consciousness—which ordinarily cannot help being “filled up” with the excessive stress and exhaustion of 21st century mechanically-extended and electronically-amplified life, as well as the whole spectrum of human suffering that we each endure on the path to our destiny.

The resurrection proclaims, nevertheless, the victory of the love of God poured out on the Cross. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Saint Paul cries out. “Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.’ [And all of us have experienced this, at least in some “metaphorical” way—although real, personal, and inescapable for each of us because it is our own suffering, our own need for salvation. But Saint Paul tells us that we do not need to be afraid. God holds us in His love that is greater than every kind of pain, illness, anxiety, helplessness, the threats of enemies, the crimes of war, the violence of revenge, the agony of loneliness, the injustices that cannot be overcome, the tortures of dictators, the concentration camps and gulags, the stupefying noise and ugliness and stench of a world that humans build when they ignore God and make themselves masters of everything according to their own measure… if we are poor and afflicted and reaching for the God of salvation in the midst of all the horrors and all the suffering, we must let Him grab hold of us and place our trust in Him, with the hope of joy, for victory is at hand.] No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39).

Jesus Christ is Risen! Trust in Him, and rejoice!