A College and a Community in the Shenandoah Valley

Tonight I want to write a few words about the institution to which I devoted most of some twenty years of my active teaching career, and why it remains so important to me even now.

Christendom College was founded by Warren Carroll, four other faculty members, a handful of supporters, and 27 students who were convinced during the upheavals in academia in the early 1970s that there was a need for a college offering a liberal arts education that acknowledged Christ at the center of history. It was an unlikely enterprise in almost every respect, but one thing after another fell into place through the years to enable the college to grow into the solid institution it has become today, with a beautiful campus in the Shenandoah Valley and over 600 undergraduate and graduate students.

The college was founded to be an academic institution, with a curriculum that would shed the light of the Incarnation on the whole human quest for truth that is embodied in the great humanities tradition. But in bringing together people who believe that Christ is really the most important thing in history and the One who gives purpose to life, the college would also bring together people who shared a profound spiritual and human bond with each other.

No one really thought that this college was destined to be the beginning of a great "family" of people from all manner of circumstances and backgrounds, who were to discover a pervasive human solidarity with one another by virtue of their common experience of Christ living in His Church.

And because this experience is real, it can embrace the whole of each person's humanity. Unlike a cult or a sect or a gang, it does not create artificial bonds by inflating one aspect of human needs while suppressing or obscuring others, nor does it depend on a system of emotional manipulation. In spite of all the flaws of human interaction that are present among us, time and perspective reveal that the community generated by Christendom College is one that has room for the whole scope of the human person.

Above all it is a place where mercy for one's faults is experienced. Christendom is not entirely coherent in any of this, but the deep sense of belonging according to the truth of one's self as a person is discovered here. If anything, this extraordinary bond results in more passionate disagreements among us about many particulars, precisely because everyone has such an ardor for the splendid gift that is shared and that must be fostered.

Such is the case that many who have had contact with the college, or with institutions that have grown up around it, have come to settle in the Front Royal, Virginia area. Thus a growing population of young Catholic families find themselves spontaneously contributing to a network of enterprises expressing faith, humanity, and an enriching community life.

The grace of Christ is here, and although we still need to be led by the Lord to give it greater space within us, it has already begun to engender an environment that offers hope for our present time and for the future.

Beautiful!

I'm here in the house with my beauties!

Agnese would punch me if she knew I was calling her a "beauty." Yes, Agnese punches me sometimes, or pulls my socks off if my feet are up in the chair. It's all teasing, and then I tell her (teasingly, in a excessively deep and slightly britishified voice) "You are not being respectful to your faaaather" and she laughs and goes away and hides my socks.

I kid with them a lot, but they know my "real serious voice," and they are very respectful if I take on a truly serious demeanor. But as much as possible, our home is a cheerful, happy, and humorous place.

Agnese is not very talkative. She is simple in her manners, her requests, and her goodnight hugs. It is difficult for me to compliment her on anything, and if I tell her that she is beautiful, she is ready to have a wrestling match.

But Agnese is beautiful. When she loves something, she really loves it. She loves the outdoors, and drawing, and horses and reading (like crazy) and "doing fun things" (which we never do enough of). I tease her and say, "I'm so sorry that you've had such a boring childhood," and she'll immediately respond, "No I haven't!" But then maybe she'll say, "I wish we had a bigger yard"--and I know that that is really true.

Agnese will be 13 in December. I have no idea what a 13 year old girl is like on the inside. Especially this one. She is a free spirit. I love that! And I love her spunkiness, and that she doesn't fall for an "easy line," but I sometimes feel like I don't know how to show love for her. I love her so much and I hope that she knows. I think she really loves me a lot.

Perhaps I feel as if we sometimes don't communicate because Agnese has a certain reserve, quietness, even shyness about her, while I am naturally ebullient, affectionate, verbal and expressive. That is my personality. If I suddenly pretended reserve toward her, or if I stopped teasing her, I think she might feel that something was wrong. Still, I need to approach her with more of an "internal intensity" of openness, that allows her to say what she wants (because sometimes she will begin talking about something, or asking questions with great interest). Then I must listen to her, let her aspire, and gently indicate where the boundaries are. I'd like to think that this is the general atmosphere that we cultivate in our home.

That is one aspect of being her father. Another, however, is to make sure she has secure ground as she grows more and more toward society and toward maturity as a young woman. She will be told by many that she is beautiful, and she needs a standard by which to measure those statements; she needs to know from experience what it means to be perceived as a beautiful person–to have the precious person that she is looked upon with eyes of true love. Those eyes have been given to me, since the beginning of her life, so that I can help her to grow into a person who is aware of those who truly love her, so that she will be able to distinguish a loving gaze from one that is possessive, manipulative, corrupting or violent.

That means that, regardless of her protests, she needs to hear from me that she is beautiful and she needs me to have confidence in her.

The High School Student

This is the guy in the house who looks like he actually has a real job these days. John Paul is a High School student.

He leaves early in the morning in a collared shirt. He's gone most of the day. He comes home in the afternoon and proceeds immediately to his room to continue working. He's finished around five o'clock.

Then he spends a few hours acting like a kid before he goes to bed, rather promptly and of his own free will, at ten. Ten o'clock! Heck, I'm just warming up at ten, in my bunker with my books and laptop and all the exotic devices and connections that establish links between the interior of my mind and every corner of the world. I may go many places before I go to bed at three in the morning, turn on the BBC, listen to the morning news from Europe and then finally drift off to sleep. Before then, perhaps I'll visit Europe, or the Middle East, or California. That's about twelve time zones. Or, I'll put the technology aside and pick up a book and travel back in time, in my mind, 400 years to central Europe, Russia, Poland, or the Ottoman Empire as I seek to discover the lines that drew the map of the "modern" world--a world that is now shifting dramatically in the rapid demographic and cultural encounter between East and West. While that study develops, I work on my upcoming book, or use the social media to make myself available to new friends and old in many different places.

I have a strange, exotic life--in many ways more creative and communicative than ever--but there are days when I do everything in sweatpants.

The kid dresses spiffy every day, and keeps regular hours.

But John Paul is thriving on the routine. He is experiencing some of the disciplined freedom that is opening up the world of his adolescence to larger experiences, to taking on responsibilities on his own initiative, to a measure of independence. He is being educated and formed in an institution we can trust. Once again, God has blessed our family.

John Paul is following all the rigors of a High School curriculum at a private academy. Foundations of self-discipline and the habits of ordered liberty are being instilled in him at the age when he is ready to receive them. Certainly, much of his adolescent growing crisis remains ahead of him, but he has a solid context in the places of home and school in which it can unfold. Meanwhile, the foundations of a lifetime are being laid.

These are necessary foundations, even if the winds of life later blow him into circumstances that require him to work in a more unconventional way. A well formed perspective and good habits will enable him to lay hold of whatever opportunities present themselves in life.

I love to watch my son grow. He seems to become more and more...himself.

Everything is His Gift

We trust God because we know He loves us.

Everything is His gift, and expresses His personal love for each of us and for the relationships between us. He is Love. He can only love. In the Cross He reveals that He is Love and He gives Himself as love, and He shows us that He is totally united to us in our difficulties. Totally united with us. So we don't have to be afraid of anything. It's hard not to be afraid, but of course, He is with us even in our fear. He has given Himself and gives Himself as present in our lives now through Jesus and His Church.

In the end, we will be amazed when we realize what He has done for each of us. The marvelous truth will be clear: God is the Great Lover, He pours Himself out for each person, as only God can--all the hidden ways will one day be manifest. He gives because He is the Giver, He is Gift.

Of course, a gift needs to be received, and love is only received in a fully personal way by the return of love. We have to say "yes" to God, through our life.

Saying yes to God, saying yes to the next step as God's light makes it clear to us, saying yes and praying with trust that He will make it possible.

Let It Be a Work of Mercy

How can I "understand" another human being?

I don't even understand myself. The textures and layers of my own humanity are a mystery to me. Can I even sort through all the complicated inclinations and emotions and levels of "intent" that motivate me to write these words?

I am an intricate tangled knot and what is needed is a simple, straight stretch of cord.

And I aspire to teach others, to help people understand reality and themselves? I have words. I have many words, too many. Words are my trade, my tools, and my material. It is, surely, a work that someone must do.

It is not everything, though the wordsmith can be tempted to think he has the world in his grasp. It is very little in front of the mystery of another person, or the mystery of one's self. But it can be a help.

Let it be a work of mercy, Lord. For I am in the hand of Your Mercy in a way beyond my knowledge. Forgive me for my weakness and my smallness and my vanity. And let my poor work be in the hand of Your Mercy that carries others, and let all my desire to help be given over to You and opened and shaped according to Your design and Your wisdom.

Exaltation of the Cross, Triumph Over Sin and Death

Today, the Church has celebrated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, or "triumph" of the Cross, as it is sometimes known in the West. It has a historical reference to the events that led to the finding of the place where Jesus died on the Cross by St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine.

The real meaning of the Feast, however, is Jesus and His love--which in all the suffering and agony and dying of the Cross is a Triumph because it is where God's Love proves itself greater than all sin and death.

In the Gospel of St. John, Jesus always speaks about His "Hour"--referring to His approaching death--as the same "Hour" in which He is "glorified" by the Father. " 'And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all things to myself' He said this to show by what death He was to die" (John 13:33).

In His death His glory is revealed, because in death He gives us His Love, and that is what (or who) God is. GOD IS LOVE.

I pray that every person might be touched, awakened, and changed by the light of the Glory of the Cross--the revelation and the enduring gift of Divine Mercy that springs from the very mystery of the God who is Love.

Montessori Mayhem and Mrs. Janaro

It's that time of year again.

The beginning of a new school year at the John XXIII Montessori Children's Center. That means more than the usual chaos at the Janaro household. Mrs. Janaro is the teacher of the elementary program at the center, and three of the Janaro children are among her students. And, of course, a fourth Janaro child is in the primary program, for ages 3-6.

This means that, in the past few days, routines have been changing and a heroic work of preparation has been carried out.

First, perhaps I should say something about the nature of a Montessori educational program, or the "Montessori method"--this very particular way of creating and fostering the conditions and providing the guidance for a child's encounter with reality and Truth.

I am hardly the most competent person to explain this. My wife should really be writing this part. Let me try, however, to give some broad idea based on my own observations which are "from the outside," so to speak.

Developed by the Italian educator Maria Montessori in the early part of the twentieth century, the Montessori method involves designing the classroom as an environment with many different activities organized into different areas. The teacher gives lessons to individuals or groups of students on different "work" and then the kids do the work and even make progress in it at their own pace. The emphasis is on the child's particular way of learning, and his being engaged and interested by different activities in a way that gives him a real sense of freedom while at the same time having a lot of structure built into the environment and the guidance of the teacher (who moves from child to child or group to group in the classroom).

There is a lot of "hands on" stuff for math and science, geography, history, writing, and plenty of reading in conjunction with experimental stuff. Always the kids are experimenting and getting into things with their eyes, ears, hands and then drawing out the concepts. And it's very quiet and very organized in the classroom of 30+ kids.

Montessori kids tend to develop into creative, self-motivated learners who are open to reality. I see it in my own kids. Josefina has a really constructive way of playing. The other kids are always educating themselves, and interested in knowing and seeing and touching things, and taking on responsibilities. And they have all the elementary level subject matter so that when they finish the program at age 12-13, they are ready to go into High School (which is what John Paul is doing now--so far so good).

Since the stability of the environment is so important, a very important part of a teacher's work takes place before the first class begins. The environment must be organized, attractive and in good condition. There must be a plan to help accustom new students to the method. The established and "authoritative" nature of the classroom environment must be set firmly and adequately manifest, so that it will draw the interest of the student from the very first day.

This means that immediate preparation for that first day can be heck!

Poor Eileen. She was up until 5:00 in the morning, grabbed less than two hours of sleep, and then was off with the kids in tow for the first day. Since John XXIII is such a small enterprise, my wife does everything she can personally to make sure that the classroom and the students have what they need. This year she sewed new and larger pouches for 30+ kids, assembled their binders, made laminated name cards for each one, night after night while the lights stayed on even later than they usually do at the Janaro home.

After all this sleep deprivation, she also must act on the first morning as the Mommy of several students who, during the summer, have forgotten the routine of school life. The exhausted Mommy takes the children to school with her. Many hours later she returns from the battle to lie down for an hour or so and then get up and provide mother-love to her own little ones who were among her students earlier that day. No matter what Daddy may do, there is no substitute--in the end--for a mother to bring into the environment of the home the attentiveness necessary to make it a place where truth and love have space to flourish and boundaries to lead them in the right direction.

It is a day that leaves me with a sense of awe and gratitude. I cannot express the depth of my appreciation for  my marvelous wife Eileen Janaro, for all she gives at the Montessori center, and then for coming home and continuing to give herself. She is a great woman!

We All Need To Be With Him

How do people live without God?  I am not surprised that sick people, living in misery in a world that says there is no God—that there is nothing but this life—are tempted by euthanasia or suicide.  Why go on dragging yourself around like an old dried up piece of meat in a world that has no meaning beyond physical vitality?  What amazes me is that people who do not know God, living in a world that constantly proclaims that there is no God (or, at least, no God worth bothering about), have the energy and desire to go on living.  I think the only way to account for this is the fact that there is a God who cares personally for everyone—even those who do not yet know Him or who think that they have rejected Him.

God plants the seeds of hope in every human heart.  If there were nothing but this life, then despair would be the logical human position even for the healthiest of people.  Why is it, then, that the human person has to be driven to despair, as if it were against nature?  Why do people endure so much unimaginable misery, and keep going?  They do not “feel” like there is any reason to carry on, and yet they do.  We have a sense that there is more, Something more, than what we feel—even when what we feel is terrible.  I do not think that billions of dollars are spent on health care just because people want to extend their miserable little lives a bit more before they are ground into nothingness by an implacable material universe.  People have a tenacious sense—even if they are unconscious of it—that there is a path and that they are on it, that they are going somewhere and that they have to keep going forward.

What does this mean to me, a Christian, burdened by circumstances, but also blessed with the gifts of faith, hope and charity?  I feel sick.  That is not insignificant.  It is a part of my path—a path that I walk with Jesus.  Does that make me feel better?  Sometimes.  But that is not the point.  If “walking with Jesus” were nothing more than a pious sentiment designed to make me feel better (temporarily), it would not be worth much.  The point is this: “walking with Jesus” is the truth; it is what constitutes the reality of my life.  I do not always feel the truth of this.  I believe it.  And as I walk with Him—as I live inside of this relationship with Him—He strengthens my certainty; He builds up my life.  He manifests through abundant signs that He is with me on my path.  If I stay with Him, He will sustain me.  This is what it means to live as a Christian.  It means that I belong to Christ.

And because I am a Christian, something stirs in me and moves me to want to be a light to those who are stumbling along toward that which they do not know.  I want to cry out, “Keep going!  Keep looking, asking, groping.  Cry out for help....You have a heart that whispers Truth, Goodness, Beauty.  You’re angry and frustrated because you can’t see any truth, or goodness, or beauty.  But your heart is not lying.  Listen to it.  It is a promise: you will not be cheated.  So don’t give up.”  No matter how I may feel, I know that this is true.

How can I be so sure?  How can I be sure that you will not be cheated if you really listen to your heart and cry out for help and keep seeking?  Because Jesus is real, and He loves you—He is right in front of you on the path, even if the fog prevents you from seeing Him.  He created your heart.  He put the desire for truth, goodness, beauty, justice, love, and dignity within your heart.  He is Truth, Goodness, Beauty; He is the Reality that every genuine impetus of your heart seeks.  He is seeking you, and He wants you to let yourself be found.

Jesus is not a drug that helps me dull my pain.  Nor is He just my particular “philosophy of life” or my “support community”—something that “works for me” but might not necessarily “work for you.”  He is for me, because I am a human being.  That means He is for you.  I am sure of this.

But how?  Who do I think I am anyway?  What makes me so sure that my ideas about the meaning of life are true for everyone?  That is just the point: these are not “my ideas”—this is a relationship.  He is here, in my life, in a relationship with me.  In fact, He started it—not me.  I could never give myself this certainty, not even with all the philosophy of all the ages.  What else could sustain this certainty in a blockhead like me?  I am amazed at myself, at the fact that I am so certain about this....What make me certain?  It is Jesus Himself—not just some vague ideals about “goodness” or “the importance of Christian ethics” or even “my understanding about the value of suffering.”  It is Jesus, the objective, actual, true Son of God, the living man who is with us now.  I need to be with Him.  We all need to be with Him.

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

After Ten Years: Hatred and Death, or The Hint of a Possibility

I was running around, gathering materials and trying not to be late for class. It was just another ordinary morning for a busy college professor. Did I have my coffee with me. Can't remember. I remember seeing the water fountain. Then I passed by my brother's office and poked my head in.

"Did you hear about this?" he asked with a look of some concern and also curiosity at the unusual news. "An airplane crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers." The first picture that came into my mind was a small private plane. My brother was reading it on the internet. "The building is on fire."

Oh my, I thought. This is a real crisis.

Then, suddenly, there was that weird moment when the whole thing revealed itself to our minds. We had thought we had a grasp on the thing--some strange pilot error (or something) had resulted in an unusual and costly tragedy; terrible yes, but these things do happen from time to time in our world.

But then came the voice of my brother from his office: "What? Another plane has just crashed into the second  tower!" Suddenly, all the "normal" explanations disappeared from my mind. The whole thing began to spin beyond mental and imaginative conception. Only one thing was clear: this was a sinister and deliberate act.

As I made my way to the classroom, other people were filling in details. Commercial passenger planes. Another plane crashed into the Pentagon. How? Who was behind it? How did they do it? What did they want? WHO OR WHAT WAS THE NEXT TARGET?

By the time I arrived (quite late, but no one cared at this point--by now we weren't even sure there was going to be a school day), one of my students had some concrete information. Terrorists from some Islamic faction had hijacked the planes and flown them directly into the buildings. Oh no. Oh no. This was beyond the scope of the immediate circumstances. It was violence perpetrated in God's name. The fundamental energy of human being--the movement toward transcendence--had been twisted and deformed into a horrible and fearfully powerful spiral of destruction.

I gathered my class into the classroom and we prayed.

We decided to hold a normal school day. The reasoning was that the terrorists wanted us to be afraid, and so we should not satisfy them by changing our schedule and thus demonstrating that they had power over us. But few people had a mind for classes. The perpetrators were exercising power, and it was compelling. It almost called for our attention.

Later, Eileen brought the children to a community center where many of us gathered to watch in horror as the towers crumbled to the ground. John Paul was only 4, Agnese 2, and Lucia 1. They were too small to understand. I was grateful for that.

What we were looking at was more than a political act. It was a human event. Whatever the subjective intentions of its perpetrators, it was--objectively--an act of unambiguous violence against innocent human beings. Anyone unblinded by prejudice and with a remnant of moral sensibility recognized that what they were witnessing was something evil. The whole world watched the evil unfold. Hatred and death.

Some anecdotes were related. One was particularly striking: people were jumping out of windows to escape the inferno. A man and a woman jumped from the 82 floor, holding hands. Holding hands.

This is the image that motivated a concise reflection on the challenge that 9/11 posed to those who witnessed it. To those of us who remained. Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete expressed it in these words in a subsequent interview with the program "Nightline":

To me, that image is an inescapable provocation. This gesture, this holding of hands in the midst of that horror, it embodies what Sept. 11 was all about. The image confronts us with the need to make a judgment, a choice. Does it show the ultimate hopelessness of human attempts to survive the power of hatred and death? Or is it an affirmation of a greatness within our humanity itself that somehow shines in the midst of that darkness and contains the hint of a possibility, a power greater than death itself? Which of the two? It's a choice. It's the choice of Sept. 11.

Skype

I just had a most extraordinary experience: SKYPE!

The occasion finally arose for me to stop stalling, fork over 20 bucks for a webcam, and make an actual Skype call. Omigosh it's a REAL PERSON! I'm still in shock. I know, some of you have been doing this for years (give me your numbers and let's "skype"). But for me, this is a revelation. It's better than the Jetsons!

Webcam! Why don't people use it? The kids' California grandparents have been on us to get hooked up, but I figured it was a big techno-hassle (it was easy). My parents, ay! this is made for my parents. Facebook my father cannot understand, but this he'll take to very easily. This is the "picture-phone" we dreamed of back in the 70s!

It really is almost "like" the person is "there"--they can hear things that are being said by people off-screen, just like if they were in the room. It was very surprising and unusual and much better than I expected.

Here is yet another device of human ingenuity devised to harness the vast features of material reality and shape them so that they might serve that ineradicable human desire of persons to be with one another.

Silence, Abandonment, Presence in the World

I pray for those who never pray, who never lift up their minds and hearts to God, and especially for those who do not even recognize that there is Something greater than themselves, who have become insensitive to their own searching, dissatisfied, wounded hearts. I pray that they might be surprised, stirred, awakened.

Of course, prayer is the fruit of silence, as Mother Teresa reminds us. And we live in a culture that flees from silence, from the depths of the heart where the recognition of our nothingness and the longing for God are found. People flee because they are afraid of their nothingness, and it is beyond their imagining that there might be a Something that answers the aching cry of their nothingness, and fills it.

So our culture is absorbed with noise, with the distractions provided by the mass media, with anything that will take a person away–for a time–from the seemingly unanswerable riddle of his or her own self. But even here, there is hope. Because the Something that corresponds to and answers the painful, frustrated, and alienated human heart has chosen to reveal Himself. He has chosen to take flesh and make Himself known, to seek out every human person on the roads of the world. Like the Shepherd who looks for the lost sheep, He does not hesitate to plunge into the brambles if He thinks He might find the sheep there. The brambles are full of thorns, but this does not deter Him. He knows the pain of thorns.

He is greater than fear, and He is searching for those who are trying to run away. They try to distract themselves in the world of technology, but He is there too. Perhaps they will bump into Him on the TV, or the internet or the radio--perhaps there they will come across Him, His words, the expression of His love, in a way that strikes them for the first time.

Whether He is there or not, however, depends on us.

It is through us that He continues His search. We give voice to His words. We are His hands reaching forth, and through our eyes His loving gaze is bestowed on others. This is why those of us who know Him must abandon ourselves completely to Him, and allow the love and mercy that we have experienced to flow through us and touch those who are sent to us.

Therefore, let us meet Him every day in the silence of our hearts, and let us allow Him to surprise and awaken us with His love–because it is not a theory about life that changes us, but the embrace of His merciful love, now, in this moment in which we live. Let us live together and sustain one another in this moment, and together let us be instruments of His presence in the world–joyful servants of His mysterious work of awakening the human heart.

Every Human Being is a Person

One thing that we tend to think we've made great progress on in our culture is our respect for handicapped people, for people with disabilities, for people who are afflicted with conditions that put (sometimes severe) limitations on their capacities and activity even as they continue to live in our midst. We have developed many ways in our society to accommodate these people, and make it possible for them to be as self-sufficient in many ways. We are even beginning to develop sensitivity and empathy for those who suffer from mental disabilities. Nevertheless, something is still missing. In a sense, the most important thing is missing.

We need to grow in our hearts so as to be able to accept people with these conditions as persons and to love them in such a way that we are truly willing to put ourselves at risk. We are far from being able to do this in a really humble way.

I am not talking about my own problems here, which are mostly invisible to others, and therefore do not pose quite such a vivid challenge to them when they encounter me. People who are quite obviously hindered, however, and who struggle openly with the constraints that life has imposed upon them have a difficult time finding acceptance.

Many of us make an effort to be very kind and helpful toward these people, but we tend to withdraw from them in many subtle ways, as if we need to draw lines of protection around ourselves and put them on their own private island, separate from the rest of the "normal" human race. I think it's natural for humans to feel fear and want to distance ourselves from a person who is not "fully equipped" as a human being, perhaps because it reminds us of our own radical lack of control over life–ultimately our own mortality.

The result, however, is that these people suffer from a terrible kind of loneliness and a sense of "I don't belong."

We need not condemn ourselves for what is a half-instinctive reflex of the natural tendency of self-preservation. But we must pray for the grace to overcome it. If we are to discover a faith in Christ that is going to penetrate our personal and social relationships, we need to find and live–on a level more profound than our society has yet seen–a reverence for the poor in our midst.

This is accomplished by that asceticism which looks at every human being, whatever their condition, and sees the person, primarily and decisively. Every human being is a person. The perception of this must be continually reaffirmed in our awareness, and we must look at every other aspect of the person’s condition as part of God’s particular plan for their destiny in His image and likeness, and focus our love on the service of this destiny–the service of the person.

We are all poor, we are all "disabled" in different ways. We need to look at each other and see the person who is made for God. We must help each other to live according to God's will, with humility.

Thank You Mother Teresa

September 5 is the "feast day" of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. Someday I shall tell the story of the special role she played in my life, and continues to play in my life and the life of my family. Tonight, however, I shall let her speak a few words without comment. For no comment is necessary. Thank you, dear Mother Teresa, for all the love.


Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own home. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor . . . Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting. 


Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor.

The Internet: A Wild, Uncontrolled Place?

There is so much garbage on the internet!

Everywhere there is manipulation and degradation. Everywhere there are opportunities to indulge all manner of shameful behavior. It is a great, worldwide platform for gossip and slander and the propagation of rumors and lies. Would it not simplify life just to turn the whole thing off?

Perhaps, for some.

If it leads one down wrong paths, then one should turn it off. Better to enter into life
without a media device....

But we must not be driven away simply by a sense of disgust. I think our best hope is to build something true and good in whatever space we are given. Otherwise there will be nothing but evil. We must live in the world, and that means, for us (according to our time, talents, circumstances, and inclination), that we must live on the internet, on social media, on blogs, even when we find ourselves alongside some strange company.

We must not become discouraged over the fact that the internet is a wild, uncontrolled place. After all, the whole world is like that. But something new has happened in the world. That newness wants to manifest itself everywhere. If we are different from the rest of the world, it is only because something new has happened in our lives.  A light shines in the darkness.

Put the light on the lamp stand.

"What will change the world? A piece of the world that has already been changed"
(Luigi Giussani).

He is Always Paying Attention To Us

Jesus is really at work in our lives.

I believe this in faith. I believe in His particular love for me and for every person. Sometimes I remember it in real life, when I am surprised by the recognition of the fact that He is present in this moment; that whatever the circumstances may be, he is using them as elements of a Person to person dialogue with me. God became man in order to seek out each one of us; He has personalized the whole, vast, apparently random and chance-filled universe. He takes all the multitudes of forces that come together and make up the situation of reality at any given moment, and fashions them--from all eternity--into a love song that He wants to sing to each of us personally.

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

And it is not just in a distant, far-off way that we seek God in the midst of an apparently meaningless life. God has come to us, to dwell in every circumstance so as to call us to recognize His presence, to draw us to Himself--even through the terrible stuff--and to evoke from us the response of confidence and love.

Sometimes, I recognize this.

Then there are times when it seems to hit me over the head, as if He is so tremendously intent upon getting my attention and inspiring in me a sense of wonder that He could love me so much. He works small, quiet, undocumented miracles right inside of my daily life and in the lives of others. He surprises me, again and again.

Sometimes we are dry in our relationship with God because He is preparing our souls to encounter Him more profoundly. But sometimes we are dry because we are simply not paying attention to Him.

Even then, however, He is always paying attention to us.

Tonight I am just full of gratitude and wonder. He dwells among us. He shapes everything into a path for our steps. At the heart of the experience of life there is this marvelous dialogue that uses everything for its language. As St. Thomas Aquinas said, "the universe is a word between God and the soul."

Teaching and Learning

The beginning of September makes me think of the many years when I had a normal academic routine, as a student and then as a teaching professor. There are advantages, certainly, to the "quieter" style of life that I now must live, not the least of which is the freedom to make my own schedule. But I miss being caught up in that great swell of activity and anticipation and "new beginnings" that are always in the air with the new academic year. Still, I remain a teacher, and not only "at heart." I have found new forums in which to teach, and new subjects too. And I remain a student. In these last several years I have studied and observed and learned so much, from books, from other media, from observation, from endurance, from the whole scope of this unusual life.

I am convinced that the best teachers are also perpetual students; they communicate to their own students the enthusiasm about what they are learning. The best way to guide the search for truth (in any area) is to be on it one's self. The teacher is the one who is at the head of the hike, looking for the hilltop through the laborious path, and when he comes to the top and sees the view, he shouts back to the others: "come this way, it's here, look at this wonderful view!" The teacher is the one who wants to know all about what he is seeing, who studies the map so he can say, "there is the river that flows into that lake where the old fort is, and beyond the horizon there is...."

The teacher is also the one who sees the next hill, and says, "now we have to
climb this one!"

The Will of the Father is Truth and Love

It is time to close out the month of August. The Europeans view September as the beginning of the "social year" and here in the USA it marks the beginning of the Academic year and, with Labor Day this weekend, the end of the summer vacation season. Let us therefore conclude with these words from Pope Benedict XVI that we can ponder for the time that is before us. He indicates that it is in union with Jesus Christ that we are able to accomplish the work of being truly conformed to the will of God:

Man of himself is tempted to oppose God’s will, to seek to do his own will, to feel free only if he is autonomous; he sets his own autonomy against the heteronomy of obeying God’s will. This is the whole drama of humanity. But in truth, this autonomy is mistaken and entry into God’s will is not opposition to the self, it is not a form of slavery that violates my will but rather means entering into truth and love, into goodness. And Jesus draws our will–which opposes God’s will, which seeks autonomy–upwards, towards God’s will. This is the drama of our redemption, that Jesus should uplift our will, our total aversion to God’s will and our aversion to death and sin and unite it with the Father’s will: ‘Not my will but yours.’ In this transformation of ‘no’ into ‘yes,' in this insertion of the creatural will into the will of the Father, He transforms humanity and redeems us. And He invites us to be part of His movement: to emerge from our ‘no’ and to enter into the ‘yes’ of the Son. My will exists, but the will of the Father is crucial because it is truth and love (Benedict XVI, General Audience, April 20, 2011).

Person, Communion, and Christian Culture

I have written about the miracle of Christian friendship. This unique kind of friendship leads to a unique kind of sharing of life, which St. Paul calls koinonia, and which we translate as "communion"--it is a communion of life, from its center to its many particular expressions. Communion is not an invasive smothering of the person, but an interpersonal environment in which the special vocation of each person is discovered and flourishes. Since the person discovers his or herself and realizes his or her freedom through self-giving love, there is always a reciprocal relationship between the authentic realization of personal freedom and the building up of communion. Communion and liberation. They are inseparable. Thus Christ, who creates communion of life, fulfills the destiny of the human person and the human community.

This Christian community of life is "the Church," lived concretely. In our time, the Lord is calling us to new ways of "tapping into" that profound bond that unites us, really, "physically" in Christ. This life pertains first and always to our eternal destiny. But what will also emerge from it in the midst of the world is the reality of "Christian culture." We think we know what Christian culture means.  We think it's "the way things used to be" in the Age of Faith. And it must be said that the reality of "Christendom"--as it was once known--was a living fruit of real faith in Christ. But I believe that our basilicas and cathedrals of the past, and our wayside shrines and saints' feast days, and all our social and cultural symbols from the past are just a preview, a taste, of what a Christian culture might become if we begin to live the mystery of the Church in a more consciously committed, freely embraced way that expresses itself in interpersonal solidarity.

We would have our new, beautiful external expressions of Christian life (as well as our reverence for history), but they would be expressions of a bond that is recognized and lived in a more integrally human way, with an awareness and a mutual love which would generate a common missionary impetus to the world.

Providence: He Cares For Us, He Hears Our Prayers

Well, the hurricane has come and gone, and most of us have thanked God that it wasn't as bad as it was predicted to be. And in this gesture I realized something that might have been missing or not sufficiently emphasized in my previous blog about God's providence.

The distinction I draw between God's "ordinary" providence and His "miraculous" interventions may be a bit too cut and dried for the real mystery of how the God who became man and died on the Cross for love of each and every human being actually works in our everyday world and in our ordinary circumstances of life. The mystery of God's transcendence has it's corresponding element in the mystery of His intimacy and His profound, particular, and personal concern for the lives of each and every one of us.

God does hear our prayers, even for temporal things, for seemingly mundane things like good weather. He answers them according to His purposes, which are mysterious, but for people of real faith it is a simple fact of experience that He often answers them favorably, or else He guides people through difficulties in such a way that they begin to realize that He has brought greater good out of circumstances that appeared obscure or meaningless at the time they were initially endured. He is involved in the small things of life. We thank Him for our food. We thank Him for a good day. We pray to Him to help us to get better when we are sick; we pray to Him for safety when we travel; we pray to Him on behalf of others for a multitude of concerns. And we do so with faith that prayer matters; that God wants us to experience daily life as a gift from His loving hands. "Give us this day our daily bread."

When we analyze from the point of view of metaphysics or empirical science, we speak of time and eternity, the reality of secondary causes, God's omniscience. But this should not obscure for us the truth that God is personally, lovingly engaged in shaping the path of each and every one of our lives. We must trust that if we ask we shall receive, and if we do not receive what we ask for it is only because God knows that what we need is something else, something mysterious and difficult perhaps, but more in keeping with our final destiny.

God's transcendence does not imply His absence from our lives, but on the contrary it indicates--in a manner beyond our understanding--the freedom of His complete presence in our lives: the fact that He holds each of us in the palm of His hand.

A Place Of Friendship

One of the miracles of the Church is friendship. When we meet real brothers and sisters in Christ, and we perceive their love for Him, we know that we already share the most profound and most all-encompassing Reality in common. It opens up a space in which we are free to be ourselves, to be human, and thus to discover "communion" with one another--a real human connection--because He is human and all of our humanity belongs to Him. This discovery of friendship reminds us again that He is Real, that He is alive, that He is with us.

The grace of the living Presence of Christ accompanies and forms a real human path of friendship, a path in which modesty and the awareness of one's own dignity join with joy, cordiality, and openness to build a common sharing of life which helps us to remember eternity because it is destined to endure for eternity. We remind one another of eternity, of our Destiny, and in this way we build one another up, we really help one another.

We can’t live Christianity alone. We can't be human alone.

We need this companionship. Thus, Jesus will always find new ways to bring His people together and help them to build one another up. He has created us to be together forever with Him, and so we must strengthen one another in the heart as we perceive in one another that common destiny for which our hearts are made.

Natural Upheavals: Is God Telling Us Something?

Today I was asked what I thought of the coincidence, here in the United States, of that fact that we had an earthquake and are about to have a major hurricane here on the East Coast within a week. Is this a sign from God? Is He punishing America for our sins? For our wanton disregard for the sanctity of human life? In fact, various people in the social network world have been buzzing about the meaning of these events. Is God warning us of impending doom? Or is He perhaps just manifesting His majesty and power? What do I think it means?

Well, first of all, I think it means that we are having an earthquake and a hurricane that happen to be in the same week! I have every reason to believe that it can be explained by forces in the natural order of things.

Of course, I do not deny the primary, transcendent, and particular causality and providence that God exercises over every event in the universe. The question is, how does He exercise this causality? According to His ordinary providence, God creates, sustains, and empowers secondary causes in the running of the physical universe. Of course it's all from Him, and the whole of His providence has a plan. Thus, undoubtedly, He has empowered and brought it about in His plan that these causal factors--in their own order and according to their own inner dynamic that He gives them--come together for many reasons, and all of those reasons are present to His omnipotence and infinite intelligence. Certainly the very fact that some have thought of His majesty and power was intended by Him from all eternity as one of His purposes in this event, as is also the fact that there are some who are led to remember the limits of their lives and that they will be called to account for their actions, as is also the husband and wife who comfort each other in the hurricane shelter and conceive the child that He has loved from all eternity and for whom He died on the cross, as is the watering of the plants, as is the punishment of people for sin because all of our suffering has its cause in sin and is also transformed by Christ's redemption (which is the ultimate purpose of everything in God's plan).

What I have no reason to believe is the idea that these events are some special intervention by God that "interrupts" (so to speak) the order of His ordinary providence--e.g. as in a miracle or a prophecy or a "sign" by which He intends to act within nature in order to communicate something specific to people. The simple coincidence of events in nature happens too frequently and is therefore too "normal" to serve as a special sign from God. It does not bear the evident mark of His special intervention. In such a case, we would expect to find an event or series of events that could not be explained by natural causes.

As for punishment, God is already punishing us for our sins and for our open violation of the dignity of the human person by allowing the consequences of these sins to unfold: in spite of our many good intentions and our technological advancements we are experiencing the gradual but implacable disintegration of our Western secularized civilization. Do we need a clearer sign than this? It is enough to strike fear and trembling into me.

Christ, Religion, and the Human Being

The human heart has a desire for truth, for goodness, for justice, for love, for beauty; these are the fundamental needs inscribed in every human heart. And every heart, from the first moment of its awakening, is summoned mysteriously by the grace of God revealed and given in Jesus Christ (even for those who do not yet know Him "explicitly"). The human heart is made for more than this world. The human heart is made for God. This is the most powerful and the most dynamic impetus in the life of the human person. It is for this reason that the human being is by nature a religious being. The very power and depth of the religious factor accounts for why people can abuse it to trick others and twist their minds and thereby do such profound violence to their humanity. To do this is a great crime.

Many religious people have been immoral (many, many others have also been good, and it is simply unfair to deny this). Many religious people have made dysfunctional religious institutions. But "religion" exists because the human being is made for God and cannot "help" seeking God. If he denies God, he sets up another "total reality" in God's place. When the human being denies religion, he sets up his very denial as an unassailable absolute, and clings to it with all the impetus of his religious soul. The human heart cannot avoid searching for, affirming, and adhering to something that is perceived to be of definitive importance. And when the heart is disappointed it takes up the search again.

But Jesus Christ goes beyond the human search for God. He is the Answer to that search. And He has taken the "risk" of putting Himself in the hands of sinful human beings so that He can continue to give Himself to us twenty centuries later, in a concrete way. He has promised that He will reach us today through the Church. We trust Christ in His Church. Even if many of His representative are great sinners, He has promised that we will always find Him in the Church, and He has established the means whereby He makes good on this promise. Thus, for example, Christ reaches us in the sacraments and makes Himself present for us in the Eucharist, even if the minister--His human instrument--is unworthy to represent Him.

We must never forget this. It is not a matter of an omnipotent, merely human priesthood conjuring Christ by some magical incantation. It is a matter of His sovereign determination to be with and to give Himself to you and me in the space and time and reality of our lives through human gestures that take place in our world today--gestures which are guaranteed to have value for our lives because it is He who performs them through His ministers. The value of the sacraments and their meaning for our lives is founded on the presence and action of Jesus Christ, not the merits or worthiness of those He uses as instruments. He is present in His Church, and it is always to Him we adhere. Even as we recognize that He comes to us through other men, we trust Him, and we know that He will not deny Himself to us because of their weaknesses and limitations. This is the promise that Christ in the sacraments has made to the human heart that seeks Him.

He has come to be the Answer, available to us here and now. He will not let our search be in vain.

Christianity Is A Person

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." - G.K. Chesterton

I beg to tweak the great G.K.! Christianity is not an ideal, and if we view it as such it is no wonder that we find it both wanting and "difficult" (in the wrong way). Christianity is a Person. It is the love of Christ that is so often left untried. It is Jesus Christ who seems so "difficult" because we do not trust Him.

Indeed, the thought that the “Christian ideal” is too difficult is not entirely unreasonable. How could we ever put it into practice by our own power? We are lost in the wilds. We do not know, by our own power, how to even begin to “try”.

It is not the lost sheep who finds the Shepherd. It is the Shepherd who finds the sheep. It is not the lost sheep who finds his way back to the fold. It is the Shepherd who carries him on His shoulders. The sheep needs to trust the Shepherd and let himself be carried.

He carries us, but He does not coddle us. He does not seduce us into trusting in Him. He draws us to Him by showing us the beauty for which our hearts were made, the real beauty; and when we see Him we will know that we are not being tricked. We will know that whether we say yes or no is a matter of our freedom.

We Survived the Earthquake

On the whole, it really wasn't a big deal.

In fact, I hope that the world doesn't think that we East Coast Americans are insensitive if we indulge in a bit of a collective laugh at ourselves.

We know that natural disasters can be among the hardest burdens that people have to endure. We have mourned natural and man made catastrophes, and some of us have been touched by them directly. We also know that this 5.9 earthquake that was centered in Eastern Virginia and that shook the East Coast from New York to Georgia did some damage to structures that are not built to withstand earthquakes. Large seismic events are not common in this part of the country. This was the largest earthquake here in over a century.

The jokes we're making are really on ourselves. For many of us, who have never experienced anything like this, it was an utterly peculiar event. Even though for most of us the damage was limited to a spilled cup of coffee or a few nicknacks falling off the shelves, it was an unsettling moment, or at the very least it was a strange moment. To some extent, our laughter is motivated by a sense of relief.

It is also and perhaps primarily the sheer oddness of it all. Many had no idea it was an earthquake until after it was over, and the result was some very funny speculations running rapidly through people's minds about what the heck was happening. I was standing in the living room with John Paul and Eileen was in the bedroom. The girls were outside. We have been dealing with a mouse problem (see previous post), and so our attention has been particularly attuned to listening for sounds of mice or mousetraps.

Suddenly there was this rumbling and my first thought was, of course, "Mouse? What kind of mouse is this?" I had a flash image of thousands of elephant-like mice running through the attic. John Paul, who was not facing me at the time, later told me that his first thought was that "Dad must be mad at the computer and is stomping around" (a fine example I set for my son). In the bedroom, Eileen's first thought was the same! Well, if you read this blog you're not surprised; you know how I lose my temper at technology.

Then my mind veered in another direction. Even though we live in a small country town, we are not so far from Washington, D.C. We know people who heard the sounds and saw the fires at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 (and in New York, for that matter). So a thought and images went through my mind that were like the same ones that flashed through the minds of many people in Washington and Manhattan when they first felt the earthquake: "Bomb. Terrorists. Horror."

What does this say about the world we live in? An unusual and disturbing natural event occurs and among our first thoughts are memories and fears of human violence. Perhaps when bombs first fell from the sky on cities, people initially thought, "is it an earthquake?" But we have become accustomed to this. Now when the earth shakes, people think, "is it a war?" There is something here that merits further consideration.

But this feeling quickly passed and was followed by pure confusion; I wasn't sure what I was imagining and what was real. By this time the quake was nearly over. Then my wife burst into the living room and said with all the authority of someone who has lived in California, "That was an earthquake." And I must admit that my first inclination was to respond: you've got to be kidding! We don't have earthquakes in Virginia. But on second thought, it seemed the most plausible explanation.

We turned on the television and there was just the usual daytime TV. Where is the famous "Emergency Broadcast System?" I wondered. I briefly became a confused late 20th century man, thinking, "Wait, if it was real it would be on television, right?" Then the man of the third millennium awoke in me as I went to my laptop. What about Facebook? Even as I posted my querying status, the news feed was lighting up with others from New York to Georgia reporting the same experience. It was an earthquake.

We scooped TV! By the time the news was on the air, people had already posted links. There was something awe-fully significant about this moment. While the television news droned on in the background, another kind of earthquake was happening on the social media sites. Everyone was reporting in. And I realized that we are the media now. We hold mass communications power in our own hands. This is something new. Even newer than an earthquake on the East Coast.

Is this a good thing?

I don't know. I suppose that, like most human things, it will be as good or as bad as the use we make of it. The wheat and the weeds grow together.

One thing cannot be denied. It is a fact. We must understand it, judge it, master it, and use it as a tool in our search for the good. 

Mousetrap!

We have unwelcome guests in our house.

There is a mouse, at least one mouse--probably more--running about our living space these past 24 hours. And I mean something besides our usual live-in "mouse," Josefina. Real four legged furry things. Last night one bolted into the living room and another was spotted in the kitchen, setting the entire household into turmoil.

Children love mice in books and videos, talking mice all dressed up and dancing about. Real, wild, uncontrollable, shooting-across-the-floor mice are a different matter. They might crawl on someone. They're creepier than bugs and too big to squash (not that my kids deal very well with bugs, either). Arrrgh!

Like a flash, the bed in our room is suddenly covered with frightened children. Not even John Paul is particularly thrilled with the idea of mice. The truth is, Mommy and Daddy aren't very jazzed about it either. Bleeech. Traps. Disposal of their eventual contents. Errrgh! And nobody wants creepy things running around the house. (As for Teresa, she has been more stable in recent days. We are still working on her particular problems, but they don't seem to affect her reaction to a mouse, which is that of any regular eight year old.)

One person seems puzzled and not quite aware of what is going on. Josefina. "Can I see the mouse?" It's all kind of hazy and exciting for her. "Can we keep the mouse and play with it?" Josefina hasn't actually seen the real mouse. I don't know if she ever has seen one.

We've had mice in the house before. But it has been some years. The neighbor's outdoor cat has been keeping control over the mouse population for some time. But recently our neighbor gave the cat to her granddaughter. No more cat. Our address has once more become known to the mouse population as a safe place to hang out and maybe get lucky and raid a box of cheerios.

Last night was a strange night. A mouse snapped a trap but somehow escaped. Another trap was robbed of its peanut butter. Meanwhile there were a few extra squeamish human occupants in our queen sized bed. Nobody slept well. Everyone had nightmares about strange mouse-ish monsters invading the house.

Today everyone has gone about gingerly. We have assembled a whole arsenal of traps. Any rodent who sets foot in this house now faces nuclear war.

But we don't see or hear a peep.

Maybe they have day jobs.

Tonight I expect they'll be back, and we shall catch them. I'm a night owl, and I hope they don't wait until after I go to bed. Perhaps this is why owls are up at night.

At dinner time, I crept up behind Josefina and grabbed her and said, "I have the biggest mousetrap, because I want to catch the biggest mouse!"

"I'm not a mouse," she said.

The Theotokos and the Unity of East and West

I am always struck by how much Mary is invoked in the Eastern Byzantine liturgy (which is such a contrast to the Roman liturgy, which rarely makes explicit reference to Mary). Even though they do not have the tradition of the Rosary, the presence of Mary in their prayer traditions is so pervasive that she surely gives them great blessings and ardently desires all to be in full communion with the Successor of St. Peter.

Listen to how the all the elements of the Western "Hail Mary" are contained in a beautiful way in the prayers for the Feast of the Dormition:

"Hail, O Woman full of grace, the Lord is with you, the Lord who, because of you, bestows great mercy upon the world" (from Vespers). "Blessed are you among women and blessed is your womb that contained Christ, in whose hands you committed your soul. O pure Virgin, intercede with Christ our God that He may save our souls!" (at the Apostichon).

How can Mary not want them to have the fullness of unity with us?

So why hasn't it happened? We must not be praying hard enough! We are not loving, learning, or sacrificing enough of ourselves. They need to see the face of love, the face of Christ, in the faces of those who adhere to the Catholic Church. The Orthodox peoples of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and in a special way those mysterious people beloved of God--the Russians--need Peter in order not to lose what they have, and in order to give to the whole world the riches of their faith!

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.