Unknown and "Unlikely" Saints

On this All Saints Day, I am led to ponder the saints in heaven who may never have entered a Catholic church while on earth.

People who do not know about Christ are still loved by God and led by His grace, and if they search for Him and follow what their conscience shows them to be His will, He leads them (in some mysterious way) to say "yes" to the Person of Christ present in their lives, and thus they can be saved by Christ and joined to the Church even if they have never heard of either. This must also be true of people who have "heard" of Christ and the Church, but do not understand them properly through no fault of their own.

Jesus, by becoming man, has united himself in a certain way with every human being. The secret drama of every person's real life is their decision to say "yes" or "no" to Jesus Christ as He makes Himself present in their circumstances. Since Christ’s coming, there have been many people who have never heard of Him, but they have sought God's will, and have sought through the knowledge that was available to them to do what they thought God wanted of them. They love the good, and in that love God's grace is at work so that they can somehow encounter and accept the person of Christ through love even if they do not know His name. If a person truly wants "God's will," then they want Christ even if they don't know it, because Christ is God's will, and Christ places that desire in them. Jesus Christ is what every human person is searching for. And so all those who truly search for the Mystery of life, and beg for that Mystery, will be led in a vital way to God's revelation of that Mystery: Jesus Himself. Thus many who do not know "about" Jesus in a way that they can express or articulate, can still say "yes" to Jesus in their lives through love, through fidelity to the grace that God gives them, and through mysterious ways that we don't understand.

There are various theological theories about how this can happen, and I am not proposing any of them here. Nor am I saying that someone who recognizes the truth about Christ and the Church can reject it in favor of some other path that he or she prefers. If I am truly searching for the One who loves me, and then He shows Himself to me in Person and reveals His Name, how can I not accept Him, let myself be embraced by Him, and embrace Him in return? If fear or my own preferences were to prevail at this point, it would mean the failure of my search rather than its fulfilment.

What I want to point out is the simple fact that God’s grace is central to the life of every human person, and it has ways of working even in those whose connection to the Church cannot be seen by us. It is something to remember on the day in which we celebrate all the saints. God’s mercy is a mystery, but it’s greatness will surely surprise us.

All I Can Do Is Offer Everything To You

O God, what is the design of Your wisdom for the human race? You have willed to manifest and glorify the Mystery of who You are by pouring Yourself out and becoming one of us. You dwell among us and give Yourself up entirely for each and all of us.

You reveal that the Absolute Being is Absolute Love, and You offer that Love to each of us. In your wisdom you shape the hearts of each of us, fashioning us to be Your companions, making us capable of giving and receiving love and then placing Yourself in the midst of us so that we might love You and be loved by You and be transformed into Your likeness.

O Jesus help me.
All I can do is offer everything to You.
You have created me for Yourself.
My heart desires You,
and yet how often do I even think of what I do?
I am resolved to do the best I can.
I am resolved to seek Your will and to do Your will,
because Your will is Love,
and it will always be what will enlarge my soul,
and make me truly free,
because I am made for Love.
So I offer myself to You;
I abandon myself completely to You,
and to Your plan for my life.
I know there is weakness and resistance in me
that I do not know how to overcome.
I know there are ways I must grow that I do not understand.
I know that my life is a mystery hidden in Your wisdom and goodness.

O Jesus, I offer everything to You.
Convert me.
Change me.
Open my heart to the love You give me in this moment.
Carry my soul.
Give me, in Your Infinite Mercy, the willing heart
that loves You in the way You long for me to love You.
I am hindered from the freedom for which I have been made,
the freedom to live as the image and grow as the likeness of God.
And so I abandon myself entirely to Your Mercy.
For You have loved me first,
so that--by the power of Your love--I might love You
and receive You in giving myself to You.
Jesus I trust in You.
Jesus I trust in You, completely.

Not For Myself Alone

What a tremendous thing is the Eucharistic liturgy. The whole of creation is brought to the worship of God in the offering of Jesus Himself, through the ministry of His priests. We are truly blessed to bring ourselves and our lives to offer in union with the Heart of Jesus on Sunday–that special day dedicated to Divine worship. Yet there are so many places, and so many hearts, in which Sunday means nothing. And there are places too where Christians long to participate in the Eucharist, but are prevented by persecution.

I must have a special attention and gratitude for what is being given to me in the Mass. I have to be aware that it is not a personal "religious thing" just for me. It is a gift, and the gift is Love, which cannot be "kept" for myself alone but must be given and given. I am not at Mass for myself alone. I am there for the salvation of the world, to be an instrument of Christ's love for the world and for every one of the billions of human persons who will not be at Mass, who do not know Him or do not understand Him, or who must suffer because of their circumstances.

Your Love Does Not Leave Us Alone

Dear Jesus,
Your Love does not leave us alone.
You became man to be with us,
and so in the torrent of Love that gives without limit,
we find You in our brothers and sisters.
We are not given this life alone;
we walk this road together, with others,
whom You give us,
that we might be together.
You make us a People
in the midst of all the peoples of the world.
A People who belong to each other
and who belong to all peoples,
especially those who are abused
and forgotten
and disdained by this passing age.
You give us to one another,
and through one another You sustain us.
You send us forth together
to remind each other that You are with us on the road,
to be the reflection of Your Presence to one another,
and the support of one another on this road
of suffering and love.
You are with us in our love for one another,
that passes through time and space,
that crosses distances,
that is given through gestures and elements and signs,
that gathers together to express love
and worship
and wonder
in the mystery of Your Presence.
So we are sustained
and Your Love begins to build something new
in the midst of this world,
even making use of our weakness.
We discover in this place,
in this history,
in this People gathered as a great family,
in which the greatest must serve the rest,
in this common love,
in this friendship human and Divine,
We discover You
and Your companionship
in this life
called the Church.
This communion of those who love You
in friendship with one another,
in community,
together in the midst of the world,
across the centuries,
across the continents,
from every language,
from nations and peoples,
destined for all nations,
all peoples
every person
Your love.
Jesus.

The Beginning of a Long Journey

Today is the five year anniversary of Josefina’s first surgery. None of us realized that we were embarking on the beginning of a long odyssey for our family that has lasted to this day. It started with her seven month stay in the hospital and then continued with my subsequent flare-up of chronic Lyme disease and aggravated psychiatric problems which I have often discussed openly in this blog.

I had been in remission in 2006, and had felt better than I had in years. Most of the year had been a remarkable time of recovery, energy, and vigorous re-engagement in the work I loved best: classroom teaching. During the whole time that Josefina was in the hospital, I was in crisis mode, and with the help of Eileen's mother, we were able to keep everything running at home and at school. I thought I still felt good, but, really, my engine started to "overheat." The stress was enormous.

Thus, when Josefina finally came home and everything settled, I stopped functioning on adrenaline and had the physical and psychological meltdown that I describe in the first pages of my book, that ended up putting me in the hospital. I remember the sense of irony I felt when Eileen came in with the baby, and I realized that Josefina was visiting me in the hospital. After all those months of seeing her in a hospital crib on tubes and monitors, here I was, suddenly, in a hospital bed on tubes and monitors with a healthy Josefina in her Mommy’s arms looking down at me! It was like some strange dream.

By Josefina's first birthday I was back on medical leave, and on my way to "retirement." I still don't understand all of what happened, or exactly where I am now. Physically I feel much better, but I'm on a very reduced regimen. Medication, therapy, vitamins, diet. Somehow a book got written in the midst of all these recent years. For the past year, I've lived one day at a time, and most of the days have been pretty good.

I don’t take anything for granted, but I am grateful for so much that I have received. Life is precious and amazing. I pray that God make me the husband, father, teacher, mentor, and friend that He wills me to be. Oh yes, and as my parents get older and begin to be needy, I have suddenly remembered again that I am somebody's son (and somebody's brother too).

It keeps me going.

Josefina Turns Five!

This is the story of a little girl, born on October 26, 2006. She was seven weeks premature, weighed under five pounds and needed surgery to reconstruct her intestines. The first days were full of tension:

But she made it through, and for a while, it looked as though she would be home in a few weeks....

But then the weeks turned into months, seven months in fact.

Daddy used to sing to her

And Mommy visited her every single day

Until the day when she was finally ready to  come home:

We were grateful to have our whole family together at last.

Josefina is still teaching me how to live. She is still teaching me about the joy of living.


Happy Birthday to our littlest one, Josefina Janaro,
October 26


Age: 5

You Have Wounded Us With Your Love

Dear Jesus, I sometimes feel a whole world that cries out for You
but does not know Your name.
So much goodness in souls,
so many hearts that run up against limits
and barriers,
and why are they so restrained?
Why do they not see you?

It is not because You do not love them
with all Your infinite compassion.
You know and hold the hearts of each of them.
And You know the things that prevent them
or hold them back from recognizing You,
and You know what is their fault,
and what they cannot help;
You know what is beyond the reach
of their present human circumstances.
You know the obstacles that not even heroic goodness can overcome.
You know all, and You look upon all with infinite compassion,
with patience;
yet also with the ardent urgency of a Lover
who longs to lavish Himself completely on the one
(each and every one)
that He loves,
and to be loved in return,
so that love might become unity
and communion between God and man.
Each man.
Each woman.

You have this embracing Love
and yet only a few seem to recognize You,
and even fewer to love You
or find any space at all for You in their hearts.
We do not understand how Your love works.
We only know that it works for each and all
with tenderness and passion,
with mercy and forgiveness,
with all the attention of a particular love;
We know that for You,
every human person
without exception
without exception
no one is excluded
every human person
is a Love Affair for You.
That is what the Cross means....

Thank you Lord for showing to us the love of Your heart
and moving us to desire that all the world know You.
For this desire is only a faint echo in us
of the mysterious call You utter in the heart of every person.
Why have You revealed Your love to us?
Not so that we might feel superior to others.
But so that we might be the servants, the messengers,
the images in the world of that Love;
so that every person who encounters us
might meet in that moment some small flash
of the radiance of Your Infinite Love.
So that each person You send us
might have a taste of the mystery,
of the truth,
that he or she is loved by You.

Such is the love You have entrusted to us
and we feel utterly beyond this task;
we feel overwhelmed by the vocation
to bring Your love to those we meet,
to the world.
But praise be to you, Jesus,
for we do not carry this love by ourselves.
Because it is the Cross,
it is carried by You in us,
and we are given the grace to share with You
the wonderful burden of this Love.

We are called,
and this is Your work.
You have wounded us with Your Love.
We have heard You whisper, "my Beloved,"
and we can no longer look at any human being
without hearing that same voice
and feeling that same beautiful pain in our own hearts.
You have given us this road of suffering.
By Your grace, and Your inexhaustible Mercy–
for we shall often fail You–
draw us along the road of this Love,
unite us to You,
carry us for we ourselves are frail,
we are weak and need healing,
we need to be borne completely in Your Loving arms
in the steps of this life You have prepared for us.
Convince us, O Lord,
that You will never fail us.
Your grace and Your Mercy are always sufficient for us.
Take away our fear.
Give us complete trust in You,
Jesus.

Remembering John Paul II

O God, who are rich in mercy
and who willed that the blessed John Paul the Second
should preside as Pope over your universal Church,
grant, we pray, that instructed by his teaching,
we may open our hearts to the saving grace of Christ,
the sole Redeemer of mankind.
Who lives and reigns.

This is the official English translation of the collect for today's memorial for Blessed John Paul II. Although the day is currently publicly observed only in Rome and Poland, the U.S. bishops will likely petition to add it to the Latin rite calendar in America.

Meanwhile, everyone is free to pray this prayer personally (every day if you like!). Blessed John Paul II, pray for us!

Note that the prayer mentions specifically two of his greatest encyclicals, "Rich in Mercy" (Dives in Misericordia) and "Redeemer of Mankind" (Redemptor Hominis), and thereby also highlights two great features of his person: his recognition of the greatness of the Divine mercy and his mystical perception of the relationship of Christ to the life of every human being.

I recently read an observation by a Church leader that one of the most impressive things that has emerged during the canonization process is the depth of John Paul’s interior life, in particular his personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This was the source of his greatness, his holiness, and his humanity. It was because of his profound union with Christ that John Paul II was able to connect in such an intimate and direct manner with so many human beings, to touch the lives of so many individual persons, groups, crowds, nations and peoples, Catholics and non-Catholics, religious people and non-religious people.

The real truth about each of us is that we are made for Jesus Christ. It really is true. And Blessed John Paul II was a man who knew Jesus Christ. This is the reason why he was, and why he remains, so powerful in our lives.

A Great Adventure

I have this whole mysterious rich life. Where does it come from? From the fact that Christ grabbed me and took me into a great adventure.

We are on a great adventure, not in some other world, but right here inside of this life. This is the adventure, even with all the sorrow, and it is He who makes it that way. He takes up our lives, and sends us forth not to forget Him but to continue seeking and finding Him everywhere. Nobody is born taking Christ seriously; those of us who really live for Him and hunger for Him do so because He has touched us and changed us, He has burst into our lives. We all have our "conversion stories"--indeed they are ongoing.

Do I Know Jesus Christ?

I have begun to ask myself the question, "What kind of a relationship do I have with Jesus?"

I believe in Him of course, and in everything that the Church teaches. I worship Him as God the Word, who lives eternally with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ONE God forever and ever. I obey His commands (or at least I try), I pray, I receive the sacraments, and I write about Jesus all the time, with the conviction that the Word made flesh is the Lord of all creation, the center of the cosmos and of history.

But there is more to it than that.

I "know" Jesus Christ, personally. I have "met" Him. It is a mysterious encounter and a mysterious relationship. But it is real, or else none of my relationships are real and my entire life is a joke. It is tremendously and transformingly real. Jesus Christ, Himself, has changed and continues to change my life.

I am not saying that I "know" Him nearly as well as I should, nor that I always know what He wants from me or from others. But He is right in the center of my life, not only as the Almighty God, but also--what a wonder--as my companion, my brother, indeed my friend. It is from that place especially that He asks me to believe in Him in an intimate way, to trust Him.

Jesus I trust in You.

I Trust in You Now

Jesus died on the Cross. Each of us will die. What do we know about the mystery of our own death? Where will my heart be in that hour? Let me entrust it NOW to the Divine Mercy, ask that Jesus insert me into His Most Compassion- ate Heart and that Mary surround me with the maternal love of her heart.

The Lord Jesus and His merciful Mother have claimed that final hour as their own on the Cross, and at the foot of the Cross. I do not want to deny them that hour, and so I offer them what I have now, this hour, this "now"...Jesus I trust in You, through Mary.

The House of the Father

Eternal Father,
Infinite Mercy,
Ineffable, Glorious, Exalted,
Giver of all life,
Lord of the universe,
Creator of our hearts,
we praise You,
we worship You,
we bow before You,
we give You thanks--You who are the Giver
of all good things.
You sent Your Only Son,
Jesus Christ,
Your Eternal Word,
through whom all things were created.
You sent Him into the world,
because You loved the world,
because You wanted to save the world.

From all eternity You saw us,
in our smallness
and our weakness
and our failure,
and You wanted to be with us.
You sent Your Son
to look upon us with a human face
and reveal the radiance of Your Glory.

Lord Jesus Christ,
You emptied Yourself and took the form of a slave,
so that through You
we might be raised up to the life of God.
You wanted us,
even after we had strayed far from You
and before we ever thought to seek You.
You wanted us
when we were far away,
lost in ourselves,
lost without the thought of being found,
asleep in our nothingness.

You called us out of darkness,
You woke us from our sleep,
You healed us from our sickness,
and taking us in the firmness of Your grasp,
You set us upon our feet
and bid us walk with You
to the Source of our lives,
to the home of our souls,
to the House of the Father.

I Cannot Leave Them Alone

Today is the anniversary of my friend’s death. Yes, I’m a bit depressed. I’m fighting it, but part of me wants to be depressed...for his sake and in solidarity with so many who are like him.

I have tasted that darkness, but I have been blessed with an enormous amount of help. I have been sustained, by good medicine, and by the great woman I married, by my family, by the tremendous power of prayer, by this unique Christian community in which I live as well as the pedagogy of Fr. Giussani and Fr. Carron and others who help form me to live as a human person, in a real way, in all these relationships.

I’m struggling today, remembering my friend. I'm trying to say to myself, "Take your mind off it. Take your mind off that feeling of lostness, that terrible emptiness that must have been there." But then another part of me keeps coming back to it because I don't want to leave him alone there. I’ve been in that place. I can’t just turn my back on him, and on the others who are lost.

But Jesus was with them in that lonely place. Jesus on the Cross went to every person, walked every person's road, "bridged the distance" to every person--especially those distances that people have created for themselves, willfully, by sin. My friend's distance was not willful; it was a suffering, an illness. There are deeper distances and greater lonelinesses that Jesus united Himself with, traveling the mysterious inner world of every human being, personally, in that "Mystical Night" that was The Cross.

None of us can say to God, "You don't understand what I'm going through!" He has been "with us" through all of it. The "three hours" of the Cross intersect with every human life. This shakes up our ideas about space and time (and theologians can try to understand the "how" of all this), but when we realize that God is Infinite Love, we should ask ourselves, "Wouldn't Infinite Love want to do this?"

Infinite Love loves. And He who is Infinite Love became man so that Love would be concrete, so that it would be inside the human life of each of us, so that it would reach us really and insert God's companionship with the human person inside of human history and human realities and human relationships and even human things and gestures and the material realities of the human world.

So why isn't everyone in heaven? Infinite Love doesn't force itself to be accepted. Infinite Love and Mercy and Forgiveness in the Person of Christ seeks the acceptance of the very freedom it created, the freedom that each of us possesses. We have the freedom to say "no". Or we have the freedom to let ourselves be loved and let that love empower us to receive it fully by loving in return.

This is our terrible and wonderful freedom. United with God and empowered by His grace, we share in the power of His love. We too become lovers, great lovers, in His likeness. But we have to let Him love us.

That's why prayer is so important. It opens our freedom to God. From the moment we begin to pray, truly, our freedom at least begins to loosen it's grip on that "NO" to God, and God is already entering in and beginning to change us.

So what is it in me that desires (even a little) to "be with" other persons in their suffering rather than to be "satisfied" in myself. Is that love?

Or is it just my own depression? Or--wow!--is it, somehow, both? God works through everything. God works through our weakness. He works especially through our weakness and our suffering, and the love with which we embrace it.

Is this love? Is it an embrace?

O Lord, shape me in this moment. Make me who You will me to be. I can’t figure myself out. I offer all this to You.

Yay! Eileen is Finally Done!!!

The sun is shining brightly today.

It is a beautiful autumn day, and I have enjoyed some time outside. Right now the sun is gleaming on my eyes, through the window.

Eileen finished her papers and mailed them off. It’s finally over. For over three years, this cross has been borne by our whole family. Husband and wife are so important to each other. Father and mother are so important to their children. Children can be marvels of resourcefulness and resilience of they know they are loved. When a family embraces a difficulty together for the love of God–each member contributing according to his or her own level of understanding–a real growth can come out of it.

What would otherwise be an absence (one that might draw families apart) becomes instead a sacrifice in which compensations are made and, to some degree, hardships are borne. It is a great blessing, to be aware–together–of the reason for the sacrifice, and to make it the focus of family prayer. I think all our children have a sense of the value of their mother’s work, and they have been formed in part by the sacrifices they have made so that she can accomplish that work. And of course in our case they experience the fruits of that work, because she teaches them in their school.

I love my wife. She is a brilliant lady.

The Middle of October

I was saying in the previous post that I feel that I have nothing to give. Well, God seems to make use of me anyway.

It is an miserable condition, to “feel” this way, but it is not a judgment. I know that God says in my heart, “I made you, I redeemed you, I have blessed you, go and give what you have received.” The real danger of depression is that a Malicious Voice enters into the midst of the neurological disequilibrium and tries to lead the person to discouragement. I feel that I am nothing and have nothing to give. The evil voice says, “Give up. Fall into bitterness.” But I still say, “Lord, if I am nothing, then I give you my nothingness. Create me anew.” And so even depression can become an occasion for freedom to embrace this mystery, that my value consists in belonging to You. To say, “I need You” in the darkness is a prayer, and only God knows how much healing such prayer brings to a wounded, desperate world. Let us never underestimate the power of God made perfect in the weakness of our suffering.

Depression does not necessarily overwhelm our freedom, and as long as our freedom is alive there is the possibility for love, even for great love. But we must also remember, especially in looking at others who suffer, that it is a crushing burden, a force that imposes itself, and that can, in certain cases, be so overpowering that it brings about events that may be outside a person’s responsibility. God knows that human freedom can be suspended by the distortion of this disease, so that one acts as if in a dream. Here I am thinking in particular of a terrible tragedy that happened six years ago, in the middle of October, to a lifelong friend–a tragedy that tore my soul in a way that still has not healed.

This event is undoubtedly one of the reasons why I find October so difficult. People die from depression. I prefer to put it this way, because–although I am not considered to be in danger (and I am under the regular professional care of competent and attentive people)–I know this monster, and I believe that it can be a killer. Of course only God knows the limits of freedom, but we know enough today about these diseases to realize that our hearts must commend the afflicted to the mercy of God. The Church confirms this, when she gives them a full Christian burial and continues to pray for them (and honor them) as members of the faithful departed.

Personally, I believe that my friend is at peace. He is in my prayers. And I think, somehow, that he mysteriously accompanies me and my family and even intercedes for us. I think he helps me.

Of course, he would want to help. He always did. My friend, who died from depression, was a Catholic priest. Or I should say, is a Catholic priest, for "thou art a priest forever...." He was a good priest. A very good priest. Only God knows the merits of his struggle, which was a mighty one. In the end, though, depression for him was as deadly as cancer.

I am not trying to scare people. It is not so virulent in me. I am not going to die from this. That is not the danger for me. My temptation is to become discouraged. Encourage me. Some people already have (thanks!), and it is a great help in keeping me focused. I’m not asking for flattery, but if what I do is useful to you, let me know. Kick me in the butt and tell me to do more, if you think I can, or if you need it or know someone else who needs it. We must share our needs. This is the heart of solidarity, and solidarity is one of the great constructive forces of love.

Meanwhile, my doctor and I have made a slight medication adjustment, and I am supplementing Vitamin D and B Complex. The sun is in the sky and there is sunshine in the faces of my wife and children. I struggle with the memory of these terrible days, and find also a mysterious healing at work, hidden in the mercy of God and in the intercession of many good souls. There is deep conviction that grows in me and says within me, “Keep telling people that this is something real. Keep telling them to take care of themselves and their loved ones. Keep telling them that this is a disease; that it is not something to be ashamed of, that it is not their fault, but also that they cannot overcome it by themselves and they need to have the humility to get help. Keep encouraging young people to take up the mental health professions, which are so much in need of an integral Christian vision of the human person.”

And please pray for the soul of my friend, and the souls of all the faithful departed who have lost their lives to mental illness. Through the mercy of God, may they rest in peace, and pray for us.

I Will Not Give Up

Jesus offered Himself for us. His heart was opened for each one of us on the Cross, in his hour of Mercy. He longs for each of us in this hour, and His desire to be with us is here, when He dies on the Cross for our sins. He does not stop loving us because of our sins, but His love is there for us and offered to us while we are still sinners, so that we can be changed by it and saved by it. On the Cross Jesus wants to win our love, by giving Himself totally for us.

Dark and wet and gloomy all day. It is October 13. Where is my miracle of the sun? Why do I feel no sun shining on me? Mary, O Mother Mary. I have had a glimpse of the sun. It is a miracle. I am trying to remember its light in the shadow and the thunder. O Mary, O Mary my Mother. Totus tuus.

Depression is clouding over me. If you’ve read my book, you understand. Well, you understand to some extent. I have doctors. I have medicine. I have therapy. I am down, and it’s something I deal with as part of life. It may be the weather change, my persistent cold, a need to adjust my diet, to get more exercise, to get out of myself and to give love and help to others. I have a chronic infection (Lyme disease) that can flare up anywhere, including the brain. These are all factors of my life about which I have been very open.

All factors to grapple with, factors that make up the environment for the action of my freedom. For me it is in this place, in these moments, that He asks me, “Do you believe in Me? Do you trust in Me? Do you love Me?” This is where my own particular circumstances intersect with every person’s life. We all have this place where we suffer, where we face our own inadequacy, where we discover the smallness of our hearts and the pettiness of all our deeds. And it is here that Jesus asks each one of us, in the most penetrating and poignant way, to believe in Him, to trust Him.

I do believe that He loves me, whatever darkness may surround me.

Why do I fail to entrust everything to this Great Lover? Why am I afraid? What more could He possibly do to deserve my trust?

Jesus, I entrust to You what seems so often to me to be such a complicated business, namely the abandonment of myself to You, the giving of everything over to You, the surrender of everything to You...even my weakness.

I will not give up. Even if I am broken, God is still God, and still Glorious–even more clearly so, for He shares in my brokenness. Here, more than anywhere, it is clear that He is worthy of all my love. He has proven Himself. Thus, in every circumstance–even in the face of the prospect that I have nothing to give, that I am worthless, that all my aspirations in life may end in failure–the only reasonable possibility for me is to love God.

Even if I am nothing, then, still I want to love Him. I beg that I might be able to love Him.

From nothing, God creates, God brings forth life. Jesus I trust in You. Convert me. Conquer me. Give me a new heart.

Living in Love

It's so easy to try to live in the past or to live in the future. The past belongs to God. The future belongs to God. Then there is the present. The present belongs to God, and He pours it out as a gift that constitutes "me," that creates in me freedom and invites that freedom to respond in love. And so, once again, I belong to God, in giving myself, in this present moment.

Here is life: the present moment.

But what are "my past" and "my future"? I find them always in memory and hope. And so I entrust everything of the past to You, O God, and everything of the present, and everything of the future. Grant that I might be able to remember and offer this prayer. Now.

Social Media in the Stone Age, Part II

Letters. I shall always be grateful that there were still letters a generation ago. Among the stacks of letters we have stored away are two very important bundles: the letters that Eileen and I exchanged over the course of five years between when we first met and when we realized that we loved each other.

We met in January of 1990, when Eileen moved to Washington, D.C. after college. We became good friends. By the summer of 1990, she had left again, bound ultimately for graduate school at the University of Dallas. She visited again that Thanksgiving. Then, five summers later, we saw one another again, she moved back to Virginia, and we got engaged. In between there were many stories in both our lives, of travel, study, projects, work, even failed romances with other people.

And through it all, there were the letters.

I was a good correspondent with many people, and often wrote long, interesting letters (I wonder where they all are today). I still spend a good portion of each day writing "letters," although they are now in the form of emails or "messages" in Facebook inboxes. I would like to think that I give my correspondence the same (if not more) attention as I did a generation ago, but I cannot be sure, because I have no copies of anything I wrote back then (whereas I have copies of everything I have written the past several years--which is useful for a writer, because ideas are always germinating in the midst of correspondence).

Indeed, correspondence has always been a form of "thinking out loud" for me; my mind actually ponders things via the written word, especially if there is someone on the other end who I know will be considering things with me. Among my correspondents there have always been certain people who have been philosophical and/or poetic "muses" for me. Because of our common interests and my particular desire to communicate with them, they have always been able to get me to think and to express myself.

The internet has multiplied and introduced a certain chaos factor into this possibility for inspiration. It is easy for too much energy to flow into paths of bantering and chattiness. Still that is not my business online. Though it is true that a "comment" can often grow into something much more extensive, my preferred manner of communication remains sustained pieces of text. Those of you, my current "muses," whose inboxes are cluttered with my messages know who you are. In a way, thanks to this blog, all of you who are reading this are my "muses" today.

But what was the point of this digression?

Of course. It is only fitting that my richest inspiration, through the course of five adventurous years of life, ended up being the woman I married. There is something about both of us that makes a friendship of letters very appropriate.

It was a relationship that grew through letters. We wrote very frequently about a vast range of topics. And it was a true correspondence, with much giving and receiving on both sides. Eileen indeed seemed to have the unique capacity to surprise me by entering into my own mind (or perhaps I should say drawing me out) not because she thought the same way I did, but precisely because she thought differently. The difference, however, was rarely a disagreement. Rather it truly was--to use the worn-out word--"complementary."

And that element of surprise remains, even after 15 years of marriage and five children. Some time ago, we took out the old letters and read some of them to each other. It was surprising how much richer they seemed, how much more of the other person was perceptible in them, and the degree to which so much of our conversation was really about each other. It is surprising too how the unity of our marriage weaves through the common and complementary vocation we live toward each other, our children, and those we engage in the work of education and communication.

The letters reveal the possibility of a whole life to be shared.

I am glad that, today, both bundles are in the same place.

What Makes Friendships Real?

I had some nice visits this weekend with some long-time friends (notice I didn’t say “old” friends). Some were people I had not seen or heard from for many years. Others were people I had not seen for a long time, but whom I have been in touch with in varying degrees through one or more kinds of media. Still others were people I have seen (and keep in touch with) frequently over the past thirty (or more) years.

It is a blessing to be with friends. It is good also to stay in touch (and I am glad in this regard for some of the conveniences developed by technology). I marvel with gratitude, however, at the fact that my life has been so endowed with such real, substantial, and long-lasting friendships. I realize after nearly half a century of life that this is not a common experience in our culture.

But what makes these friendships real? What makes any friendship real? I have found that there are two kinds of enduring friendships, and although both presuppose time spent together, both are based ultimately on something that transcends (even as it enters into) time and space. That “something” is truth.

The first kind of enduring friendship is one that is based on a common search for the truth. These friends may not share the same faith, and may have other disagreements over matters of importance. But they have traveled the road of life together in some way, and have ardently engaged together in seeking the purpose and significance of things. In these friendships there is a real recognition of “truth,” even if the term is not used, because what unites these friends is their awareness of a common desire for something real, for something that lasts and gives meaning to the events of time and the story of life. It can be a something that is hinted at and reflected through very ordinary experiences that people share, or even in the intuition that corresponds to the harmony they discover with each other through shared interests or sympathy of temperament and perspective. But for friendship to endure, it is not enough to have “things in common,” or to simply “get along;” there is the enduring theme of a great destination, toward which friends journey–perhaps in the dark, perhaps without knowing the way, perhaps in continual argument over what exactly the destination is, or perhaps simply with the quiet, implicit recognition that it is there and that it draws them onward.

The second kind of enduring friendship is in many ways like the first, but it has another aspect. It is a common journey toward the fulfillment of the truth that has already been encountered. Such friends are often brought together by some wonderful event, something that defines the rest of their lives and that they will never be able to deny without denying themselves. And one often finds that these friends will be the most odd and unusual sort of companions. One is struck by a great variety of temperaments and preferences, backgrounds, inclinations, and tastes. What binds them together as friends, however, and keeps them together through the years and even through divergent circumstances is a common experience.

And it is not just any experience. It is an encounter with nothing less than the Mystery that gives meaning to all of life, the Mystery that has entered their world and placed them together on a common road. At a certain point in time the Truth brought them together, they recognized the Truth, they tasted it, they said to one another, “Here is the reason why we live,” they met the Truth and were regenerated by it.

Sometimes we forget where we come from. But when we meet our brothers and sisters again, we remember whose children we are, and the home that we are all seeking together.

Social Media in the Stone Age, Part I

Social media seek to keep people "connected." We forget, of course, that social media have been around for a very, very long time. Before the magic of computers and the internet gave us the power of sharing "instant" words and images, we simply did the same thing in a slower and in many ways more considered and artful manner. Software and communications systems are ultimately extensions of our own human powers, and for all their external dazzle they are but imitations of the internal vitality, expressiveness, and imagination that make up our humanity.

Before Google+ and Facebook and Twitter, before texting and mobile devices and instant photo sharing, before even that ancient instrument of communication used by our forefathers that still lingers in vestigial form in our homes and in our pockets--the "telephone"--there was the original marvel of all the social media, used by everyone from Hammurabi to Cyrus the Great to St. Paul to my younger self (and there are precious stacks of them still boxed away in my attic): the tremendous, glorious letter.

Other than those times when you were expecting the delivery of something you ordered online, when was the last time that you actually looked forward with anticipation and hope for the delivery of the mail?

Once upon a time, the mailman was a magical creature, a sort of daily Santa Claus who might be bearing...anything. They say you get a little endorphin rush whenever someone "likes" your status on Facebook. But nothing electronic compares to the raptures of hope that used to fill you from head to toe every time you saw the mailman, starting about six days or so after you had sent your last letter. You tried to see if there was a letter in that pile he delivered: the ragged envelope, the familiar scrawl, the tangibility of a letter.

Obviously, I am not against the electronic media. They are tools. Too many people, however, assume that because something is a "tool," we need not give any thought to how it shapes and affects and (possibly) hinders the purposes for which we use it. Usually the more powerful a tool is, the more dangerous it is as well. And some tools have a dynamic of their own which serves us wonderfully if we give it constant attention and direction, but runs wild and ruins us if we ignore it. Nothing illustrates this better than man's mythical first "tool": fire. Today's communications media are a kind of fire. That is a subject for another blog.

I am reminiscing about the good old days of "the letter." I realize that in today's world there are people who are adults in the eyes of the law who have never had the experience of getting letters on a regular basis. Yet, I am not convinced that the handwritten letter is dead. One of the best things about getting letters was the "sign" of the other person that was expressed in their unique and unrepeatable (and often endearingly unreadable) handwriting.

Handwriting may make a surprising revival. I don't know what form it will take, but it seems too human to fall into extinction.

There is so much more to say about letters. I shall have to write a Part II.

To be continued....

Ugh! We've Got That "Fall Thing"

Ooooooooooooooooh! Ouf! Awwwwwwwwwwow!
Achooooo! Aaaahhhhchoooooo!
*cough* *cough* harummmmph hhhgmmmmm!

Bleh.

It's that time of year again.

The weather has changed. First came cold and rain, followed by warmer and drier with sunshine--but different from summer. We've started using the heat again. Days are shorter. The leaves are still green, but you can feel that they are beginning to think of changing color.

School has shifted into standard gear. Everyone has had a chance to use and cough on all the materials in the classrooms at least once. And of course Josefina has hugged and kissed each of her classmates dozens of times.

So we've got "that Fall Thing."

It is an acute affliction of varying degrees. That means, in our house, that Lucia gets it worse than anyone else. Poor dear spent two days home from school, moaning, propped on pillows. She's still moving slowly. Agnese was home for a day with a temperature and difficulty speaking. Josefina has had congestion in her chest, and has been using her albuterol nebulizer. Teresa seems alright, and John Paul and Mommy appear to be too busy to get sick. Though all of us have let out an occasional cough, hack, or harrumph.

Then there's me. Drag, drag, drag. Headache. Sleepy, sleepy, sleepy. Cough and grouchy throat. Blah. It's nothing more than a mild cold. Hardly even worth noticing. But there is the overriding atmosphere of "Blah" that is especially oppressive for a personality like mine, inclined to melancholy and further burdened with neurological and emotional imbalances.

So everything is slow right now. The blog is slow. It's a whole day late.

I'm running into a bit of a mood dip. I can't let it get to me. I have to stick to my routine, keep all my pots simmering, stay with the Lord in prayer, and soldier on even if it's a little more slowly over the next few days.

I don't like the shorter days, or the fact that winter is approaching. On the other hand, I'm into the final quarter of what has been an unusually fruitful year, and there is hope for the future. So if I have been slowed down for the moment, perhaps I should take this elongated sense of time and fill it with gratitude for many blessings.

A Channel of Your Peace

Let me love. Even though I ask to be loved.
Let me understand. Even though I ask to be understood.
Let me console. Even though I ask to be consoled.
Something inside me prays, "Let me give myself away." But then I don't want to let go.

I ask to be a channel of His Peace.
I ask to be an instrument of His Mercy.

But all I find inside of myself is poverty.
And I don't mean the Holy Poverty of St. Francis.

It is the emptiness of someone who loves his own life too much. Who loves himself too much. Who loves his own satisfaction too much. Who loves his own comfort too much. Who loves his own reputation too much. Who loves his own illusions too much. Who loves his own laziness too much. Who loves his own opinion too much. Who loves his own will too much.

I love my own will too much.
I would rather do things my own way.
I would rather rationalize.
I want God's will and my will.
I want to serve two Masters and love them both.

I am a divided man.
I am not St. Francis.

So what is it within me that prays, nonetheless, to be His instrument, His love, His mercy in the lives of others, and especially in the lives of those who have been entrusted to me? In spite of all my foolishness, I call myself a teacher and a mentor and a father, and yet I do not think that I am a complete hypocrite. Why is this? Is it all, then, a delusion?

No! I know something that I must share.

I have been loved, and understood, and consoled.

And the beauty of this fact has wounded my heart. So I throw myself into a confused and troubled and complicated effort to communicate this fact, that I have been loved, that we all have been loved. And somewhere I am convinced that this Love is worthy of all my trust even as I struggle in so many ways to offer myself.

So here it is, Lord, the whole mess that is me.
It is far from a perfect offering.
But You can do the impossible, so make of me what You will.
Give me the will to change.
Change what needs changing in me.
Make me a channel of Your Peace.

Let others hear these words,
these words that express my struggle with You and Your changing of me,
Let them hear these words and see my wounded soul
and wonder at Your Mercy.

Freedom

Experientially we feel free when we satisfy a desire. Freedom becomes experience in our existence as the realization of a need, or an aspiration, as fulfillment.... Experience indicates that freedom presents itself to us as a total satisfaction, complete fulfillment of the self, as perfection. Or we can say that freedom is the capacity for the end, totality, for happiness.

--Luigi Giussani

Therese

With the saints, it's often better to shut up and let them speak for themselves:


I need a heart burning with tenderness,
Who will be my support forever,
Who loves everything in me, even my weakness
And who never leaves me day or night.
I could find no creature
Who could always love me and never die.
I must have a God who takes on my nature
And becomes my brother and is able to suffer!

from the poem "To the Sacred Heart of Jesus"

by St. Therese of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face,

Virgin and Doctor of the Church (1873-1897)

An Evening at the End of September

We had an unusual evening, one that is difficult to describe.

It could have been simple. It could have been watching the baseball playoffs and going to bed. That's what I expected of this final Friday evening in September. But the rains came in New York, so hard that even that great monument to Sports Excess--Yankee Stadium--had no remedy against them. So, instead, I talked with my son.

How much has happened in this past month. He is certainly growing in many ways as a high school student. It had been an extraordinary day. It was a school field trip, with students and teachers hiking Old Rag in Shenandoah National Park and then having a spirited afternoon and evening of intramural competitions. He was actually tired! But also full of the life of the day.

John Paul and I talk quite a bit. So there's nothing new about that. But there's already something new about him. A part of me has always been afraid of the kids growing up. But he has so much more to say! Doors are opening wide inside his soul. I like that!

After we talked and waited for the game to be called, we came out to the living room for prayers. And then Teresa came and sat on me, and we started talking about St. Therese, and her coming feast day. We got going, and Eileen and I shared old memories with the kids until they fell asleep on sofas, chairs, and Teresa in my lap. Josefina, of course, was asleep from the beginning; talk of this kind is very difficult when she is awake and scampering about. But she too will grow, and join the family circle, begin to ask questions, and find her soul. I am happy for that.

There are these moments in family life where something inside you says, "Yes, this is it. This is a hint, a little hint, of what it's all about."

Please Take My Hand

Dear Mary, I want to talk with you, and I'm doing it right here on my blog. I've sat here, as you know, debating whether this would be a real conversation or just an exercise on my part of spiritual exhibitionism, and I've come to the conclusion that--yes--it is exhibitionism, it's me showing off as usual and trying to get attention and trying to get people to think I'm being really frank and up-front and honest by showing my deepest thoughts. It's showboating and vanity, and I'm still going to do it because there is some part of me that believes that you want me to do this anyway.

So what are we going to talk about? Well, I want to say how grateful I am. I want to say thank you for a special gift that God has given me, a path that I must travel. I find myself in a marvelous place. What a gift! Thank you. Thank God. This is what I want to say first. It's so beautiful here! I love it!

Yes, I love this place too much, in a way that is out of proportion, in a way that is too attached, too preoccupied, and therefore also too much marked by insecurity and fear of loss. That is basically the way I love everything in my life. I don't suppose it does much good to brood on my imperfections in love, because to be here is a gift, and there is no giving it back. The gift is a place, but it is also a path. I look about and I find that I am on the path. And I can't go anywhere but forward.

I've got to just blunder along and follow it and trip and fall and get up and fall again. Fall into a hole and climb out and keep going. I don't really know where I am, or how long it is before I arrive. All I know is that the destination is so wonderful that it's the real reason why I love the path so much. I'd like to just sit down and dream about the destination and enjoy the place where I am, which is really so lovely. But if I don't walk I shall soon begin to fear that it's all a thing of my imagination. Not real. Just me being a fool again! Just me dreaming about a beauty that doesn't exist! I am very insecure, but the surprising thing is that I am actually grateful for my insecurity--for this "psychological weakness" of mine (is that really what it is?)--because without it I might never leave this lovely spot. I might even forget that this is a path, and that what I really want is at the end.

So I must walk. No sense being afraid. Mary, please take my hand. That's the only way. You lead. If you have my hand, I know I can go anywhere. Good. Because there are mountains on this path. I must climb them. There are oceans. I must cross them. There are walls. But you know the way through them. You know where the hidden doors are.

Here is my hand, Mary. Here is my hand. Take it. I know you won't let go.

We Are Always on the Side of Man

As Christians, we share moral beliefs not because of some partisan agenda, but because we share a real adherence of mind and heart to Christ living in the Church. I trust the Church because Christ speaks through her, and I trust Christ because He is God, and He is the meaning of my life. So I find that what the Church teaches really corresponds to my humanity; it is the truth about what it means to be a human being.

We are "counter-cultural" insofar as our culture has become a culture of death, a culture that--at it's root--hates the human, hates the destiny of the human person, hates the transcendence of the human person. We are counter-cultural because we are Christian, and being Christian means (to paraphrase Blessed John Paul II) that we are always on the side of man. Ultimately, what we are "for" is what is deepest and most true in every human person.

Every human person is loved by Christ, and has been created for God in Christ. We have to believe this, even if it does not appear to be true or "relevant" in the world. We have to believe and witness to this love in front of every person, and that can mean speaking out strongly against actions that prevent persons from knowing their true destiny, or that attack human dignity and the value of every human life. But we speak out not to be contentious, but to affirm what is essential: God’s love for the person, and the design of His love that human persons live in union with Him and with one another.

We are always on the side of man.

Ask Him to Come: The Value of Spiritual Communion

The Eucharist is the center of our lives. Here the Presence of Jesus in our life today reaches a dimension that we call “substantial”–the Whole Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity, present for us under the appearance of bread and wine. Here is the sacrament which is the foundation for that total involvement of Jesus in every aspect of our lives, for that constant invitation to discover Him and love Him in every moment on that personal path that He lays down for each of us.

How can I find Christ present in the world? How can I find Christ in the faces of Eileen, John Paul, Agnese, Lucia, Teresa, Josefina, in the faces of my friends, in the faces of those who I would rather not look upon, even in the faces of those who might seek to harm me? I must find Him first and adhere to Him above all in that wonderful gift in which He gives Himself to me directly and personally–the Blessed Sacrament, the “Holy Mysteries” of His Body and Blood which is He Himself in the enduring love by which He has given and poured Himself out for me.

The great mystery of the Holy Eucharist! Jesus Himself!

The great day in which we encounter our Eucharistic Lord is Sunday, and for this reason the “Sunday obligation” is not some arbitrary burden but merely an indication of the essential nature of this regular and sustained renewal of our relationship with Jesus, which gives a foundational form to our Christian life. Participation in the Eucharistic sacrifice on Sunday is the fundamental gesture by which a baptized person expresses concretely that he or she belongs to Christ: that this belonging is a real event that determines the way he or she lives in space and time. Sunday is the day that is defined by the Eucharist, and as such it is a day to be cherished, a day for rejoicing, a day given over to the foretaste of eternal life.

We know also that Jesus offers Himself to us every day in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and Catholic Christians who are able are invited to participate at Mass and receive him daily. And many churches are blessed to offer the opportunity to adore Him in the Blessed Sacrament frequently or even “perpetually”–any time of day or night.

But I wish to speak here of something that may appear to be a “lesser” way of approaching the Eucharist, but which can also enrich the relationship between the Eucharist and our daily life. It is the practice known as “spiritual communion.” Although spiritual communion takes place at a distance, it is truly Eucharistic because it’s object is that unique, substantial Presence of Jesus in the sacrament.

This gesture of the soul is not only for those who are far from a church. Everyone can benefit from acts of "spiritual communion" made consciously during the day. Turn to Christ present in the Eucharist in your heart, especially the Eucharistic Lord being offered in the Mass. Focus on Him and ask Him to come and nourish you, strengthen you, and give you joy.

St. Thomas states beautifully that one of the effects of the receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist is joy: "being spiritually gladdened, and as it were inebriated with the sweetness of the Divine" (ST III, 79, 1). He also speaks clearly of the desire to receive the Eucharist as a "spiritual eating...by which one receives the effect of this sacrament" though not as fully as in sacramental reception (ST III, 80, 1).

Making a "spiritual communion" is more than a brain exercise or some disembodied spiritualism, because it is a desire aimed precisely at the sacrament itself in all its substantial and corporeal reality. We should all try to consciously unite ourselves to the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and make a spiritual communion every day; indeed we should do so often throughout the day.

The Eucharist is always the source and summit of the Christian life, but I do not think people need be entirely robbed of Eucharistic joy if they are in circumstances where going to Mass is not part of their daily life (as is the case for many who have responsibilities at home, work, or hindrances of distance, or various other important commitments, or other reasons). Even those who attend daily Mass should make union with the Eucharist by desire a frequent part of their day.

Acts of conscious "spiritual communion" will deepen our desire and disposition for the sacramental reception of the Eucharist, by the joy they do give and also by the hunger that they increase as they seek the fullness of the Reality that gives strength and sweetness, the Reality of the One who gives joy because He is Joy.

Let us also keep in mind and heart the billions of people throughout the world who Jesus longs to feed, who hunger--unknowingly--for this Mystery which has been revealed and made available to us, and in which we can partake "spiritually" in this very moment. Let us do so often, with these many souls in mind, offering for them what has been given to us. "Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world." Let us remember that Divine Mercy is Eucharistic, and that our prayer for His Mercy is a spiritual participation in the Mass and a spiritual communion; it is a Eucharistic love, which gives us missionary hearts that reach out to the whole world and every human being in it, especially those most in need of His Mercy.

Patience and Reality: A Prayer

Jesus, I seek the Infinite. My heart is made for the Infinite, and every limited good is a sign of that Mystery, which is You. A sign which gives hope! Such hope, such splendor, such wonders in this world. Sometimes my soul seems drawn out of me toward the beauty that surrounds me.

But it does not last! It passes on. It fades. Or I find that it has flaws, when I draw close to it. It attracts and then disappoints. And if I try to grasp it and find You inside it, I tear it apart. I ruin it. And I am left with the taste of bitterness.

The world is a sign. It points beyond itself. As St. Augustine once told us, everything says, "I am not He. He made me!"

And so there is sorrow, because I have not yet come into possession of the One for whom I was made, the Infinite One who alone can give rest to my heart, You, O Lord!

And yet there is hope, because every good thing sings Your praises, and promises You to my heart. Give me patience in this suffering which is life, this suffering of being called to You and not yet having You.

Give me patience.

Save me from sin, which is the diminishing of myself by trying to reduce the fulfillment of my heart to anything less than You. Unite me in the suffering of patience to Your suffering on the Cross, and transform my sorrow into love for You in all things and above all things. May I, in this way, rediscover all of the wonder and beauty of the world as a promise fulfilled in Your glory. Jesus I trust in You.

His Secret Work

If you read this blog, you know that this is a joyful and also painful time for me and my family. This is normal for human life. In pictures everyone smiles. And for us this is not false, because the life we have been given is good. But it is not easy, and we have struggles. I have spoken of my struggles, and they continue to persist. At the same time, these are days of surprising joys, and of circumstances that speak clearly of the real, concrete presence of Christ in my life. It is an exhilarating, but also arduous and confusing time for my soul.

I know that what I’m going through now really is for my good, and that God is doing His secret work and building me as a person. I don’t see what He is doing inside me. I see only pain and weakness, and how easily I break, how terribly fragile I am no matter how strong my words may sound. I see how full of vanity I am, how much I long for approval, how superficial my affections are, how everything in me falls short of what I have seen, what I believe, what is drawing my heart.

But I look outside myself and I find that life has more meaning, God is more at the center of things, others are more beautiful and precious and it is more evident that they are made for God. That means something is growing in my life.

Grain of Wheat

O Jesus,
the grain of wheat fallen
into our little earth...

into our little sorrow, joy, work, hope;
into our little frustrations, bitterness, vanity, suffering;
into this curving, confining space—
buried with us, Your chosen dwelling place!

Into our breathless earth,
down deep into fallow souls,
shriveled soil, grown barren
from the dense, heavy weight
of so much unoffered love.

Jesus, You—only You!
O Lord Jesus Come!
Burst the ground of my heart
with a harvest of abundant fruit.

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.