Getting Close Up With the CAPITALS

On the evening of October 8, we went to a Capitals game and had the best seats we've ever had. John Paul was able to get four free seats from some of his connections, right at center ice, behind the penalty box.

So Eileen and I went with John Paul and his fiancée Emily. We had a great time. The Capitals played the Dallas Stars in a game with some exciting moments. The highlight was when the Caps scored with less than a minute left in regulation, to tie the score and force the game into overtime. The crowd's roar was deafening.

Unfortunately, they lost in overtime. But they still got one point for a "regulation tie" according to the way the NHL calculates records (2 points for a win, 1 for a tie at the end of regulation that the team loses in overtime, and 0 for a loss).

It was fun. The hockey season has begun again, and it has been more than a year since the Capitals won the Stanley Cup and finally gave my son a hometown champion after a whole childhood of loyal and but often frustrating cheering for Washington D.C. teams.

Here we all are, in the fourth row!

Needless to say, baseball isn't over yet, and the 2019 Washington Nationals are still in the running... ⚾

The Rosary: "Handing Over Our Burdens"

Today is the beautiful feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Saint John Paul II has inspired many people (including our present Pope Francis) to a deeper devotion to the prayer of the Rosary. Here are a few words of that great Pope from the beginning of this new millennium, from his Apostolic Letter on the Rosary in 2002:

"Following in the path of Christ, in whom man's path is 'recapitulated,' revealed and redeemed, believers come face to face with the image of the true man... It could be said that each mystery of theRosary, carefully meditated, sheds light on the mystery of man.

"At the same time, it becomes natural to bring to this encounter with the sacred humanity of the Redeemer all the problems, anxieties, labours and endeavours which go to make up our lives. 'Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you' (Psalm 55:23). To pray the Rosary is to hand over our burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ and his Mother... The Rosary does indeed 'mark the rhythm of human life,' bringing it into harmony with the 'rhythm' of God's own life, in the joyful communion of the Holy Trinity, our life's destiny and deepest longing" (Rosarium Virginis Mariae 25).

It Really IS "Okay"...

"It's OK not to be OK."

I certainly know this is true. It can be hard for the younger generation to really accept this, even if they affirm it verbally. After all, the future still stretches before them, as yet undefined. And this is an era in which empirical scientific knowledge and technological power are continually generating new "life hacks" that overcome limits of all kinds.

We expect solutions. But still, even today, not everything can be fixed.

There is no shame in patching things up as best we can, and going with what we have. It can even be surprisingly creative, when we do what we can to build on the foundation that every human person's life has meaning and purpose, and every human person is loved by God.

I'm "not OK." I don't want to complain, but I have had a few persistent problems, so I'm aware that life can be hard, and I would like to think that through many years I have learned a little about empathy.

As I have explained in some detail on this blog, in other writings, and in what still remains my most recently published book (in 2010), I have struggled with long-standing illnesses most of my life. An avid outdoorsman in my youth, I probably first contracted Lyme disease in my early 20s (which is when I first experienced some of its now well-known early symptoms). Unfortunately, doctors in Northern Virginia in 1988 knew very little about this strange tick-borne illness that had only recently begun to afflict New Englanders but was in fact spreading throughout northeastern USA and elsewhere. It was some two decades before my illness was identified and targeted directly with antibiotics and several years of diverse treatments and therapies. Some measure of success was achieved at great cost, but at a very late stage. Frankly, I'm glad to be alive, but I still have to deal with the wide spectrum of elusive and often debilitating consequences of a Lyme infection that was neglected for so long.

Day by day, we patch things up as best as we can. We go with what we have.

Long before Lyme disease came along, I had to endure significant problems with my mental health. (This too I have written about in great detail on this blog and in my book.) I have battled major depression (in different ways) for 46 years (starting at the age of 10). I have certainly benefited from the ongoing developments in mental health awareness and care. Therapy has helped me tremendously. Sometimes medication has also helped.

Fixes everything!😉

Yes, medication. We don't need to be afraid of psychiatric medications. They won't "fix" people, and they need to be evaluated and monitored regularly. But they can contribute as part of a program of health care and maintenance just like other medicines do for other persistent conditions. Mental illness is real illness: it's important to say to people that if they need medication, that's okay. Medication can help; a good mental health professional will give guidance on this, and work with the particular needs of each person.

When I was younger, there were many times when I thought, "I'm cured! I'm fixed, for good. I'll be 'OK' from now on..." This does sometimes happen even with regard to overcoming longstanding obstacles in life. Who knows? It may still happen for me. But I'm not ashamed or embarrassed by the fact that it hasn't happened yet. In any case, I have been around long enough to know that there will always be problems, and also that life retains its purpose and offers us new ways to give of ourselves, whatever our condition may be.

For me (and many others) mental health is something patched together. We end up holding the brain together with lots of psychological duck tape. It may not be pretty. We can't put too much strain on it. We have to keep "reapplying" more duck tape. But, for today, it's moving along.

In sickness and health - as in every facet of our lives - we need to stay connected with people. We must not be afraid of the people who love us; we need to be open to relationships with people who really care about us. They have limits too, but these limits are an invitation to us to care for them. We need one another.

It really is OK "not to be OK." Ultimately, our relationship with Jesus and His transformation of our suffering in union with His love is the absolute guarantee that everything - even death itself - has a meaning and purpose. I have also written much about these themes (even though it can be overwhelming to consider - it is, after all, a mystery).

But even in this present life, in facing many kinds of obstacles that would have made me utterly panic had I foreseen them in my youth, I'm more confident that it is OK. It's going to be OK. But I have a long way to go in developing this conviction. As a "Young Senior" (😉), I'm still jumpy about the-stuff-that-can-happen-to-people-my-age, as well as what might happen if I avoid all that and then have to face the unique problems of genuine old age (which for me would be at least a generation away).

No one knows what the future holds. We are all in God's hands.

Still, I have been through and continue to deal with some difficult things. From the vantage point of the years of experience I do have, let me assure younger people: a full and beautiful life can bloom and bear fruit through all of it. We are all vulnerable in different ways but also gifted in different ways. We can all love and help one another, and that's where we discover the beauty of life.

It's not easy. Sometimes I find it all very frustrating, but overall I "manage" to go forward, grateful for every day when I can discover how limitations in some areas open up new spaces for human creativity and the constructive exercise of freedom.

I believe and hope that these spaces for freedom continue to open up (even if only in mysterious ways) all the way to the very end of a person's life. Then, through the final, impenetrable enigma of death, we are called to give ourselves freely and definitively to God and (in some fashion) to those who have been entrusted to us in this world.

I don't "feel ready" for that yet, but the day and the hour of the summons to such a gift are not under my control (or even accessible to my practical understanding). I am called to "do" what I "can" in the present moment, which is to live, knowing and loving as I am able, and trusting that what lies beyond my power is in the hands of a Mysterious Goodness who affirms and establishes life, fulfilling and going beyond all my longings.

Servants of All for the Love of God

Happy Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Some quotations from a letter of Saint Francis:

"O how happy and blessed are those who love the Lord and do as the Lord himself said in the gospel: "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul; and your neighbor as yourself." Therefore, let us love God and adore him with pure heart and mind.... 

"Let us also love our neighbors as ourselves. Let us have charity and humility. Let us give alms because these cleanse our souls from the stains of sin. 

"People lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve.

"We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh. Rather we must be simple, humble and pure. We should never desire to be over others. Instead, we ought to be servants who are submissive to every human being for God’s sake.

"The Spirit of the Lord will rest on all who live in this way and persevere in it to the end. He will permanently dwell in them. They will be the Father’s children who do his work."

Our Lives Are Fruitful

It has been a while since I posted a vlog update. Here, then, are just a few words about how I have begun to discover the precious gifts that are passed from generation to generation. 

We have so much to be grateful for. We in turn hope to pass on what has been given to us and lived, personally, by each of us.

I'm coming to you from under one of the Maple trees. It's good to spend time with them while the leaves are still green.

China: After 70 Years, New Bloodshed

On October 1st, China marked the 70th Anniversary of being ruled by the largest organized crime syndicate in the history of the world. Here are a couple of pictures from the day's events.

The first picture (the top half of the collage) shows the scene in Beijing. Here is the big parade. Floats, flags, soldiers, tanks, more tanks ... but whoa, what's with "the man in the suit"?

Now it's a general rule, I would say, that when a dictator starts making 40 foot tall pictures of himself, he probably has two much power and/or two few marbles in his head. Xi Jinping is not known for losing his marbles, which makes this (among other things) just plain CREEPY!

Meanwhile, the second picture (the lower half of the collage) is from fierce clashes in the wake of several huge protest marches in Hong Kong. Cameras were all over a terrible and unprecedented moment: a police officer shot a protester in the chest with a pistol.

Real bullets this time. The last I heard, the victim - an 18 year old high school student - was still in critical condition.

This was not pepper spray. This was not an "accident." This was not a "warning shot." It was a gun, it was aimed, and it found its target.

In the cultural context of Hong Kong, this crosses a new threshold. After months of brutal, painful but non-lethal methods, a bullet has been fired. We can only hope and pray it's not the first of many...

Thérèse and the Mystery of Love

Well... wow! Thérèse is way beyond anything I can understand here. Surely, our lives are a great mystery. A great mystery of love... 

Happy Saint Thérèse Day!

God is good, all the time. And He loves us.

As China's "Partystate" Turns 70, Hong Kong Dares to be Free

Hong Kong people sing and flash phone lights.

October 1st has dawned in China and Hong Kong. 

This day marks the 70th Anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party Dictatorship and its rule over the world's most populated country. One-fifth of the human race will be expected to "celebrate" (and most of them will at least pretend to celebrate). But major public festivities in Hong Kong have been cancelled. Meanwhile, the Protest Movement held peaceful demonstrations overnight, continuing to call for "the liberation of Hong Kong," and loudly singing their new civic anthem.

Journalists who were among them shared reports, pictures, and videography. Ordinary people spoke of their love for Hong Kong, their hopes for future generations, and the firmness of their determination to continue their protest, come what may.

It was awesome. These people are making real history.

"Liberate Hong Kong. / Revolution of Our Times"

They will be in the streets again on this day, demanding respect for their dignity as human persons. They have not given up, and they are not going to give up.

Let's not forget these astonishing, brave human beings! Their tenacious persistence in refusing to live by lies and in struggling for their own freedom already deserves to be celebrated.

"In Your Light We See Light"

"O Lord, how precious is your love.
My God, the sons of men 
find refuge in the shelter of your wings.
In you is the source of life 
and in your light we see light" (Psalm 36:7, 9).

Sacrifice, Relationship, and Personal Fulfillment

In society today, it is commonly thought that the meaning of life - the secret of becoming a mature human person - is found by achieving independence, autonomy, and self-sufficiency.

For most poor struggling human beings, this all seems rather incomprehensible or overwhelming. Not surprisingly, people feel isolated, lost, and frustrated.

But for those who are intelligent, strong, energetic, and idealistic this kind of thinking can become tempting. The goal of life appears to be self-possession and self-definition, a kind of radical power over ourselves. This leads us to view relationships as merely useful interactions with other autonomous persons that serve our needs or please us or are otherwise subordinated to our ultimate purpose of self-affirmation.

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

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

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

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

Giussani on Power and the Boundless Impetus of the Heart

I know I have been doing lots of quotation posts lately, but this text from Luigi Giussani is very pertinent to the circumstances that many people face today (even though it's taken from a talk he gave more than thirty years ago).

The legacy of Monsignor Giussani - unlike so much of what was written, spoken, and broadcast by fashionable experts during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s - has not faded into irrelevance or nostalgic trivia. He belongs among the truly great people of the last century whose recognition of the perennial drama of human existence gave them important insights for their own time and also regarding the new epoch that is still emerging today.

Giussani saw that it was in the interests of worldly powers to distract human persons from the recognition of their own dignity, the scope of their freedom, the "boundless impetus of the heart." We don't need to fear the powerful if we are awake to the fullness of our destiny. The trouble is that too often we are asleep:

"We don’t [refer to the influence of] the powerful because we are afraid; we speak of them because we have to wake up from our slumber. The strength of the powers-that-be is our impotence.... We do not fear the powerful; we fear people who sleep and therefore enable them to do what they want with them. I say that the powers-that-be make everyone fall asleep, as much as possible. Their great system, the great method is that of sending to sleep, anesthetizing, or, better yet, atrophying. Atrophying what? Atrophying the heart of the human person, our needs and desires, imposing an image of desire or need different from that boundless impetus of the heart. And thus it raises people who are limited, enclosed, imprisoned, already half cadaver – that is, impotent" (Luigi Giussani).

A Renewed Encounter With Jesus

"I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them: I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since 'no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord' (Saint Paul VI).

"The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms.

"Now is the time to say to Jesus: 'Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace.' 

"How good it feels to come back to him whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us, we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy... 

"No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us by this boundless and unfailing love. With a tenderness which never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and to start anew. Let us not flee from the Resurrection of Jesus, let us never give up, come what will. May nothing inspire more than his life, which impels us onwards!"

~Pope Francis

Hello Autumn 2019!

So here we are "again," it seems. The seasons are changing.

It’s the beginning of Fall for Northern Hemisphere people. The days are obviously shorter, the nights are cooler, but it can still get pretty hot during the afternoon. 

That will change soon, and we will begin to enjoy mild weather and weeks of pleasant and increasingly colorful days.

In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s a different story. It's Springtime for my Aussie and Argentine friends. Flowers and more daylight and warmer weather are ahead for you.

But we are all approaching the end of a most eventful and peculiar decade. So much has happened in the past ten years (from 2010 - 2019). But the "teens" decade of this century is almost over. The “20s” will soon be upon us!

Announcing an Engagement

This post will be short and sweet. 

I have joyful news. This was not unexpected, but it's still awesome.

John Paul is engaged to the wonderful young lady he has been seeing over the past couple of years, Emily Farabaugh.

They are planning the wedding for August 2020 (i.e. next Summer, hooray!). Eileen and I and the whole family couldn't be happier. John Paul, you're a lucky man!

Here on the left is a picture of our son and his fiancée from last year, during the "Rome Semester" (although they were in Venice for that picture). On the right is a picture from last May's graduation.

God willing, many more pictures will be posted as this new chapter opens in the history of our family.

John Paul and Emily, God bless you!

Tax Collectors and Sinners

"As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, 'Follow me.' And he got up and followed him" (Matt 9:9).

Happy SAINT MATTHEW'S DAY!

Here's a picture some guy painted in Rome. One of those long Eye-talian names, "Pastafagogio" or somethin' like that. It's pretty good, huh?😉

#AWorkOfGenius #OneOfTheG.O.A.T. #CARAVAGGIO ❗

Yes, I know it's Caravaggio. Today is a good day to ponder this epic, soul-gripping painting. 

I have spent lots of time with the original at San Luigi dei Francesi church in Rome. It's in a mini side chapel in a corner so dark that you can't really see the (already dark) painting without some artificial light.

Don't worry, there's a machine that turns on a light. As I remember, it had to be fed 200 Lire coins every thirty seconds or so. Obviously, it's some denomination of the Euro today (but my son told me that it's still there).

When you go to Rome, see its shadows and hints of light, its collection of faces and postures - tax collectors, sinners, perplexed bystanders, you and me, Peter, Jesus...

Bring plenty of coins.

Love Overcomes the Vanity of All Things

I have been asking lots of questions within my soul in these recent years. So much has happened that it's bewildering, so much secret pain has been revealed - in others more than in myself.

Dear God ... ...

I know these are not the kinds of questions that can be adequately answered with words. They are the kind of questions that can only be endured. They are more than compatible with the unreserved assent of faith... but they are not comfortable.

Lately, I often feel the weight of the fragility, the temporary nature of every thing in this life. And this does not come with some kind of stoic resignation. There is a great sorrow in it.

Getting old means I see it in myself in so many ways. And I saw it especially over the past year, watching my once vigorous father slowly die.

We have had several tragic deaths in our community this year. There are larger problems in the world and in the Church that have shaken us up. Of course, there have been joyful moments, inspiring moments too.

It's taking its toll on me. I'm trying to hold on, but more and more I just feel like I'm gasping for air, like I'm nearly out of gas, I'm spent. Emotionally more than physically. There are things I can do for this, therapeutically speaking, up to a point.

What remains is the struggle to keep saying, "Yes" every day, and to say it with love. I'm not giving up. Sometimes, when I write, it helps me to remember who I am, why I exist, what moves me to say "yes" to today, to engage life in this world even if "all is vanity" - because "all is gift" too! Here's where "the questions" stand in front of the Mystery.

There remains a hope in me, not one that I can generate from any effort to be optimistic, not one that comes from me or from anything bound to this world that is passing away.

It has its source in that man who rose from death, who transforms death into the beginning of a new world, a new creation, whose love renews all things. That man: Jesus Christ.

For me it's a difficult, sometimes desperate hope, sometimes obscured by so many anxieties; yet still, I remember that I have been loved by this love that is greater than death. I have been loved by Jesus.

Here is something that ought to be an especially convincing and compelling feature of living in the communion of the Church.

In many places in the Church this witness to Christ's amazing love has been obscured, and this points to some basic problems that we must all grapple with regarding our relationship with God and with one another.

Overall, for me, however, I have been very much blessed by the witness of others. I have known people who, even with all their problems and their fragile humanity, have a joy, a passion, a love that reaches me and speaks to me of a new kind of life, a new world where all the goodness and beauty of things is transformed, renewed, and fulfilled.

It is the love greater than death, that shares itself and begins to change everything, even our sorrows, even our mourning over the vanity of all things.

The Church living in history means that we have been loved, concretely, by other persons with this kind of love, the risen love of Jesus. Sometimes they let us down too, but really there is nothing surprising about that. Humans are flawed and weak. What strikes us is that, in the midst of an ordinary, peculiar, often frustrating human community, there is something else. It is this human, yet different, love that embraces us.

And the love remains, continues, endures our efforts to frustrate it, and even grows! The Church is a place where we can encounter the Source of this new, radically dynamic love and be changed by it. It shapes us even when we don't feel it and this perishing world seems to have swallowed it up.

Sometimes love may seem absent from our psychological experience of being "in the Church." Perhaps we are closing ourselves off, holding onto our pride or resentment. But perhaps it is because love has gone deeper, to work secretly in the hidden depths our ourselves.

If we feel like we can't "find" that love, we need to "ask" and "seek" and hope and endure the darkness with eyes and heart open.

For me, I know that I am loved by God. He has touched me in Jesus Christ, through his Spirit, in his grace, through baptism and the sacraments, and through the love of others.

I feel like I would be betraying myself if I denied such a fundamentally important factor of my life, no matter what may obscure it in a given situation, no matter what hidden paths it takes. I have seen enough to know that this mysterious love is present and always worthy of my trust. I can still say, "look, here is a sign, a light, a reason for hope."

Buona Festa Della Famiglia di San Gennaro (Janaro)

Today is the Feast Day of the Great Ancestor of the Janaro Clan, the original Saint Januarius, fourth century bishop and martyr.

I'm sure he must, somehow, be related to us, what with the "Naples" tradition and all. Surely my Neapolitan ancestors participated in the 1500-year-old devotion to him. Indeed, according to Legend (and I should know, because I made up the legend) he is the special patron saint of the Janaros.

After all, why not? The spelling difference is not such a big deal. No doubt both names are rooted in the Latin "Janus," the god of the gateways, after whom the first month of the year takes its name ("January"). 

So Happy Janaro Family Feast Day!

"This Saying is Trustworthy..."

Why Do I "Teach"? What Keeps Me Motivated?

In a recent post ("On My Work" - see here) I considered the status of my "work," my temporal vocation, my ongoing engagement in academic life and the teaching profession.

The exercise of my profession is hindered and limited by disability, but it remains important to me. The energy that I have is focused on doing what I can to fulfill the task I took up 25 years ago (after many years spent in preparation for it). Forced now to live "in retirement" (and often in bed), I can't work a job nor predict how I will feel from day to day. This is frustrating, and yet I am determined to do what I can and to "keep going."

Why do I teach? For that matter, why do I study, why do I try to learn, to understand reality? What is the motivation that sustains it?

I have always pondered the great questions of life, the mysteries of being human, and the Mystery who holds us and all things in existence and calls our hearts to seek the "ever-greater," the "Infinite." I also wanted to help others on this path.

I am a Catholic Christian who has been drawn into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ in the Church. By calling and circumstances, I carry out my human vocation with a more explicit and direct service to my brothers and sisters in Christ. I also find through faith an openness to every person, a passion for the humanity of every person and a light that illuminates the whole of reality. Faith requires me to recognize the preciousness of all human things and all of creation, and to find hope and meaning in every circumstance.

Hope searches for truth, goodness, and beauty wherever they can be found, and perseveres even in suffering and in the endurance of evil and violence. The vitality of hope is sustained by a loving adherence to the One who is Love, who has endured all things and reveals Love's infinite mystery by "being-with-us" to the end, beyond our limits and even our rejection of Love and our struggle against it. ("Love your enemies..." "Father, forgive them...")

I studied theology and also philosophy and history, and I remain a professor ("emeritus") at a university that takes a Christocentric, "Catholic" integrated humanities approach to learning. As I said before, health problems restrict me from active teaching (which I miss a lot), but I'm engaged in research, writing, and creative projects in various ways, depending on my fluctuating condition.

Notwithstanding the many possibilities new media technology has opened up for connecting with people, I often feel very lonely. (This is a form of suffering - and I wrote a whole book about suffering and its value known through the eyes of faith, which makes a difference even to people like me who are weak in faith and low on patience.)

I often feel very lonely.

However, it gives a certain kind of perspective. So many people are lonely, or confused, or stressed out. We are desperately searching for solutions to our problems and/or distractions and ways to kill the pain. I certainly do plenty of this, but it's never adequate to escape the desire that burns in me to share so many things that I have learned and continue to learn.

It's not just my big ego (though that's part of it, of course - my life is such a mess). I don't know if I ever have a perfect, pure intention for anything I do. I spend my days subconsciously (sometimes even consciously) trying to make deals with God. I'm definitely a sinner, but the Lord has still entrusted me with a mission, and it continues to draw me through these days, as it has since my youth.

This mission has to do with communicating what I "see and hear" along the whole journey of this life, whatever experience and understanding I gain about what it means to be human. I suppose this is what being "a humanities teacher" is all about. And how or when this communication "succeeds" is not something I can measure in the brief scope of my own time in this world.

I'm called to be faithful to this vocation, even if I feel like I'm not saying it very well, or no one is listening, and the hairs of my beard just grow whiter as the days pass by. I'm called to be faithful. So I pray for the grace to keep trying, and doing what I can, entrusting the fruition to God.

The Cross of Love and Salvation

September 14. "Exaltation of the Cross," which is God's love for the world.
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