...and Don’t Worry!

Happy Feast of Saint (Padre) Pio.

I’ll never win any graphics awards, but I decided anyway to work up something “visual” for this day. These brief words are full of significance, especially for someone who is prone to discouragement and who worries too much.

It is a grace to remember that Jesus is here, whatever difficulties the moment may bring; and to remember that His merciful love is infinitely greater than all my problems and perplexities and forgetfulness and failures; and to remember that I belong to Him, that He embraces me in my poor crazy life.

Almost Autumn... Already?

A few images of late September, as the autumn months approach. 

When I Sit and When I Stand….

“O Lord, you have probed me and you know me;

    you know when I sit and when I stand;

    you understand my thoughts from afar.

My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,

    with all my ways you are familiar.”

~Psalm 139:1-3

These verses speak of the God who creates the whole universe, who transcends all things, and who is “nearer to me than I am to myself.” The Infinite. The Mystery. The “still, small voice” that whispers in the depths of every human soul the ineffable promise that sustains our seeking and awakens our conscience. The only One who corresponds to the “forever” that moves us to even begin to desire anything.

For most of history, for the vast majority of the human race, the Mystery seems obscured beyond all thought and all manner of searching. Still, everyone searches….

When the followers of Confucius asked him about what happens when we die, he responded with a brilliant and provocative question: “How can we understand death when we don’t understand life?” Or, in Classical Chinese: 焉知死 (A.I. can find the text for me, and provide links to various attempts to explain it, but it can’t answer the question; it can’t even explain what Confucius really meant by asking it).

The Lord knows “when I sit and when I stand.” The Lord knows how much my “sitting” and “standing” are taken up with trying to learn the deep currents of a great and ancient civilization that remains grounded upon this question, and whose peoples cannot avoid this question no matter how hard they try.

The Lord knows every one of these persons, and loves each of them with an everlasting love. The Heart of Jesus Christ knows and loves each of them on the Cross. This I know by the gift of faith, and by the gratuitous and overflowing love of God. I certainly don’t deserve to know anything (and can barely remember what is given to me every day).

In these times, the love of Christ compels us to bear witness to Him, which entails also the task of listening, learning, and engaging in dialogue with all of humanity. Faith opens us up to every human person and to all of history, calling us to share in the inexhaustible mystery of the concreteness and the ardor of Christ’s love. The study of history and the dialogue between civilizations don’t yield “easy answers,” but they are sustained by great wonder and great hope.

“The Wood of the Cross”

September 14th: Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

So Many September Changes, Especially in 2026

The "change of seasons" is in the air. For me this time is still touched with melancholy, as school seasons begin to move forward (which is still a big change of routine for my wife and my colleagues and friends). The sense of being "alone" at this time — even if I don't think about it — seems to weigh down my bones. Teaching is at the heart of my vocation. I am moved to try to communicate the truth I am learning, and to “walk together” with others in the search for wisdom and understanding about reality as a whole, human history, and the circumstances that are unfolding before us today. I have always regarded this “professorial” task as the basic mode of my service to the “common good” of my community, my nation, and this world which more than ever requires us to recognize our shared humanity and engage global problems with collaboration and solidarity.

But I am long retired from classroom teaching (for health reasons), and I am finding it increasingly difficult to use the means of communication that remain accessible to me in my present circumstances. I have in recent years been given a measure of strength that allowed me to publish a book over a decade ago and write a monthly column in Magnificat for the last thirteen years. Now I find this relative strength diminishing more rapidly as I grow older and communications media — along with the society as a whole — become increasingly superficial, over-saturated, and chaotic.

With this month’s Magnificat article, I am — regrettably — bringing my long series of “Great Conversion Stories” to an end (I don’t know whether the magazine will continue with the same theme under another author, or introduce another series). I do intend to bring together in an accessible form the entire collection of these stories (over 300 pages). This will be “my next book,” and I hope to bring out longer reflections on some of the remarkable persons I have written about with such brevity in my column.

But that depends on how much my health permits me to continue researching and writing. I know that increasing limitations on “natural” human capabilities open up wider possibilities for “spiritual” action in solidarity with persons (and peoples) whose sufferings I continue to study in my East Asia Project. I still hope to communicate more on these important themes insofar as it is possible. I hope that I shall continue to learn and ask questions for many years yet. But Jesus knows the path along which He wants to draw me to Himself.

The “issues” I noted recently that were holding up my brother’s treatment (and, probably, other issues that we don’t know about) have led to an impasse on the possibility of him benefitting from a new cancer protocol. Therefore, he will begin a more “conventional” course of chemotherapy on September 14th. It’s a mild form of the treatment that doctors hope will slow down the growth of the cancer. This is all that can be hoped for, and we don’t know how long he will remain among us in this present life. This is hard for him and for everyone; we are being led along many new and unfamiliar roads. Everyone please keep praying for him, and for those around him. God’s will be done.

If statistics mean anything, the accessibility of this Blog has cratered since it got cut off from the old domain address. I guess I will have to rebuild an active “following” all over again. I don’t know how those things are done. I know the blog has been helpful to more than a few people through the years. I hope and pray we stay connected or re-connect. The current blog address is < johnjanaro[dot]blogspot[dot]com >.

September brings changes… it would be nice if the weather would change, but so far it remains hot and humid! But the change in weather will come.

Happy Birthday, Mother Mary!

Happy Birthday, Blessed Mother Mary! The Mother of God our Savior and Redeemer was once herself a baby in the arms of her mother Saint Anne. This is the human reality of our faith in a particularly tender and beautiful realization. Mary, the woman who brings Jesus to us, is so lovable in her own history which is entirely shaped for Him. She is the first light after a long night of human misery and longing for the truth of life. She lives “already” the mystery of His grace, the mystery of our salvation that encompasses her whole history and, through her obedience, breaks into our history and changes it by changing us.

Dear Mother Mary, Refuge of Sinners, I am so grateful to you for everything!

To celebrate this feast day, Pope Leo XIV once again visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano (about an hour east of Rome), which is cared for by his own beloved Augustinian brothers. Here are a few excerpts from his homily (emphasis mine):

“I am joyfully here again, to celebrate with you the Vigil of the Nativity of the Most Holy Virgin and to entrust to the Child Mary whatever is still being born in this poor yet magnificent humanity: fragile as a sprout, but a sign of God's faithfulness. Yes, Mary is the dawn of a different day, of our world finally freed from evil….

“Dear brothers and sisters, we feel dizzy before this Mystery: it is impossible to get used to it! We celebrate the birth of a child called to become the Mother of her Creator, the Mother of God who saves. And yet, she is born simply a child, like the daughters and granddaughters we hold in our arms. Today we have for her noble and lofty titles, of Lady and Queen, but God's way has been and remains simpler and more silent, yet no less powerful and transformative. It is the way of Jesus himself, ‘the firstborn among many brethren’ (Romans 8:29). Well, like Mary, we too are ‘predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son’ (ibid.): by grace, certainly, but desiring and preferring his path — his choices, his journey — to other ways. In Jesus Christ, God has chosen the humblest historical conditions and the humblest of creatures to manifest the uniqueness of his Kingdom, in which arrogance has no place and omnipotence is creation, service, and care for life.

“Today, in the Collect, turning to little Mary, we asked that ‘the celebration of her birth may increase our peace.’… We want to imagine peace — to broaden the boundaries of understanding and paint it in our souls — to recognize that it already exists, to welcome it and serve it. It is the gift of God, the breath of the Risen One, the work of the Holy Spirit. Let us allow peace to grow within us. It will sprout in the world. And the Mother of Good Counsel will accompany us in this mission.”

Malcolm Muggeridge Encounters “Something Beautiful for God”

In these September days — as we celebrate the holy life and incredibly profound vocation of Saint Teresa of Calcutta — it is worthwhile to recall the remarkable story of her good friend Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), a well-known British writer and radio and television journalist whose life was deeply involved with some of the most dramatic events of the twentieth century.

He was baptized Anglican as an infant, but his childhood was shaped by the optimistic socialism of his father. Malcolm grew up thinking that an earthly “utopia” might be built by social engineering, but this idea never satisfied entirely the vast and seemingly contradictory longings of his heart. From an early age, Jesus attracted him with the promise of Eternity. From Scripture, literature, and friendship with some devout Anglicans, he learned the ways of prayer, and would never entirely forget them. At the same time, his heart was pulled by pride, worldly ambitions, and selfish desires. His vivid consciousness of his own inner incoherence frustrated and afflicted him for many years.

As a young adult, Malcolm was an ardent admirer of the Bolshevik Revolution and the international Communist movement as it emerged in the 1920s. He became a journalist and, in 1931, a Moscow correspondent for a British newspaper. There, Malcolm’s socialist dream shattered against the hard reality of Stalin’s brutal reign of terror. Without authorization, he traveled to Ukraine and saw the horror and devastation of a politically engineered famine that killed millions of Ukrainians. He also came to a crowded Ukrainian church in Kyiv on a Sunday — crowded with hungry desperate people singing the Liturgy, begging for the mercy of a God who had suffered on the Cross. In this church, Malcolm began to realize that suffering (only made horribly worse by Communism, and in one way or another tragically unavoidable for all of us) didn’t have to be the ultimate frustration of human existence. Malcolm caught a glimpse of the God he had not entirely stopped seeking: the God who had come to dwell with us and to take our sufferings upon Himself. In that Ukrainian church, he sensed the closeness of Christ and His love to these suffering people who were beyond all earthly hopes.

Still, Malcolm wrestled for decades with his fickle, divided heart. He also became famous in postwar Britain as an editor and writer, television personality, and pioneering international documentary maker. This work would bring him to Calcutta, India, in 1966, to make a documentary about a Catholic nun who had founded a religious order dedicated to serving “the poorest of the poor.” In some ways, Malcolm Muggeridge “introduced” Mother Teresa to the affluent Western world through this landmark documentary, Something Beautiful for God.

He also came to know Mother Teresa as a concrete witness to Christ and a friend who cared about him. She amazed him as someone who was eminently practical, who lived “in the world,” but who did not depend on human powers or human success. Instead, she saw and loved Christ in everyone, especially the poorest people, the street-dwellers of Calcutta, the abandoned sick and dying, those she found who had no other hope. Malcolm recognized in Mother Teresa a sign of the love of God that alone could give meaning to the whole of human existence, the love that transforms even suffering and death. He knew that human projects and political powers were too small (and too tainted) to produce a joy that was eternal. But in Mother Teresa’s witness Malcolm saw living faith in the Incarnation, in the God who chose to humble Himself out of love.

Around this time, Malcolm publicly professed adherence for Christianity, and worked more openly with Christian themes in the remaining years of his life. He still felt intellectually alienated from the Catholic Church by some negative aspects of the Church’s historical profile and often flawed leaders. But through the encouragement and prayers of Mother Teresa and many others, he was slowly falling in love with the Church. This love finally prevailed, and he was received into the Catholic Church in 1982.

Mother Teresa's "Outstanding Charity"

Collect Prayer for the Memorial of Saint (Mother) Teresa of Calcutta, who died on September 5, 1997:

God, who called the virgin 

Saint Teresa

to respond to the love of your Son thirsting on the Cross 

with outstanding charity to the poorest of the poor, 

grant us, we beseech you, 

by her intercession, 

to minister to Christ in our suffering brothers and sisters.

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Sunset in September 2026

I’m always doing sunsets with my “digital, photo-based art” because I always take my walks in late afternoon or early evening (so that’s when the original pictures get taken). I’ve had a rough summer, but I have not ceased to be the “three-legged adventurer,” although my walks have become a bit shorter with the heat and humidity. Anyway, in my part of the Shenandoah Valley, we’re up on a hill, facing West, looking at the Massanutten ridge (where I used to love to hike when I was younger, and where I probably picked up lots of ticks without caring, back in the late 1980s and 90s). 

But even from the valley here, this ridge dominates the edge of the horizon and provides us with beautiful sunsets all through the year. I don’t have to walk very far from my house to see them. I still take many photos of the sunset. Sometimes I try to (digitally) “sculpt” them into images that are little more “evocative.” My digital art is an ongoing “adventure” of its own, a long experiment in media I will probably never master, but I might be able to place a small part on the ever-expanding canvases of “the New Art,” searching for genuine human insight, creativity, and technique by using digital tools on photographs. I suppose the much promoted and much feared elements of “AI” can be useful (I’m not sure I know how to distinguish them from tools I’ve used for many years — everything these days, it seems, claims to be AI). 

Some of these tools I can recognize because they seem to “think they know better than me” about the effects they create. So I wrestle with trying to “correct them” to give me what I want in the picture. My experience is AI tools (like, for example, “magic erasor”) is that they create a whole bunch of new problems for an artist who tries to use them as tools for his own creativity rather than as “shortcuts” for turning ideas into “visuals” for some practical communicative process or just for “fun.” Of course, all these digital techniques keep changing, and becoming “more powerful — sometimes in strange and chaotic ways.

The sunset also changes, but it follows the same reliable path, year after year. In a few weeks, it will be the Autumn Equinox.

Who Thinks of "Praying for Water"?

The Pope's Prayer Intention for the month of September 2026 is a simple one, but it is something that we in the rich nations of the world rarely think about, even though we bear great responsibility for many of the problems related to this fundamental human resource. 

We Christians say we want to "do the will of Christ" but when we are asked to have even a prayerful awareness of God's creation and the physical needs of billions of our brothers and sisters, some of us are tempted to think, "this is just ecological politics." No! The Gospel renews our whole humanity, and in Christ we begin to see everything in this world in a new way, and through the grace of the Holy Spirit we rediscover our vocation to be stewards of the created world, to be grateful for all of God's gifts - which are given to everyone and therefore must be shared with every person. 

The Pope's intention is no "Vatican foray" into the brutal game of power politics with all its ambitions, intrigue, and vanity. Rather, it proclaims our Gospel vocation to participate in the justice and mercy of Christ's redeeming love for the whole person and all of creation. The transforming love of the Heart of Jesus "already" penetrates the reality of the here-and-now, because every moment of time and space finds its true meaning in Him, and in the light of His promise to "make all things new."

Watch The Pope's Video every month. I find these YouTube videos useful for fostering a more conscious solidarity with Pope Leo in my daily prayer "for the intentions of our Holy Father recommended for this month." Open this link to see and hear his meditation for September: PopeVideo

Pope's Prayer Intention: "For the Care of Water"

Lord of Life,
You have given us the gift of water,
source of fruitfulness, freshness, and hope.
It quenches thirst, nourishes the earth, and heals wounds. 

We thank You,
because it is also a symbol of your grace and love
that renews us through Baptism. 

Today we ask You to teach us to safeguard it
with gratitude, justice, and responsibility.
Forgive us for turning it into a commodity,
forgetting that it is a universal gift,
a right without borders, meant for all your children. 

We see with pain so many brothers and sisters
who lack clean water,
who walk for miles to find it,
who become ill due to its scarcity. 

May your Spirit make us pilgrims of the essential,
able to live with simplicity,
denouncing waste and pollution,
defending the right of every brother and sister
to drink without fear and without inequality. 

May our care for water
be a sign of love for the Creator
and a commitment to the lives of the poor,
educating new generations to value
and protect the Earth’s resources. 

Amen.

Prayer for the Care of Creation 2026

"Although the challenges before us are enormous, God does not leave us without the means of healing and transformation. In place of the weapons of war, the God of peace grants us the strength to heal, to reconcile and to build a civilization of love. In this way, we are called to safeguard the many ‘ecosystems’ entrusted to us: the ecosystems of creation, of human relationships and of the human heart itself.

"Let us imagine a world in which the energies currently invested in war are directed toward integral human development, to overcoming poverty, protecting human dignity and reconciling divided peoples. Such a vision reflects faith in the coming of God’s Kingdom.

"The true tools for building peace are not weapons of destruction, instead they are truth, dialogue, patience, goodness, justice, mercy, understanding, care and love. These flow from hearts shaped by the Gospel and sustained by God’s grace. Only these qualities possess the power to transform individuals, renew communities and heal the wounds of our world."

~Pope Leo XIV

Message for "The World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation," September 1, 2026 (excerpt).

The Blog is NOT Broken, But…

…but the links that I have used for nearly 15 years no longer work. My proprietary “domain address” no longer works, and I don’t know if I will be able to restore it. None of the links to individual Posts that I have shared so often — links that are all over the internet — can be used. Open any one of them and you get a message like the one pictured here. The Blog and all of its posts are still online, but the address has defaulted back to the free “Blogger” address which is http://www.johnjanaro.blogspot.com — a situation which I find quite frustrating. Even though most of what I share of my own writing here is “rough,” I had built up a modest readership, and many of these readers may not be able to find this site anymore. The traffic on the Blog has plummeted to a fraction of what it was just a few weeks ago.

I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Dear people, I don’t know anything about Internet technology. Every effort to fix the problem only seems to make it worse.

I shall continue to post here, sharing the talents I already have been given as best as I can. But I don’t know what it will take to recover my readers. Really, it’s a mess, and I am at my wits end. I have no energy for any of this.

I will henceforth use the originally provided “blogspot” address. Please let me know if there are further problems with finding the blog and its posts.

Dear God, help me.

Saint Augustine’s Day

SAINT AUGUSTINE'S DAY.

“You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You” (Confessions I:1).

Pope Leo Visits the “Meeting For Friendship Among Peoples”

Yesterday, Pope Leo XIV visited the 47th annual “Meeting For Friendship Among Peoples,” a weeklong cultural festival hosted by the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation in Rimini, Italy. We were able to watch a livestream of his afternoon speech. It was a beautiful moment. It also brought back memories from 35 years ago, when I attended the 1991 “Meeting” during this same week in August. I have some things written about that experience in an old journal I kept in those days, which I should try to find.

Here is a selection from the words of Pope Leo yesterday afternoon:

“I invite you, both within the Communion and Liberation Movement and within the particular Churches to which each of you belongs, to undertake this experience of walking together. It involves each person listening, allowing himself or herself to be transformed by the faith of others, and together, discerning new insights, taking further steps and responding courageously in obedience to the Holy Spirit. Synodality is not the name of a process, but the very nature of a people who, through friendship and encounter with others, come to recognize that they belong to God alone. In this way, authority is transformed into service, one that honors differences and fosters their harmony. In these troubled times, such a way of life constitutes a true sign of the times. Let us bear witness to the fact that every charism is given for the common good, that every gift increases when it is shared, and that every fear can be overcome. We must make this tangible, credible and desirable. You will know how to do this, dear friends, by following in the footsteps of your founder: by cultivating unity among yourselves, with those called to guide the Movement, with the Apostolic See that has recognized you, and with the Successor of Peter. May the Holy Spirit teach us the practice of communion. May he grant us a love for it, an appreciation of its beauty and the hope that sustains it.”

Mary Queen and Mother

“You shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the Lord, / a royal diadem held by your God” (Isaiah 62:3).

August 22: Feast of the Queenship of Mary. It is the "glorious mystery" of the exaltation of the incomparable maternal love of the Woman who bore Christ in her womb, that maternal love that reaches out to each of us who are called to be God's children, brothers and sisters of her Son, her children.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, lowly servant, heavenly Queen, Mother of the Lord, our Mother. Salve Regina!

[Image: detail from an 18th century Mexican painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe includes the addition of a crown, according to the customary style of inserting details not present on the original image.]

Jacques Maritain on the Future of "Civilizations"

While leafing through the great twentieth-century Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain's Scholasticism and Politics (a collection of essays based on lectures he gave in 1938), I came upon this lucid paragraph about 'civilization,' written during a time when 'rival civilizations' seemed to be on the threshold of a destructive conflict. 

Maritain addresses the aspirations of those who build human societies, and the ideals and attitudes that drive them. What he seems to say is that a civilization that 'makes room' for the transcendent Mystery of God will be transformed by God's gift of Himself in the Incarnation. In the discovery of the ultimate meaning that pervades the lives of persons and their distinctive histories and cultures, human civilizations will fulfill and discover their true and particular richness — mysteriously 'opened to eternity' even in this world, and eminently fulfilled in the transcendent coming of the Kingdom of God. 

If, however, they glorify themselves and close themselves off from God's presence and grace, they will turn to the darkness of oppressive power and be devoured by the idolatry of their entirely self-referential 'ideals.' 

There is much to ponder here for anyone who is concerned about the profound and perplexing drama born of the encounters and clashes of various cultures in our time. Maritain was writing in 1938, on the threshold of an unprecedented global crisis different from the one we face today. Nevertheless, his words resonate in our own present circumstances and address priorities that remain relevant for us today:

"This is, indeed, the wonderful and terrible alternative which faces the world, in the West as in the East. Either civilizations,—in the grasp of inexorable internal oppositions,—will seek to rise up and to defend themselves without penitence of heart, according to the energies of this world and its prince, and in keeping with the law of darkness and sin which is that of politics separated from the gifts of Him who enlightens every man who comes into the world; then the temporal community, or race, or nation, or State, or Liberty itself, will become a devouring idol for man (in fact, they are that already). Or else in allowing themselves to be penetrated by the holy forces of the Kingdom of God, civilizations will be transformed, and will receive into the core of the social and temporal order itself, the life-giving influx which comes down from Uncreated Love and which is promised to men of good will. And thus,—but after what settling of accounts,—they would finally enter into the fullness of their age and would aim at an heroic ideal of brotherly love and an understanding of the dignity of the human person, which may most appropriately be called, it seems to me, the ideal of an integral humanism."

~Scholasticism and Politics, chapter IX (1938)

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux on God's Love

AUGUST 20: Happy Feast of the incomparable SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX! His preaching about God's love is as compelling today as it was 900 years ago:

"In the first creation He gave me myself; but in His new creation He gave me Himself, and by that gift restored to me the self that I had lost. [Therefore] God deserves exceeding love from us, a love that has no measure… The reason is that He was first to love. He who is so great loves us so much; He loves us freely, little and poor as we are. 

"That is why I said there should be no measure of our love for God. For since love given to God is given to the Infinite and Measureless, what measure or what limit could it have? He, the Unmeasured and Eternal God, He who is Love beyond all human knowledge, whose greatness knows no bounds, whose wisdom has no end, loves. 

"Shall we then set a limit to our love for Him? 

"I will love you, O Lord my strength, my rock, and my defense, my Savior, my one desire and love. My God, my helper, I will love you with all the power you have given me; not worthily, for that can never be, but to my full capacity. Do what I will, I never can discharge my debt to you, and I can love you only according to the power that you have given me. But l will love you more and more, as you see fit to give further power" (Treatise On The Love Of God, VII).

“With You, I Can Do All That Lies At Hand…”

This is an old meditation from a (now) old book, but it got new life in the pages of Magnificat for August 18th. I’ll share it here too:

Summer Flowers

“Hibiscus, August 2026.” 

There are lots of bushes with these lush, droopy flowers that bloom throughout the summer.

Mary's Glory and Our Hope

Today is the celebration of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the All-Holy Theotokos who followed Christ her Son from the moment of His Incarnation in her womb to the foot of the cross, then on to the resurrection, Pentecost, and her unique participation in the fullness of her Son's risen glory after completing her earthly pilgrimage. The Mother of our Redeemer has become the mother of all His brothers and sisters, caring for each one of us with the tenderness of her maternal solicitude and helping us along the way to our final and true home in the inexhaustible loving embrace of the Triune God. 

The Catechism expresses the truth of this "glorious mystery" of Mary's Assumption: "The Most Holy Virgin Mary, when her earthly life was completed, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory. There she shares in the glory of the Resurrection of her Son and experiences the resurrection of all the members of his body as a forerunner" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 974).

In his homily today, Pope Leo exhorts us:  "Let us follow the light of the Risen Lord... especially today, by looking to Mary, whom God has crowned with glory in body and soul, and whom he has given to us as Mother, guide, companion on our journey, and protector on the path to Heaven" (Homily, August 15, 2026). 

And thus our hearts pray in union with the priest's words in the Liturgy: "For today the Virgin Mother of God was assumed into heaven as the beginning and image of your Church’s coming to perfection and a sign of sure hope and comfort to your pilgrim people; rightly you would not allow her to see the corruption of the tomb since from her own body she marvellously brought forth your incarnate Son, the Author of all life" (from the Preface for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God).