A Reason to be Joyful

The Byzantine tradition celebrates an octave of the Dormition of the Theotokos (i.e. the Assumption). So today is the Fourth Day of the Celebration of the Dormition. Let us then continue to keep in our hearts the hymn of the Feast:

"You were a Mother, and yet remained a Virgin; you went up to heaven, and yet did not forsake the world, O Mother of God. You have passed to life, being the Mother of Life. Through your intercession, save our souls from death."

There is some echo of this in the current Roman calendar, in that the eight day after the Assumption is the feast of the Queenship of Mary (August 22).

So I like to think that we are in a "Marian Season." The light of Mary's Assumption and her taking up in its fullness the role of Mother of the whole human race shines through in these days.

This brings hope and strength even in the midst of trials and affliction. It reminds us that we have reason to be joyful in heart. Mary is real and alive and cares about each of us personally. She loves us. She carries us especially in those places where we are most fragile.

A Child's Pain, and Her Parents' Hope

There's our Teresa, playing with Josefina. Teresa is eight years old. She is the lively, cheerful mischief-maker in the house. She is also thoughtful, sympathetic, and affectionate. She considers things carefully and feels things deeply. Lately she has been worrying about a lot of little things.

But in the last few days, she has been afflicted.

She lays on the bed, with vacant eyes. She looks at me like she doesn't know me. Then she starts screaming. And she won't tell us what's wrong. We ask her and she screams louder. She scared us so much the other night that the only thing we could think to do was to take her to the ER. I know, obviously, that mental illness runs in the family. It runs right through me. But at a certain point one throws assumptions out the window and starts to think, "Is my child having a seizure? Is this going to get worse? Is she going to hurt herself?" Going to the ER is sort of the modern equivalent of calling the doctor in the old days (except you go to them instead).

So now she has seen several doctors and had blood tests, and we are trying to keep her comfortable while we wait to see what comes next. The work of keeping her calm has been exhausting for both Eileen and me. Of course, there are many possible causes for this, and we have to let them look at different things, but I think I know what's going on.

In my book I talk about a range of illnesses which are beginning to be classified as neurobiological disorders--these are "mental illnesses" that are rooted in chemical imbalances in the brain or the failure of the brain to carry out properly its delicate and complex operations. We know that neurological disorders can cause people to have chronic "tics" or muscle spasms. Well, it appears that on a more subtle and "invisible" level the same kind of disturbances in brain functioning can cause "mental spasms"--quirks, repetitions, or distortions in the imaging, impressive, and expressive activity of the brain that accompanies our thinking.

Thinking is fundamentally spiritual, but in the human being who is a mysterious union of soul and body it is something that is done in conjunction with (and is therefore affected by) physiological processes. We all know that drinking alcoholic beverages affects the brain and thereby inclines us to perceive things differently and even to "think" differently. Surely it is possible that all kinds of circumstances that we do not yet understand may affect (and afflict) the brain in more subtle ways. These circumstances may even be rooted in genetic factors, which seems to be the case in more obvious, visible neurological disorders.

Certainly all this has become something of a fad in some sectors of the psychiatric field. These kind of problems are overdiagnosed. They are also overmedicated, or many of the medicines made for them are clumsy and ineffective. Having said that, it must be admitted that the great achievement of modern clinical psychiatric medicine has been the discovery of the neurological basis of many mental illnesses. Moreover, advanced brain imaging technology is confirming the clinical evidence. We are just beginning to learn the need for careful and attentive medical care for the most important and mysterious organ in our body, the brain.

We have learned that the brain can't be ignored. Psychoanalytic therapy has many values, but we know it won't help a person with Tourette's Syndrome. Now we also know that it won't help the underlying condition of a person with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The same thing can be said for many (though not all) types of depression, anxiety disorders, and that increasingly expanding category of complex conditions called "bi-polar" disorder. Psychotherapy has its place, especially in helping repair the life damage that comes as a consequence of these conditions. Certain types of therapy may even help stimulate healing processes within the brain itself. But what we know for certain is that in these situations the brain, as a physiological entity, needs medical help.

We are also learning that the brain can't simply be nuked with medications that are designed to counteract artificially its chemical or functional imbalances. "Brain medicine" is a delicate art of integrative health care, and here it is especially clear that it is impossible to be effective without treating the patient as a whole, i.e. as a human person.

It is also worth mentioning here the advances being made in the treatment of brain injuries, e.g. "concussions." If anything good has come out of the recent wars (though, tragically, not good for those who have had to endure them), it is the advancement in the understanding of brain injuries, how they can occur, what permanent damage they may cause, and how they may be related to conditions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Having suffered and recovered from a major concussion in a car accident in 2005, my personal hunch is that "minor" brain injuries--perhaps even on the internal level--probably happen much more frequently than any of us realize.

The brain is, truly, a remarkable, resilient and durable instrument, for all its complexity and delicacy. I believe there are vast possibilities for healing the brain and supporting the overall health of the brain. We are only beginning to discover them.

Meanwhile the human brain remains much afflicted. I am not a health practitioner at all. I am a sufferer. I try to give an account of this aspect of my debility in my book, Never Give Up: My Life and God's Mercy. My own bi-polar disorder--a complex of depression, anxiety, and obsessions--has a long history in my family, and it has afflicted especially those who also have outstanding talents. It is reasonable to consider the possibility that it has a genetic character. It is a curse, but also a blessing, in my family.

I was ten years old when I first began to experience this problem. So as I watch my Teresa suffer and try to help her, I am not surprised. There may be other, aggravating conditions involved in her case (as there are in mine). But it appears that she has the "family blessing"--a wonderful, precocious, creative, intelligent, imaginative mind that somehow is connected to a brain that does so many things well but doesn't get the seratonin and dopamine flowing properly. Why? Who knows. Perhaps with fallen human nature, these kind of things come as a "package."

Still, we endeavor to heal the sick. And we can have a measure of success. And people who suffer in this way can be helped to live without fear and darkness and the self-condemnation that it can generate. So I have hope for my Teresa.

Her road to healing may be long, though I pray not as long as mine. I am still on the road.

More Than Rules: A Living Relationship

It's hard not to think about political, social, and cultural concerns these days. And a Catholic Christian is naturally inclined to try to articulate a "position" regarding how people should live, as individuals and in their common life. To a degree, this is necessary in order to participate in public discourse. But we must not allow it to truncate our fundamental sense of who we are and the fullness of what we are called to propose to the world.

I think we sometimes talk a lot about the moral "do's" and "don'ts" of our faith, but forget that we need to invite people to the possibility of a living relationship with Jesus Christ in the Church. It is only inside that relationship that people are given the grace that empowers them to live the demands of the faith. And it is only inside that relationship that people are enlightened to see the ultimate reason for living what the Church teaches.

When we forget about Christ, the "Catholic position" becomes a bunch of rules, which--even if they can be shown to be reasonable--are only going to make people feel guilty because they don't have the power to live up to them.

We must bear witness to Christ, to His grace, to the new life that He gives through His living presence in the Church!

Preparing For Mary's Feast

Byzantine Christians have been observing a two week fast in preparation for the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos (the Assumption in the West) on Monday. During this period, they pray a special office of supplication to the Mother of God, the Paraklesis. Here are a few brief selections from this venerable prayer of the Eastern tradition:


*O Virgin, I beseech you who have given birth to God the Savior, deliver me from my afflictions. It is to you that I now come for shelter, to you that I lift my heart and my thoughts.

*O you who alone are the Mother of God, you who are good and the Mother of Goodness, take away the disease of my body and soul: make me worthy of your good care, and of the coming of God.

*O Maiden, you have been given to us as a wall behind which we may seek refuge, as a perfect means of salvation for our souls, as a joy in our tribulations, for in your brilliance we always find delight. O Lady, save us at all times from every danger and evil desire.

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


Also, as the feast of the Dormition/Assumption approaches, I desire to commend in a particular way to the Mother of God all Christians who are facing persecution or the threat of persecution throughout the world. My heart and mind turn especially to the Church in China and to the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East. Mary’s tender love is reflected in this beautiful prayer from the Coptic Egyptian tradition:


O Theotokos, the second heaven
You are the honoured Mother of the Light.

From sunrise to sunset
the faithful offer you praises

You are the bright and unchanging flower
and the mother who remained a virgin
for the Father chose you
and the Holy Spirit overshadowed you
and the Son deigned to take flesh from you.

Wherefore, ask the Lord
to give salvation to the world
which He created
and to deliver it from all tribulations

Let us praise the Lord
and sing to Him a new song
now and forever and from all ages to all ages

Amen.

Family Life: Judging the Meaning of the Moment

The starting point is experience. Not what you feel, but experience, which is what you feel judged by criteria of the heart [the need for truth, goodness, beauty, justice, love, for the infinite, which the human being seeks in his/her engagement with reality], which, as criteria, are infallible (infallible as criteria, not as judgments: an infallibility can be applied badly).... Either the criteria are of the heart, or we are alienated, sold on the market of politics or economics (Luigi Giussani).

Oh no, it's another one of those "eyes glaze over" Giussani quotations! Can't we have more stories about Josefina? Tell us about the kids!

But I have to ask myself, "why do I care about my kids?" Why do I love my family? What is my experience of my family? Is it just the sentimental good feelings that I get out of the time we share together? Why do I love Josefina? Is it just because she is a cute little cuddly, snuggly muffin? All of that is true. These positive feelings give me a warm-hearted tender disposition toward my family.

But it's not enough. It won't even get me through the next family flu or stomach virus. Josefina's not cute when she's throwing up. Not cute at all. But never mind that. Even if we had nothing but good times and warm feelings, it would all come to an end. They are growing, and as they grow they become more independent. We can't hold onto the good times with our children and try to give those times a permanence that they don't possess. We'll end up in nostalgia and sadness, or we'll attempt to frustrate our children in order to hold onto them, somehow.

So what do these feelings mean? What does a good day with the kids mean?

I don't want to minimize the importance of these experiences either. I want to live them according to what they truly mean. These are moments full of significance. They are full of the taste of beauty and goodness. They do not give perfect happiness and it would be violent and destructive to my family if I tried to grasp perfect happiness from out of such moments. Rather these are moments full of promise. They inspire hope for the fulfillment that lies at the end of the journey we are making together. And so they empower me to love my family and to take the next step with them as time builds the road we travel.

Eileen and I love our children in the experience of the joy of being together because we glimpse therein that we are all made for the same destiny. The only reason to love our children is for their destiny (which is the same as our own), for the fulfillment of truth, of love, of freedom, of joy–this is the reason why their hearts have been entrusted to us in this moment. And this moment itself, this experience, bears witness to this fulfillment and draws us on toward it, together.

There must be some reason why Pope Benedict XVI reads Luigi Giussani's conferences and meditates on them every day. Everybody talks about "experience" but Giussani defines it in a completely different way from the common mentality.

By "experience," Giussani doesn't just mean "what happens to you" or "what enters into your consciousness." He means the way you engage reality by means of a judgment--not a relativistic judgment, but one that is based on the fundamental (God-given) impetus of human intelligence and love.

Rosary Time!

In our family, the Rosary at the end of the day is more than just a special time for this very precious and beautiful common prayer. "Rosary time" has become the most interesting time that we gather together as a family.

It's true that we also eat together, and dinner conversations can be interesting too, but the Rosary gathering has a special quality to it. There is always a certain period of time between when we sit down and when we actually start saying the Rosary, and a unique atmosphere of family community seems to arise spontaneously during this time. Conversations, questions, all kinds of teasing, and of course the antics of Josefina fill this time, in part because we are all together and in part because we are all procrastinating from actually getting down to the business of praying.

Let's face it. Praying the Rosary is sometimes dull. Okay, usually dull. Well, maybe "dull" isn't exactly the word. I love the Rosary. I want to say it well. Maybe what I feel is frustration at what seems like my continual failure to keep a sustained attention to the prayer and meditation it involves. But I know, of course, that Our Lord and His Mother see our effort, and give us far more than we deserve. Then the "family rosary" with children--which I must say is like glue for my family and which I think builds our unity like nothing else--poses its own "mechanical" problems with keeping the kids in the game and above all with managing the unique, "wild card" factor introduced by the participation of Josefina.

I know that it is a work that is bearing fruit. The maternal love of the Mother of God keeps us faithful to it. And this fidelity is something essential to our family life. There is something special about the whole gathering.

"Rosary time!"

This usually needs to be said more than once. At first people are in and out. Someone has to go to the bathroom. Someone needs a drink of water. And so we start to talk. Tonight Lucia asked me, "Daddy what was The Great Depression?" She is reading a story set in the period of the Depression, apparently. But everyone knows that you don't ask Daddy a question like that unless you want a thorough and detailed answer, because once Daddy gets going it's hard to stop him. Nevertheless, I restrained myself and answered briefly, with a few allusions to the differences (and also the similarities) between that period and the one in which we are now living.

Meanwhile Josefina distributes rosaries. That's her job. No matter how long it takes. And nobody else would dare to try to do it for her. So we talk about all kinds of things. John Paul is always full of questions, so he baits me with another one. Josefina romps about, swinging the rosaries. "Don't do that; the rosary is for praying." Finally everyone has their rosary and Josefina is perched on Mommy (unless she has decided to take advantage of the family stage to put on an act and make everybody silly). Still we search for things to talk about. Then finally we begin.

Midway through a decade Teresa used to always interrupt and say, "What mystery is this?" Now she has a guide that she uses that has pictures, so she doesn't do that anymore. The special challenge comes when it is Josefina's turn to lead a decade. She has just started doing this recently, and sometimes she alternates with Mommy. Josefina's Hail Mary is still just one big long word that she doesn't understand. Still she is very proud of the fact that she is able to say it. Sometimes she gets us laughing with her pronunciation or her squirming. But she really wants to be part of it. She is one of our "five mysteries," after all. And she knows who Jesus and Mary are, and wants to love them.

Really, it's a time of love, with all the clunkiness and awkwardness that family love has for us, and that it will no doubt continue to have in different forms as time goes on.

But with God's help, we will continue to pray together and stay together.

Edith Stein: Seeking and Finding the Truth

Today the Roman calendar observes the memorial of St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, known in the world as Edith Stein. Hers is a great story, from her Jewish roots, through atheism, to the search for truth in philosophy, to conversion to Christ in the Catholic Church, to teaching and advocating the dignity and vocation of women, to the cloister of Carmel where she continued to write philosophical and spiritual works, and finally to Auschwitz where she gave her life.

Edith Stein should be a special saint and helper for all who are searching for the truth. She knows what it means to search, and to find. I came across this prayer on Facebook today, and have been circulating it all around. I don’t know where it comes from in her writings, but it expresses so poignantly her relationship with God. It is a prayer for any person who is seeking the truth, and for anyone traveling the path of life:

O my God, fill my soul with holy joy, courage and strength to serve You. Enkindle Your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me. I do not see very far ahead, but when I have arrived where the horizon now closes down, a new prospect will open before me, and I shall meet it with peace.

He Loved Me and Gave Himself Up For Me

With Christ I am nailed to the cross. It is now no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me (Galatians 2:19-20).

This is Christian life.

What can I add to this? I have been dwelling on this text all day. What happened on the Cross? He intervened, definitively, in my life. He did something completely new, so new that it changes who I am. He identified Himself with me, to the point of even taking on my sins, from which He sets me free in the mystery of His love.

He loved me and gave Himself up for me. We should read these words every day. He loved me and gave Himself up for me. What is this "me" that He loves so much? Weakness. Selfishness. But then He takes hold of my life at its roots. Where I am helpless He comes with the love and the gift of Himself, He the Son of God. He claims my life, in order to become the source of something new. He asks me to let Him embrace me and become a source of new life--a life that is beyond the selfish prison of an "I" that struggles to find meaning in itself, alone. He breaks down the wall that separates me from the God that He is, the God that my "I" was created to live "for"--and this living for Him means that my self is opened up to Him. I am no longer alone. He lives in me.

How can this be? What does it mean? I live in the faith of the Son of God. I live a vital, obedient faith, full of hope, love, and trust because He has loved me. He has found me, He has given Himself to me, He has made it possible for me to recognize Him and live for Him. The Christian "I" lives in a relationship of self-abandonment to Jesus Christ, a relationship made possible because He gives Himself first.

Walking With Him, All The Way

Transfiguration.

A glimpse of glory. The voice of the Father: "This is my Beloved Son." How could Jesus have made Himself more "real" for these men? They saw all the miracles. They spent each day with Him, experiencing His tender gaze, marveling at His beauty. The man who is God: they were with Him. They saw Him. How could they ever falter in their faith? Why, after everything, did they still give in to fear?

Peter. After everything, after the promise of the Keys, after the calming of the storm, after the light of Mount Tabor, after the ardor of a heart that said in the peak of human sincerity, "I would lay down my life for You," how could he deny Him? Yet Jesus drew Peter's heart back to Himself. "Lord, You know that I love You."

Our life is so fragile and our experience so fragmented that we cannot energize ourselves to persevere in fidelity to the Mystery of God's presence and His love for us, even when He dwells with us and breaks bread with us every day and proves Himself trustworthy again and again and again.

And so He offers us this too as a gift: We may fail, we may turn from Him, we may forget Him a thousand times a day, but still His grace and mercy offer us the strength that we cannot generate from ourselves--the strength to rise and remember Him again, turn to Him again, be surprised by Him again, and if we cry out to Him and beg Him for His mercy, to walk with Him all the way through the end. All the way through death.

In the whole course of our life, He is prompting us, "Turn to Me, listen to Me, let Me draw you to myself, let Me give you what you need to take each step." Without Him we can do nothing. With Him we will have eternal glory. And He made us to be with Him, He wants us to be with Him.

He Knows Each One Of Us

My own trials have opened my eyes, my ears, and my heart to something I never noticed in my youth.  Maybe it is because I have finally started listening to people.  The fact is that so many people are struggling with suffering, most of them more than me.  Indeed, suffering is deeper than the immediate external struggles that engage most of us. Everyone has something missing in their life, something that has disappointed them, something that does not measure up to a once-cherished hope, something that inhibits their freedom, some burden that tires them, some hunger that is never satisfied.

People usually accommodate themselves to reduced expectations about life, especially as they get older.  How else could one get through the day?  Sometimes, however, one can still catch an echo of a cry of pain, that deep and mysterious pain at the heart of every human life.  Life is, in some measure, always something that has to be endured.

Why is this?  We suffer because of sin: original sin, our own personal sins, and the sins of the world.  We suffer in Christ, who is God’s love made personal and particular for each one of us.  Jesus is God drawn close to our wounded humanity, so close that He takes it upon Himself—not only in some “general” way, but in a way that encompasses each one of us.  Jesus is the intimate companion of each and every human person, even those who do not know Him.  He knows each one of us; He unites Himself (He—God the Eternal Son of the Father) to my humanity and to your humanity; He lives in us and suffers in us and through us.  He accompanies us through our companionship with one another and reaches out to others through our witness.

He knows “who I am” and who He wills me to be.  He knows the secret of why I was created.  He knows my sins.  He knows how to heal me of them, how to draw me to Himself, how to make me the “adopted son” that I am meant to be in Him for all eternity. And so my joys and sufferings are His infinitely wise, uniquely crafted, and tender love through which He shapes my life and leads me to my destiny.  How little I really understand about my “destiny.”  How little I understand about the “eternal life” which means belonging to Him forever.  We must remember every day that God is with us and that He draws us toward our true identity, which is to reflect His eternal glory in that unique way that corresponds to each of us as a person created in His image and likeness—a reflection that we do not yet understand but that He sees and knows.

We ought to dwell upon this and call it frequently to mind.  Those little prayers throughout the day are worth so much: “Jesus, I love you.  Jesus, I trust in you.  Come, Holy Spirit.” No matter the storms and the fury; the depths of our lives are not solitude.  At the heart of life, of every moment of life, there is companionship with the Merciful God.

There is Someone with us in our lives, every moment.  There is Someone “on the other side” of our prayers, listening, full of tender love, wanting to bestow mercy on us every moment with an attentiveness and care infinitely greater than that of any father or mother for their children.

From my book Never Give Up: My Life and God's Mercy (http://t.co/ddwYeqX)

"The Old Media"--Still The Real Thing

I was on the radio today.

I did an interview on a program called "Meet the Author" on Radio Maria network. They have actual stations in numerous states. Remember radio stations? You know, you could pick them up on a gadget like that thing on the left.

Of course, they also have a website and a webcast. Everyone I know of so far heard the program on the internet. But someone, somewhere, heard me on the radio.

Wow. I'm famous.

Actually, that's not accurate. This was not my first radio program. I was already famous before this broadcast. And I've been in the newspaper too! And, in the summer issue of Faith & Family Magazine there is an article (!) about me and Eileen and the kids and our adventures in these recent, troubled years. Then of course there is the book itself. A real book. Not available on Kindle.

Maybe it's just a prejudice of my generation, but the old media still seem more "real" than the new media. I write all the time on the new media. I might reach more people on the new media on a given day than I did on that radio broadcast. Still, the radio seems more "solid." So does a magazine. It's an odd feeling. We are in the midst of a change in the way we look at media and the alleged "fame" that it brings with it. Whether this is good or bad I don't know.

I know this: old media or new media, the desire that moves me is to communicate with people. That's what matters. I think I have something to give.

Someone called in to the radio program who has been disabled 16 years. My heart goes out to all those people whose suffering is so much greater than my own. Jesus have mercy on the sick, especially those who are alone in their pain. O Jesus, enter that solitude with your mercy.

I have been blessed and supported in so many ways. I pray that God would use me as His instrument to praise His mercy. In Your way, Lord. Your will be done.

The Witness of the Celibate Life

I'm a married man with five kids. But I think celibacy or “virginity” is beautiful for those called to it. The fact that there have been terrible abuses by some people who have violated their commitment to celibate life does not indicate that there is something wrong with the life itself (indeed, greater levels of such abuse are found in general among the married population). The problem of clerical abuse suggests various reforms, but the elimination of the celibate life is not one of them.

Celibacy is an ancient and venerated and specially blessed way of living the Christian life. Many different forms of living the Gospel are developing or being rediscovered in our time, which is a great grace. But this special consecration to God is as old as St. Paul and Jesus Himself. It is no imposition, but freely chosen by those whom God calls. It is a special and higher calling; I have no problem with that. I thank God that such people are part of my life. I thank God for their witness. Indeed, this special consecration to God is flowering in new ways today, in the midst of the secular world, in the ecclesial movements, even as it continues to be beautiful and fruitful in its classic forms.

It is certainly true that today the Church has placed great emphasis on the need for married people to seek God while living amid the cares and diverse circumstances of providing for a family and engaging in a secular career. We have many more positive images for “ordinary” Christian life in the world today, but it remains difficult for those of us who live in the ordinary way to remember the ultimate purpose of all the things we do and the concerns that press upon us. Being "in the world but not of the world" can become cliche if we forget the mystery of "self-transcendence" and transformation in Christ that are at the heart of every vocation, by virtue of baptism; St. Paul says, "remember you have died; your life is hidden with Christ in God." The exclusive dedication to God of those who embrace the consecrated, celibate life is a concrete witness that this is a fact for all of us, that it shapes the mystery of God's plan in the circumstances of our lives.

Why Do We Go To Church?

How do lay people participate in the liturgy? Must we leave the pews and go into the sanctuary? A few may perform certain tasks of assistance to the priest and the rest of the worshiping community such as serving at the altar or reading the Word of God. But that does not mean that the rest of us who remain in the body of the church are mere spectators in an action that does not involve us.

The real way for the laity to "get more involved" in the liturgy is for us to unite ourselves through liturgical worship to the offering of the sacrifice of Christ, to unite our whole lives to that offering. And in giving ourselves in earnest prayer, with words and heart, we, the faithful, also offer Jesus Himself–in the mysterious sacramental re-presentation of that One Sacrifice by which He redeems the world–to the Father in the Holy Spirit, through the sacred ministry of the priest who acts in the Person of Christ, and together with him.

Listening and praying God's word, gestures, hymns, and responses are meant to dispose our hearts, minds, and bodies to this sacrifice of Christ, in communion with our brothers and sisters. Through the liturgy, my whole life can be united to Christ's act of loving obedience to the Father on the Cross, and that is what gives my life real value, ultimately.

Dog Days Of Summer

The dog days of summer are here. The days are only a little bit shorter. And they are hotter, and the air stays warm at night.

It's the beginning of yet another month. I have written a great deal in this year 2011. Paging back through it, many things come vividly to mind. For example, I can remember how cold it was in February. Mmmmmm, that would be nice now!

This might seem strange, but I often go back to these posts and learn something from them, or remember something that I had forgotten. In desperate moments, I am reminded of the mercy and love of Jesus, and that He is worthy of my confidence. I see again how He has been working in my life, and surrounding me with signs of His tender care. I am frequently tempted to doubt. These pages have sustained me in the face of those temptations.

It's like having a diary (with a bit of scrapbook too), a diary that I show to everyone else. That's okay with me. I'm an open person, open to a fault. I'm one of those people who actually answers the question, "How are you?" I don't have many secrets; only the ones that I don't even tell myself. So of course there's some fibbing in these pages, but there would be in a locked and bolted diary book too, because we all lie to ourselves.

I know this: God is at work, in me, in our marriage, in our family, in these gestures and attempts to communicate. There are flaws everywhere. It all seems tinged by my faults and my self-centeredness, and especially by my vanity. There is vanity in my reflections and actions and especially in my words. Less, perhaps, than there used to be--I am learning a little more about how to let things go, if only because I am getting older and I just can't fool myself quite as well as I managed to do in the dreams of youth.

Of course, there are no doubt as yet undiscovered realms of foolishness in this, the sophomoric period of my middle age. The desire remains to be recognized and acknowledged, and frustration remains at being ignored. Yet that is not the whole explanation for why I write.

To paraphrase Fr. Carron, the point is not that I can talk about Christ being present in my life. The point is that He is present in my life. That is the difference. I probably talk about it too much. But in the midst of all these words there is testimony to the fact that He is here.

That is what really matters.

Suffering Has Meaning

I am certain that my suffering has meaning.  This in itself is something that amazes me. Even more, it astounds me that I know that it is even possible to be cheerful, and to have profound peace in the midst of great sufferings.  I do not arrive at this knowledge from the natural world.  Where does it come from?

I belong to a people—God’s People, the Church—where there are witnesses to this great peace and cheerful acceptance of suffering, not only in the lives of the saints, but even in the lives of some people that I know (and what a blessing those people are to me).  It is faith that enables me to recognize this, and to know that it is really true.  I know that the beginning of this peace is to suffer with the awareness of God’s presence and His plan for my life.  The road to a peaceful and cheerful acceptance of God’s plan passes through the practice of patience and trust.  “Jesus, I trust in You” begins as a prayer (a prayer that in a certain sense says, “Jesus I am afraid.  I do not know how to trust.  Give me the grace to trust in You.”).  The practice of this prayer develops into a habit, and out of this habitual prayer God forms in us and with us (slowly) the Christian virtues, especially humility and courage.  And so I pray to grow more actively aware of the truth that God’s Mercy defines my life.

To be honest, I do not know how much I understand all this concretely.  I could write a book on the “theology of suffering,” but how much do I really understand in a vital way?  I see it through a dark glass, a very dark glass.  So I pray.  I offer everything to God in the morning.  Then I grunt through the day, feeling lousy, and being grouchy toward my loved ones (perhaps I am not that bad; you will have to ask my wife if you really want to know). Then at night, I examine the worst of the day’s mess, make the act of contrition, and I really mean it.  But the next day is pretty much the same.  Will I ever grow beyond this level?  I pray that God may sustain hope in my heart.  In faith and hope I know that it is possible, that God’s grace can make something out of my nothingness, and therefore I must not—I will not—be discouraged.

From my book Never Give Up: My Life and God's Mercy

(click here to order: http://t.co/ddwYeqX)

Martha, Martha

Saint Martha.

Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were "good friends" of Jesus. He spent time with them. They were dear to Him. God made man had friends. These were people He "hung around" with, and there is a sign in that. It means He wants to be with us in that way too. He wants to be with us not only in Church, not only in prayer, not only in works of service, but also when we're sitting at the kitchen table, or when we play, or when we go eat pizza. He doesn't want to be left out of anything authentically human in our experience.

How does He stay with us in those "informal" moments that make up so much of life? He stays with us through the friends He gives us in our circumstances. When we gather together out of love for each other's destiny, we are gathering "in His name" and He will change us, through relationships, through ordinary life lived together.

Let us not think of Martha as the woman who was "too busy." Let us remember her as the one who said, "Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world." She was a friend of Jesus who recognized Him.

Spend just five minutes with this text, from the great encounter between Martha and Jesus: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, even if he die, shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me, shall never die" (John 11:26). Then he asks her, "Do you believe this?" To "believe in Him" means to adhere to His Person with a faith vivified by hope and love, to trust in Him.

Front Royal Cardinals Lose in 13 Innings

My blog is postponed tonight because I just got home from a very long and very disappointing baseball game. Our pride and joy, the Front Royal Cardinals, lost their final regular season game in 13 innings. After falling behind 9-0, they rallied back to tie the game, only to lose after several scoreless extra innings.

The Cardinals finished the season tied for the last playoff spot with the Haymarket Senators (yes, that's "Haymarket"--quaint, eh?), forcing a special one game winner-take-all match up tomorrow night, same time, same place. So John Paul and I will be back there again. It may be our last game of the summer, or it may be the beginning of the road to Valley League glory.

I just hope it's not extra innings.

The True Form of Desire

The more human beings are conscious that only He can constitute their true rest, the more they are moved by the fact itself that God exists. They cannot help being flooded with emotion at the fact that God exists, as Fr Giussani so often repeated: "My heart is glad because Christ lives." For this reason, His presence fills us with silence: "For Your way and Your judgments, O Lord, we look to You; Your name and Your title are the desire of our souls."  But this desire cannot survive even a few minutes if it does not become an entreaty, because the true form of desire is entreaty: it is called prayer.

Fr. Julian Carron, Spiritual Exercises, 2011

"The true form of desire is entreaty...prayer." I am moved by the possibility for life, that is, the expansion of my being in relation to truth, goodness, and beauty. This is the desire that reality engenders in my heart. But it is a desire that exceeds my capacities, that reveals that I am poor and in need, that I must go beyond myself and "give myself away" in order to attain my "true rest." If I remain alone, my desire cannot remain true. I must reduce reality to something less than myself, something I can grasp and consume. Thus I do violence to persons and things, and find in the end that I am still alone with my frustration.

But I do not need to remain alone with my desire. At the origin and the end of desire there is Another, and it is He who calls me through all my life to give myself over to Him in my poverty, to allow desire to blossom into a plea, a crying out, a patience that is both painful longing and joyful confidence in His mysterious presence and in His promise of fulfillment.

The true form of desire is entreaty, and within that plea is already rejoicing, worship, and a foretaste of glory: "My heart is glad because Christ lives!"

Warren Carroll, Rest in Peace

We buried Warren Carroll today, on the campus, on newly consecrated ground on a bluff overlooking the Shenandoah river, a stone's throw from the building where he taught most of his classes and wrote many of his books. Here, in this beautiful place, his body will await the glory that is to come. And we will be able to remember him, and pray for him. For me it will be a special place to visit on walks in my beautiful valley. It is a poignant thing, to visit the tomb of someone who has been an important influence on your life. It's a point of reference for remembering that the absence of the person does not mean the end of the relationship. We remain united, able to support one another and help one another in the "communion of saints." It's a reminder that death is something that has ultimately been overcome.

A coffin seems so final. It would be easy to look at a grave and think of it as representing the limit that seems to haunt all of reality. "All things come to an end." It seems like an overpowering fact, that flies in the face of our wild hope for eternity. At the very least, it suggests that our hope for fulfillment has nothing to do with human things, and that enduring meaning can only be found in escaping from the oppressiveness of an irredeemable reality.

But we honor the tomb. We know that humanity, and all of reality, is changed by an event that takes us beyond the end of all things. Love is not an unattainable dream. It has clothed itself anew in immortal flesh.

The tomb is not the final expression of human destiny. For we know that the greatest tomb in the world is empty.

Lots and Lots of Money

The President of the United States will address the nation tonight.

About money.

I don't think I can say a single intelligent thing about money. Well, I know the basic stuff, "medium of exchange," etc., but the current crisis of the Federal government escapes my intellectual capacity. Or maybe it just escapes the limits of my patience. Trillions of this and trillions of that. It's clear enough that something ain't right here. But the technicalities are too geekish for me to sort out.

I do study history. I know that it's a bad thing for a government to run out of money. Louis XVI's government ran out of money. The Weimar Republic ran out of money. Bad things tend to happen when a government runs out of money. Of course our government ran out of money a long time ago; we've put off the problem by borrowing kazillions of dollars. Now we're reaching our "credit limit." America is maxed out.

I know enough to know that's a bad, bad thing.

What I focus on is "home economics"--the Janaro version of home economics. For us, "money" is whatever is necessary to keep our family in a decent modern lifestyle. We don't want luxury. Just the basics. (Never mind the fact that the "basics" of a "modern" lifestyle surpass the dreams of emperors in all the previous epochs of history.) Small house. Old, junky furniture. Electricity, plumbing, heat, refrigeration, cooking, telephone, television, videos, computers, internet. Doctors and medicine for our illnesses. And, of course, air conditioning. Oh yeah, and cars. Used cars. We're modest, simple people. If I have enough money to take care of that, I'm satisfied.

How does it work? Eileen and I are both "service oriented" people. We want to serve the community in our profession: education. You can't put a price on education. I look at my own education and I say to myself, "I wouldn't give up this for all the kazillions of dollars that the world can hold." I paid tuition for higher education and it helped support the institutions and the teachers. I am glad my teachers had money to live and eat and have air conditioning. But the fact is that there is nothing that I could have given my teachers that could possibly have "reimbursed" them for what they gave me by leading me on the path of education.

And, as a teacher, I never have expected my students to "pay me back." Just give us what our family needs to live so that we can serve the community in our profession. We realize that this is best accomplished by the community we serve, through subsidiary institutions. It doesn't always work out that way for academic professionals. It hasn't always worked that way for us. Sometimes the money comes from weird places. Anyone who has been involved in "start-up" educational enterprises has stories about donations from strangers that fall from the sky. Donations. As in charity. Yes, sometimes we live on charity. Should we be ashamed?

If I calculated the relationship between the work I have done in my life and the money I have been paid, I could become a bitter man. But I am not bitter. I am grateful. I have been able to practice my profession.

Meanwhile, there have been some rough patches recently. I could be bitter about that too.

But God does provide. Do not seek what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, and do not exalt yourselves (for after all these things the nations of the world seek); but your Father knows that you need these things. But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be given you besides (Luke 12:29-31).

Is there any advice for governments here? I am a naive man, and I don't pretend to be otherwise. To monitor the delicate instruments that facilitate civic life is the task of the Statesman. I hope our society can find people who can fulfill this role. It is truly a priceless work.