The Difference Between “Firmness” and “Rigidity”

In his Angelus address for August 20, Pope Francis used the Gospel example of Jesus healing the daughter of the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21-28) as an opportunity to distinguish between the virtue of firmness and the anxiety-driven, dysfunctional attitude of rigidity. This is most illuminating, especially because it pertains to practical judgments about how we live in relation to others, how we regard the person in front of us and attend to his or her real needs, how we are challenged to love the person beyond our own preconceived projects. 

“This is what God is like: he is love, and the one who loves does not remain rigid. Yes, he or she stands firm, but not rigid, they do not remain rigid in their own positions, but allow themselves to be moved and touched. He or she knows how to change their plans. Love is creative. And we Christians who want to imitate Christ, we are invited to be open to change. How good it would do our relationships, as well as our lives of faith, if we were to be docile, to truly pay attention, to be moved in the name of compassion and the good of others….

“The docility to change. Hearts docile to change….

“We can ask ourselves a few questions… For example: Am I capable of changing opinion? Do I know how to be understanding and do I know how to be compassionate, or do I remain rigid in my position? Is there some rigidity in my heart? Which is not firmness: rigidity is awful, firmness is good.”

Firmness is good. The truth revealed by God through Jesus Christ has a firm hold on those who trust in Him. The truth doesn’t need us to build walls around it or be constrained by our narrow-minded fears and insecurities. Rather, firmness of truth flourishes and becomes more fruitful when we are docile to the Spirit of Truth, who changes us and opens our hearts to the creativity of love.

Some “Wonderful Things”….

I noted last week that there are “some significant and wonderful things happening in our family life” — by which I mean events that naturally evoke feelings of gratitude (even though, in its depths, every moment of this life is a gift and a mystery: a gift of Love and an invitation to grow in love, to grow beyond ourselves). Don’t worry, I’m going to write more, but for now I just want to let one of these “cats out of the bag.” Here is a picture of Maria. Lately, she’s started wearing shirts like this….

But what could it mean? Hints: (1) stop scrolling; (2) read what it says on the shirt; (3) think…. 

Awesome! 

Maria has a little sister, whose face she will see before the end of this year. In other words, her Mommy is having another baby girl… in/around December. Obviously, this is not “news” for family and local friends, but this is my first time posting about it… or I should say, about her.

Christmas 2023 is going to be especially beautiful (and busy) for the Janaro family!😊⭐️

August Has Big Clouds But Little Rain

More from the “Summer Skies 2023” series (or whatever I originally called it). “Thunderclouds rolling into an August evening.” 

That one is quite “impressionistic” with its dark colors, but what can I say? These clouds have made an “impression” on me, invading the space of the waning sunlight late in the day.

The fact is that—while we’ve had thunderstorms and dramatic skies all summer—actual rainfall has been way down. “Happy Creek” is not so happy these days. You could walk across it and barely get your feet wet. Old fashioned boring but steady rain would be welcomed around here.

#ShenandoahValley #DigitalArt #JJStudios

The Virgin Mary is “Queen of Media”

The Blessed Virgin Mary. Gave us a “selfie” long before it was cool.😎 

Happy Feast of the Assumption of Mary (or “Dormition” for Byzantines☦️🙂).

#Assumption #Dormition 

#Guadalupe #SheHasABody

#SharingResurrectionOfJesus #HopeOfOurResurrection #CatechismInHashtags

Really, Mary is the O.G. of “social media influencers.” Well, it might be irreverent to refer to Mary as the “O.G.” of anything—the popular abbreviation for the phrase “Original Gangster” is commonly used to refer to people who were the real inspirations and originators of popular trends, but it doesn’t imply any negative or criminal activity. The kids these days use it as a term of respect. Or they used to…I can’t keep up with the “latest” lingo.🙄 Anyway, Mamma Mary, please forgive me—you know what a fool I am!

Mary assumed body and soul into eternal life joined her risen and glorified Son, and in them the Kingdom of God—the New Creation—has already begun in its fullness and in all its implications for human destiny. Mary lives in her glorified body as a sign of hope for all of us. She also provides her maternal love and “makes herself present” in special “visible” ways to individuals and peoples within this present history of space and time.

Such phenomena take various forms (when they are authentic, which is always subject to the judgment of the Church), but Mary has a beautiful way of establishing herself in particular places so that her children have an abundance of ways to draw close to her. Some great shrines are dedicated to the locations of Mary’s prophetic apparitions, through which she has given guidance to peoples and nations and (e.g. Lourdes and Fatima) the whole human race. 

Then there are countless Marian icons (pictures and—in the West—statues) that Catholic and Orthodox peoples have held dear through the ages. They have sought and obtained Mary’s special maternal protection at the many Marian shrines, or through copies of Mary’s images and icons revered in their own homes. Think of Our Lady of Częstochowa (Poland), Aparecida (Brazil), Knock (Ireland), La Vang (Vietnam), Ostrobramska (Lithuania, Poland, Belarus), Vailankanni (India), the Virgin of Kazan (Russia), the Virgin of Volodymyr (Ukraine), and many more.

Then, of course, there’s Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, the Merciful Mother who “dwells” at the center of the Western Hemisphere and communicates her love and solicitude through an inexplicable image that radiates from a 500 year old cactus fiber cloak.

We struggle to invent and master technologies that we think might “extend” our interactions with others and express our love (though, sadly, we all-too-often use them to express everything but love). Let’s look to the intercession of Mary, who lives bodily in the light of God’s glory and finds countless ways to stay connected to us, her children. She needs no technology to communicate with us, and always gives us the love that leads us to the heart of Jesus her Son, our brother.

This is the only real social network—the unity brought about by the Holy Spirit, the unity of our sister-and-brother-hood with Jesus in the Father’s house, the union with God our Creator who loves us and wants to transform us in his likeness. This is what lasts forever. How can we serve the building up of this communion while using the human networks we work with in this life, with all their flaws and disappointments and opaqueness? Our Blessed Mother Mary will help us.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe: Love Triumphs Over Sin

"The real conflict is an inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?" (Maximilian Kolbe, writing shortly before his arrest; he died in Auschwitz on August 14, 1941).

Where is God’s Strength in My Weakness?

Presently, I am lying in my bed, writing this on my iPad. I have spent a lot of time in my bed lately, taking the weight off pain, trying to “manage my discomfort,” or else just being exhausted. I have been ill most of this Summer. In addition to the usual periodic flare-ups of arthritis and myofascial pain, I seem to be afflicted by a mental exhaustion—and a kind of paralysis in communicating that has made writing more difficult and at times renders me perplexed even in speech.

And, yes, I am forgetting things more and more. It may only be “brain fog,” but it’s more than usual.

Not much of this is surprising. My “mood” has been low, although on a deeper level I have a “joy” that has received great encouragement from the encounter of Pope Francis with young people at World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon. There are, in fact, many things for me to rejoice about right now; some significant and wonderful things are happening in our family life. I’ll share more details on these things soon.

I haven’t done much with social media, other than sharing some artwork. I haven’t been posting links to my blog lately, although I have tried to keep writing all through July and August thus far. There are a some articles and also some useful resources, so I will have to find a way to “catch up” with my Facebook contacts and also on X (the site formerly known as Twitter). Ay ya yaiy, “X”!🙄 -

Ironically, my “right brain” (the creative side) has been engaged frequently by the ever-expanding visual techniques of AI, which I am determined to make use of—insofar as I am able—as a new kind of “material” out of which genuine forms of art may be fashioned. I don’t know how much success I have had thus far in making anything that is beautiful or evocative—it seems to me that I’m still in the midst of my “ten thousand hours” of learning a craft. In any case, even this work tires me out rapidly.

We have also had to wrestle with a series of very stressful circumstances this Summer regarding my wife’s work. For now, things appear to be resolved. But the stress of this ordeal was frequently intense, and I feel like it might have “taken a few years off” what’s left of my already-battered-up, overstressed, strange and unpredictable life.

I have lots to say about my East Asian Studies and Media Studies projects, but I haven’t been able to put anything “together.” But my studies slowly move forward. My monthly column in Magnificat is sometimes torturous to write, and yet—as of now—I haven’t given up on it. I have learned so much from this work over the past 10+ years, and I have had a special opportunity to share stories of people from all over the world and all through the past 2000 years of history whose lives have been changed by their encounters with Jesus through the Church. It’s a real challenge to “condense” these stories into two page articles, but the resulting brevity is probably part of what draws people to read them. It takes some surprisingly intense effort to write short pieces that are focused—that are both rich and concise. This work has been a great blessing. But some months are very hard, and sometimes I feel like I’m being pushed way beyond my limits, and far too close to going “over the edge.” I don’t really know how to convey what I struggle with here: I love researching and writing my “Conversion Stories” column but it also just wipes me out.

Right now I’m living with a lot of weakness, and if there is strength offered or built up by anything I do, I cannot perceive it. I fear that I might be becoming languid and discouraged—but I think that the sense of purpose, the desire to press on, to live “for the glory of Christ” remains the motivation that prods and provokes me every day. Wherever I find the hindrances of my own peculiar afflictions—not to mention my ordinary human limitations and follies, distractions, rashness, fear, misjudgments—in other words, wherever I find the hindrances of my own weakness, I know that I can only offer this weakness. I can’t become discouraged because I see no purpose to it, no achievements springing forth from it. If God’s power is made perfect in weakness, it happens in mysterious ways that I believe are real even if I don’t see them (yet). Perhaps mostly it’s the Spirit’s power working to heal and transform—in His time—all my broken places, His work of making something new out of the train-wreak-of-a-human-being that I am after 60 years and 8 months of life.

I pray for a deeper gratitude to God my Father—for everything, and for a greater compassion and mercy toward my brothers and sisters, near and far. I desire to be this way, and cannot make myself this way by my own power. Jesus, save me! Come Holy Spirit! I desire and I ask God. I try to walk in the darkness and I fall down. To get up and try again, I need Him to increase my desire and my plea for mercy. I am totally poor in myself. I am a “need,” a cry for mercy that is nevertheless full of hope because He is here. Jesus. He has come to be with us and walk with us. This is what matters.

Okay, I’m really tired now.

“These Last Strands of Man in Me…”

“Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, 

   not choose not to be.”

~Gerard Manley Hopkins (Poem 40, Stanza 1)

Not without reason is this poem (usually titled “Carrion Comfort”) regarded as one Hopkins’s greatest. It has more depths in the ensuing stanzas, but I find a resonance with this first one in this moment. These are words that speak at the extremity of desperation, where the poet discovers something more fundamental in the core of the heart: the desire for be-ing, all the more vivid through his exhausted negative expression.

Our being is a gift and a promise, and even in our darkest moments, they draw us to endurance. The One who gives us being gives us also the seemingly fragile tenacity that is in fact a supernatural strength. It empowers our freedom to embrace hope and stand firm against despair, to “not choose not to be.” .

This is the only reasonable position for a human being on the journey of life (and we recognize that many people who take their own lives do so because their reason is blocked or distorted by psychological pathology). The reasonable position of our hearts is to never give up.

Sain Lawrence the Martyr

This is a poem I wrote 33 years ago in honor of Saint Lawrence, the young third century deacon and martyr of the Church of Rome, who was killed slowly by being “broiled” by the flames of a grill. 

Lawrence died for his faith in Christ during the persecution of the Emperor Valerian on August 10 in the year 258 A.D. He has always been especially loved by the people of Rome to this day.

Martyr

    by John Janaro

…………………………………………………………………………

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

“The Invention of Fire”

“The Invention of Fire (in memoriam August 9, 1945).”

Gestures and Simple Words of Mercy

In this past week of beautiful days in Portugal, Jesus touched the hearts of young people from all over the world, not through momentous speeches or grand spectacles, but through an encounter with His presence in the Church today—experienced in a special way through the charity, attentiveness, and solidarity of Pope Francis, the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of Saint Peter, the Servant of the Servants of God.

Francis communicated the Gospel through countless simple gestures of mercy and compassion, and in his brief and direct words witnessing to Christ’s arms open to everyone, calling everyone to the Lord’s healing and transforming embrace. “Take heart, do not be afraid.”

The Transfiguration: Jesus Gives Us Courage

The World Youth Day festival concluded today with Pope Francis gathering with over a million people in Lisbon, at a park near the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, for the Sunday Mass on this day which is also the feast of the Transfiguration.

In his homily, the Pope encouraged them—and all of us—to shine with the light of Christ, to listen to God’s call, and to take courage in following Him, because He knows us, addresses us personally, and loves us with an intimate personal love by which He leads us on the path to salvation.

“Dear young people,
I would like to look each of you in the eye
and say to you:
do not be afraid, do not be afraid.
What's more, I'll tell you a beautiful thing.
It is no longer I, it is Jesus himself who looks at you now.
He looks at you, He who knows you,
knows the heart of each of you,
knows the life of each of you,
knows the joys, knows the sorrows, 

the successes and failures,
knows your heart.
And today He says to you, here, in Lisbon, 

on this World Youth Day:
'Do not be afraid, do not be afraid, 

courage, do not be afraid!'”

~Pope Francis, Homily, August 6, 2023

“When Christ appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (cf. 1 John 3:2). —Communion Antiphon for the Feast of the Transfiguration.

Pope Francis Returns to Fatima

[The Vatican media broadcast with multiple cameras of the Pope praying at Fatima’s chapel of apparitions provided a moment for this moving “blend” of images captured in a screenshot.]

During this week of encounters in Portugal with young people, Pope Francis—in speaking so radically about God’s love—has emphasized its concreteness in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary: “God loves us as we are, not how we want to be or how society wants us to be. As we are! He calls us with our faults and failings, our limitations and our hopes in life. That is how God calls us. Trust, because God is a Father and a Father who loves us. This is not very easy. And for this reason we need a great help, the Mother of the Lord. She is our Mother too. She is our Mother.”

This morning, the Pope traveled north of Lisbon, to visit for the second time the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima (his first visit was in 2017). He prayed the Rosary with a group of disabled people and some 200,000 pilgrims. Francis undoubtedly bore in his heart in a special way the ongoing and increasing suffering of so many people due to the war in Ukraine, as well as the many other wars throughout the world. He didn’t read his prepared address, however, speaking only a few words informally after the Rosary. The event as a whole seemed to express its profundity in its simplicity, prayer, and silence.

Pope Francis knows well the connection between Mary’s prophetic appearances at Fatima in 1917 and the catastrophic world wars of the 20th century—the consequences of which continue to imperil the world even to this day. He consecrated Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25, 2022. Attentive to the message of Fatima, the Pope emphasizes that war is born from sin, and exposes the horrendous violence and destructive power of sin. Peace can only come from the heart, as the fruit of repentance in faith and love.

In his brief remarks after the Rosary, Francis stressed that “Mary made herself present here [at Fatima] in a special way, so that the disbelief of so many hearts would open up to Jesus—with her presence she points us to Jesus.” The Pope continues to place his hope for peace in the love of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, the grace of the conversion of our hearts, and the love for one another that will enable dialogue, empower creativity in the ways of reconciliation, and bring justice, healing, and fraternity beyond what we can now imagine.

Shortly after the service, Vatican Media posted a prayer from Pope Francis’s written text, as a confirmation of what he carried in the silence of his heart to Mary’s heart at Fatima.

Pope Francis to Youth: “God Called You By Name”

Here are some selections from Pope Francis’s first encounter with young people from all over the world who have gathered in Lisbon, Portugal during the first week of August 2023 for World Youth Day. The translation is from the Vatican’s website:

“You are not here by accident. The Lord has called you, not only in these days, but from the very beginning of your days. He called you by name… 

“Think of this: Jesus called me by name. His words are inscribed in our hearts, and we come to realize that they are written in the hearts of every one of us, as a kind of title that tells people who we are, who you are. You have been called by name. 

“None of us is a Christian by chance; all of us were called by name. At the beginning of the story of our lives, before any talents we may have, before any shadows or wounds we may be carrying in our hearts, we were called. Why? Because we are loved. 

“This is something beautiful. In God’s eyes, we are precious children, and he calls us each day in order to embrace and encourage us, to make of us a unique and original masterpiece. Each of us is an “original”, whose beauty we can only begin to glimpse…

[This] “means that for God none of us is a number, but a face and a heart. I would like each of you to remember that many people know your name, yet they do not call you by name. Certainly your name is known, it appears on social networks and is processed by algorithms that associate it with likes and preferences, all of which is useful for market research, yet it does not begin to approach you in your uniqueness. How many wolves hide behind smiles of false goodness, saying that they know you, though they do not love you. They insist that they believe in you and promise that you will become someone, but then abandon you when you no longer matter…

“We must be careful not to let ourselves be deceived, for many realities that attract us and promise happiness are later shown to be what they really are: soap bubbles, superfluous things that we don’t need and that leave us empty inside. Let me tell you: Jesus is not like that. He trusts you, each of you, each of us, because each of us matters to him, each one of you matters to him. That is how Jesus is.

“That is why we, his Church, are the community of those who are called: not of people who are better than others – no, absolutely not – but of sinners, called as such. Let us think seriously for a moment about that: we are called as we are, with our problems and limitations, our overflowing joy, our desire to be better and to get ahead in this world. We are called as we are. Think of this: Jesus calls me as I am, not as I would like to be. We are the community of brothers and sisters of Jesus, sons and daughters of the same Father.

“Friends, I want to be clear with you, for you are allergic to falsity and empty words: in the Church, there is room for everyone. Everyone. In the Church, no one is left out or left over. There is room for everyone. Just the way we are. Everyone. 

“Jesus says this clearly. When he sends the apostles to invite people to the banquet which a man had prepared, he tells them: ‘Go out and bring in everyone’, young and old, healthy and infirm, righteous and sinners... The Lord does not point a finger, but opens his arms... He shows us Jesus on the cross, who opened his arms wide in order to be crucified and die for us.

“Jesus never closes the door, never, but invites you to enter: come and see. Jesus receives, Jesus welcomes. In these days, each of us transmits the love of Jesus. God loves you. God calls you. How lovely this is! God loves me. God calls me. He wants me to be close to him.”

Pope Francis Arrives in Portugal for Youth Festival

Pope Francis addressed Portuguese government officials upon his arrival for the World Youth Day 2023 Festival. Among his many remarks, the Pope emphasized once again the need for inter-generational bonds, for the importance of the elderly, of our grandparents. Interpersonal and cultural “wealth” is more important than the multiplication of “disposable” consumer goods. In a “throwaway culture,” the the value of the elderly finds no place.

“We need to resume a dialogue between young and old…. The young must find their roots in the elders. Here, education is essential: an education that does not simply impart technical knowledge directed to economic growth, but aims to make the young part of a history, to pass on a tradition, to value our religious dimension and needs, and to favour social friendship” (Pope Francis, August 2, 2023).

The Beginnings of Ignatius Loyola’s Great Mission

There are many wonderful stories from the life of Saint Ignatius Loyola (July 31) as he followed the Lord’s call (together with his earliest companions) to found and foster the emergence of a singular missionary charism in the life of the Church: the Society of Jesus. 

It all began within the heart of Ignatius, as the Holy Spirit drew him from the ambitions of a worldly life to a total commitment to follow Christ. Here is the text of my column on Saint Ignatius that appeared in the May 2014 issue of Magnificat.

The “great conversion story” of Saint Ignatius is well known. An element that deserves more attention, however, is the vital human connection between the wounded soldier destined to found the Jesuits and a medieval Carthusian’s witness to the Person of Christ. Born in 1491, Ignatius was the youngest son of a noble family in the Basque region of Spain. With a passion for earthly glory, he became a soldier in the armies of Castile, and was seriously wounded by a cannonball in May of 1521. During a long recovery, he became bored, and asked for books of chivalrous tales to pass the time. But the only books available were “saints’ lives” and “a life of Christ.” Having nothing better to do, he began to peruse these books. It was there, in his bed, that he encountered Jesus Christ, and the extraordinary change in his life began.

The saints inspired Ignatius. He found his Catholic faith incarnated in the stories of heroic men such as Saint Francis and Saint Dominic. His ambition began to change, slowly, as he felt the aspiration to “compete” with the saints for this new ideal of holiness. The witness of the communion of saints began to shine for him. Most importantly, however, he read and pondered for the first time the events of the life of Jesus. Ignatius did not read the New Testament in 1521, for it did not exist in Spanish translation. What he was given to read was a most extraordinary four volume “Life of Christ” by a 14th century Carthusian hermit, Ludolph of Saxony.

Ludolph takes up the Gospel stories methodically, following the events from the Annunciation to the Nativity and infancy, to the Baptism of Jesus, His Public Life and ministry, His Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, and onward to the Final Judgment. Each event receives copious attention with Ludolph drawing on Scripture and the Church Fathers to illuminate its meaning. Ludolph’s method is to lead the reader to place himself “inside” the particular events. He gives rich imaginative descriptions and exhorts his reader to “look” at the details, consider their significance and embrace the grace of a prayerful encounter with Christ. The fruit of his own contemplative life became a written witness to the Person of Christ that could be shared. .

But Ludolph’s image-rich meditations were destined to have an audience he could never have imagined. A century after his death came the printing press. Suddenly, the hermit was translated into several vernacular languages (including Spanish, at the express request of Queen Isabel) and widely distributed among pious people all over Europe (including the sister-in-law of Ignatius, who brought it to his bedside in 1521).

Ludolph’s witness led Ignatius to grow more and more in love with Christ. Ignatius took some three hundred pages of notes on the text, and there is no doubt that this medieval monk inspired Ignatius in the formation of his own great instrument for bringing people to a deeper relationship with Jesus, the Spiritual Exercises.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola had many other encounters that shaped his own vocation, but it was on his sickbed that he met Christ, and it was the witness and work of saints and holy people that originated his own witness with its enormous fruits for the coming epoch.

The Gift and the Vocation of Faith

Here I am, still blogging. Why? What do I know?

I know a few things, even if I am constantly prone to distraction and forgetfulness about them. I know the ineradicable “structure” of my own human heart that cries out for meaning and fulfillment. I know that in Jesus Christ I have encountered the inexhaustible “answer” to the “need” that constitutes my humanity. I know that He is the Word of the Father, made flesh, who died and rose to save the humanity of everyone.

I know that Jesus remains present in the Catholic Church by the working of the Holy Spirit within a historical community that carries the witness of the Gospel and a living tradition, entrusted to the authority of certain people from generation to generation—ministers of word and sacrament who are in themselves flawed and unworthy human beings like me, and who sometimes can even be criminals and/or cowards. But the Holy Spirit guarantees that Jesus will remain present and communicate Himself to those who hunger and thirst for Him, through the Church, even when His ministers are cruel, ignorant, incompetent, or wicked. He continually renews and sustains the Church in its pilgrimage throughout history. (The sins and scandals of the present time are only the particular form of the perennial failures of the Church’s members—which does not excuse their perpetrators of being held responsible and does not excuse us from following Jesus and struggling toward maturity in our own vocations.)

I know that trusting in Jesus, following Jesus by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the Church, with fidelity and obedience and patience, with prayer and love for God our Father and for other human persons—especially expressed in mercy toward those in need, with whom we can share what we have been given—will bring us to the fulfillment of eternal life, sharing in the all-embracing Gift of the Triune God who is Eternal, Infinite Love.

I also know that Jesus reaches “beyond” what I can see, in ways that I cannot understand (even though theological pondering and—far better—the “prayer” of a merciful empathy can glimpse some possible paths of the Holy Spirit); His salvific love is offered mysteriously to every person, which does not excuse me from making Him known in witnessing His Gospel, but which does place me humbly before every person as a servant of the God who wants us both to be brothers/brother-and-sister in Him. I want to understand persons who are called to Him even if they don’t realize it. I know grace makes a difference in their lives, their stories, their cultures, and the history and traditions of their peoples with all their human richness and brokenness and suffering.

That is all I know.

If it seems like “a lot,” it is important to remember that I can’t take credit for any of this knowledge. None of it constitutes an “achievement” of my own. All is drawn from the free gift of faith. 

All I can “own” as coming from myself is my constant failure to see all of reality and every person with these “eyes of faith” that have been given to me. Too often I would rather hide in the false comfort of the Pharisee who thanks-God-that-he-is-not-like-the-rest-of-men (and who, even in this narrow self-assessment, vastly overestimates himself). Too often I would rather place my trust in my own self-coherence as a “member-of-the-tribe-of-Truth,” a partisan of the right-interpretation-of-history—the right “ism”—who can pour out contempt on the incompleteness and flaws of other views (and other people who hold them). But none of these attitudes bear any fruit. They lead only to delusions, or worse.

We would like to call ourselves courageous. But is it really “courageous” to just fight for a “Christian worldview” against other more-or-less decadent worldviews, with the aim of “winning” what is ultimately a worldly victory for our own (usually only partially perceived and so often practically-compromised) view of “Christian values”? In a world of sword fights, the Christian—often with the best of intentions—takes up whatever sword is at hand in order to fight for the truth, without realizing that they have placed their trust in the same weapon as their opponents. “Whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword.” How quickly does the fight distract us from the real demands of charity, respect for the human person’s dignity, humility, simplicity, and joy? How soon does it lead us away from justice, into detractions and calumnies against our opponents (because we have reduced them to monsters who can be condemned without reservations)? Ultimately, are we even willing to sacrifice truth itself “for the sake of the cause” and descend into craftiness and guile and outright lies?

I have fallen into these traps many times over the years, so I do not intend to judge anyone. Moreover, in this world, danger sometimes looms imminent, threatening to destroy us or those we love, and we are compelled to fight in defense against it. In specific instances of perceived dangers, people must follow their consciences. Is it possible, however, that too often we are led not so much by conscience or the concrete judgment of the virtue of prudence but rather by the allurement of the idolatry of “success” that is so thoroughly woven into the fabric of our society?

Let us not forget that courage above all has to do with the willingness to endure suffering; we must ask the Lord for the grace to endure much that is burdensome in the living of our faith in front of other persons—without condemning them, dehumanizing them, hating them, perpetrating violence against them. I have sinned so many times in this way: Lord have mercy on me, on all of us, on the whole world.

The vocation of living the faith, of following Jesus, begins with allowing ourselves to see reality with the eyes of faith, to see the other person as loved by Jesus, to see Jesus identifying Himself with others in their suffering, their needs, their hunger and thirst for food and drink, for companionship and healing, for love.

What do we really know about them, about how to even begin to care for them? How will we know them, how will we know their specific, concrete needs, without listening to them, accompanying them, and also being open to receive from their gifts that can touch our own poverty, and above all being willing to co-suffer with them, being vulnerable—in the measure God asks of us—to the awful abysses of their suffering?

Such living may well lead us to “make mistakes.” But mistakes will happen no matter how we live. We are not yet perfect; indeed we are far from it. We desire perfection, we are called to perfection, we beg for the grace, we journey toward, we strive to grow into the perfection of Christ who has redeemed us. But we do not have the power to make ourselves perfect according to the Father’s wisdom and love, which are beyond any “measure” we comprehend or possess within ourselves, and can only be realized through the grace of a living relationship with Him. We must not trust in our own perceived sense of having some sort of perfect coherence in our own self-justified goodness. We are all sinners. We must trust in the mercy of God, in His greater wisdom and love, and pray for the grace to adhere to Him, love Him, and do His will each day by living in relationship with Jesus Christ, who is present in our lives now by the working of the Holy Spirit in the real Catholic Church to which our lives have been entrusted now. This is not some Church of the idealized past or of the idealized future (which are ultimately just the products of our own imagination), but the Church right now, which links us to the Apostles and Jesus who said, “I am with you all days….”

What matters is that we stay with Jesus, follow Him, take “risks” for Him—risks to our comfort, our ego, our illusory sense of “safety.” And it is possible to live this way without “giving up” a single iota of the truth of our faith. On the contrary, this is the path by which our faith becomes “flesh,” takes on the real vitality of evangelization, begins to transform the world (and ourselves).

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I’m afraid of these risks involved in the vocation of living my faith, of following Jesus. We need to beg Him for the grace to overcome this fear, to grow in courage and confidence by trusting in Him.

Please forgive me for the presumption of my own words, which can’t help falling short of what I hope to say. I have no commission to preach. I claim no great knowledge. I am only a poor brother who wants to speak what is in his heart, hoping that he will be heard with mercy, and offering it to the God who loves us all.

Everything For Which the Human Heart is Made

Today we commemorate those particular friends of Jesus during His earthly life, Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. For this day, I want to post a selection from Spiritual Exercises of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation in 2022, preached by the Abbot General of the Cistercians—Abbot Mauro-Giuseppe Lepori. That weekend in April-May 2022—which I was able to participate in from my bedroom thanks to live-streaming internet technology—was an extended meditation on today’s Gospel reading from the 10th chapter of Luke. Here we see, amidst the ordinary circumstances of domestic life, the radical origin of Saint Martha’s vocation to recognize in Jesus “the one thing necessary”—the One who enters into our lives of anxiousness and worry and reminds us that He is with us, that He wants to be with us.

This is true for each one of us, for every human person. Jesus’s words to Martha remind us of the reason why we exist, what we are made for, what gives meaning and value to every moment of life.

The selection from the Conference preached by Father Mauro-Giuseppe on Saturday morning, April 30, 2022 follows below in bold type:

“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing” (Luke 10:41-42).

Jesus repeated her name twice. What attention He showed her! What esteem! It is precisely like when God called Abraham to ask him to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22:1), or when He called Moses from the burning bush (Exodus 3:4); that is, in the crucial moments of salvation history. Or it is like when Christ called Saul of Tarsus, who was wholly intent on his mad mission of persecution: "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" (Acts 9:4) 

Martha also found herself in front of the God who seizes you in the place where you think you possess your life and asks you to have a preference for Him. In that moment Abraham was sure he possessed his posterity forever. Moses encountered God in the burning bush, and Saul was sure that he was doing what was right and true, the rightest and truest thing a man can do. Right there, where you think you possess your own life, right there, God asks you to have a preference for Him. 

Actually, He not so much asks you as proposes it to you. And immediately there is a mysterious attraction in God's proposal of Himself as the all of your life, as the life of your life. For this reason, Abraham even obeyed the proposal to sacrifice his son; Moses removed his sandals and approached the burning bush; Saul let himself be led like a baby and entrusted himself to the small Christian community of Damascus he had wanted to destroy.

For Martha it was the same call, brought down into her daily existence, but it was the same call. What difference of value can there be between the call of Abraham or Moses and that of this woman harried and busy in the kitchen, if the call comes from the same Lord and God? Actually, I would say that Martha's call was even more extraordinary, because the Eternal One did not call from heaven or a burning bush, or from Mount Sinai, but He was there, sitting in her house, there, speaking, a man like us who arrived tired and sweaty with dusty feet, and who then sat down to eat and drink like us. This is more extraordinary than the burning bush, more extraordinary than Mount Sinai smoking and trembling and causing the people to tremble. 

As Jesus said of John the Baptist: “Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11). We are greater because the proposal God makes us in His incarnate Son is more extraordinary. The way God offers this proposal in the incarnate Son, and thus in the flesh, in the daily life of our human existence, is more extraordinary. 

Martha’s kitchen, like the Virgin Mary’s little room or cave in Nazareth before it, were even more sacred places than the oaks of Mamre for Abraham, than Sinai for Moses, than Oreb for Elijah, because God had never been so present as He was in Jesus Christ. “And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us” (John 1:14); literally, came to “pitch His tent,” to place His tent in our midst, to set up His tent in our midst, to encounter us up close, familiarly, within our life, and in this way with disarming simplicity to offer us in Himself everything for which the human heart is made, of which the heart of every human being in human history is made.

When someone is surprised by this, by this event, like Martha that evening at the words of Jesus, what happens? What should be done? What reaction is asked of the freedom provoked and attracted by such a proposal of fullness made by God? For Martha, a journey, a following began. The Eternal One revealed to her that He is everything, not only in Himself (even the pagans knew this!) but for her, precisely for her “Martha, Martha!”—just as for Mary and Lazarus, as for Peter and the other apostles. Jesus was everything specifically for her!

But when Christ reveals Himself to us as the only One necessary, as the only One we need, this first of all asks a decision of us, because if it is true that I need only Him, then I can no longer separate myself from Him.

Moonrise, Sunset

The moon was rising in the evening sky, before darker clouds moved in, colored all along the horizon by the subtle reflected glow of the setting sun.

Here are two photographs and a piece of digital artwork.

My Granddaughter is a Toddler!

 Here’s the latest “Papa and Maria” picture. Look how pretty she is!

Maria is getting smarter every day. She knows lots of words, sings songs, counts, tries to imitate Jojo in Irish Dancing, and loves to have books read to her. She is sweet and cheerful (unless, of course, she doesn’t get her way☺️). She had a good attention span; here she is playing with an “educational toy” (not exactly a Montessori activity, but similar).

We celebrated her birthday while Lucia and Mike were visiting from New Jersey. Two years of Maria spreading joy through our whole family! May God continue to bless her for many many years!

Saint James, Apostle and Martyr

Happy Feast of Saint James the Apostle! 

Saint James, the brother of Saint John and the son of Zebedee, was the leader of the church in Jerusalem and the first of “the Twelve” to suffer martyrdom. 

He was beheaded around 44 a.d., and the event is recounted in the New Testament: "King Herod laid hands upon some members of the church to harm them. He had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword" (Acts 12:2).

Today’s first reading is appropriate for this feast. The words of Saint Paul regarding the fruitfulness of the suffering of his own Apostolic ministry certainly apply to the blood shed by Saint James in Jerusalem nearly two thousand years ago. From the Holy Land (a land of too much conflict down the centuries even to the present day) to the Shrine of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain on the threshold of the Atlantic Ocean (a place of pilgrimage for centuries which claims some of his relics) to the whole world of every place and time (to which he and his companions were originally commissioned to witness to Jesus Christ), Saint James’s witness and suffering continue to bear fruit, accompanied by the constant solicitude of his intercession.

“We hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

“So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since, then, we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written—‘I believed, therefore I spoke,’— we too believe and therefore speak, knowing that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and place us with you in his presence. Everything indeed is for you, so that the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:7-15).

“The Hills of July” (ongoing project)

This should be easy, but it’s not. 

Digital art technology (along with lots of literally “manual” labor) plus an overactive imagination have me obsessing over these old Blue Ridge mountains with their range of bright and dark hues that vary in sun, haze, clouds, and ominous approaching thunderstorms.

Anyway, I’m not playing games here, but trying to discover and work with the genuine artistic possibilities within these most recent developments in “new media.” They seem to be changing from one day to the next. I’m sure that I’m barely scratching the surface of this wildly manipulative explosion of visual technique.

Here are “the Hills of July” in all the varieties I’ve been working on. I’ll continue to put more pictures here, if I do any more on this theme. I’m not adding comments. That would go on forever. Let’s all just look: