Surviving a "Nationals" Disaster

Saturday morning was gloomy outside, but especially gloomy inside the Janaro home.

John Paul finally broke the silence: "So, do you think that was the worst sports disaster that I have ever seen in my life?"

John Paul likes to rank things and various aspects of his life, not only according to "best" and "worst" but also in an orderly sequence of preferences. For example, he has a ranking for all 30 baseball teams, from favorite to least favorite.

The St. Louis Cardinals used to be his third favorite. Not any more.

"Well," I began to say, "that was just baseball. Things like that happen in baseball."

Of course they do. I am almost fifty baseball seasons old. I've seen every kind of crazy thing. I know well the truth of those famous words of Yogi Berra: "It ain't over...till its over."

"We were one strike away," John Paul groaned.

"I know," I said miserably. "And he threw strike three and the umpire didn't call it!" Certainly not. No smart umpire is going to decide the outcome of a playoff series on a called third strike at the knees.

It was painful to watch the end. It was terrible! Even Eileen suffered (she's now thoroughly hooked on baseball). We felt that awful pain that the old sports show famously described as "the agony of defeat."

Baseball is a kind of drama: a living stage on which intelligence, human effort, and even a kind of heroism combine with the uncontrollable forces of material contingency. Sometimes the difference in a baseball game is a breeze that blows at a certain moment, or (literally) "the way the ball bounces."

Of course, 24 hour sports talk analyzes every single detail, on and on and on. Fans get angry at players and call them all sorts of names that they don't really mean: "He struck out! What a moron!"

Uh...no. Actually, he's a trained professional athlete with outstanding capabilities who was trying to do something very difficult. He was trying to hit a baseball at 90 miles an hour and he missed three times. There is nothing "moronic" about this at all.

But our emotions are invested in the game, and the players take on roles in a drama of winning and losing, triumph and tragedy. We experience a kind of catharsis. We also affirm civic or regional loyalties, and sometimes even the bond between generations.

We also go way overboard. Sports--like almost everything else in our culture--are bloated beyond proportion. They have become part of the all-absorbing distraction that we call "entertainment." They are a monstrous parody of their natures, and people drug themselves or otherwise do disproportionate damage to their bodies in their efforts to achieve success.

It is difficult for any of us to find our balance in the whirlwind that is everywhere blowing our culture beyond all boundaries. But that does not excuse us from the effort to live the game according to its real nature.

We must learn to play, even in the whirlwind. This requires special personal skill, which the ancients called virtue. Not many people in the world care about virtue, and those who do generally find that its hard to get very far in acquiring the skill to live well. We must try to help one another. We need to learn how to play the game hard, and then let it go.

That's never been easy for me.

When I was a kid, I used to throw the radio across the room (thank goodness it was just a radio back then) when my team blew a lead in the ninth inning.

But I'm much more "mature" now (haha). On Friday night, when the Cardinals rallied with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning to defeat our beloved Washington Nationals and bring their splendid and surprising season to an end, I didn't smash the television.

I felt like smashing the television.

Nevertheless--although I have hardly developed anything in the way of virtue--I have acquired a veneer of civilization over the years. So I swallowed my frustration at the always-unpredictable tricks of the little white ball. I simply rose from my chair, went to my bedroom, and--putting on Vivaldi's Four Seasons--laid down and closed my eyes, The first of the seasons, of course, is Spring.

Spring. It will be here before we know it. "We'll get 'em next year!"

Who Needs to be Newly Evangelized? ME!!!

The Year of Faith has begun. It will provide many opportunities for us to pray, study our faith, and consider the possibilities of the New Evangelization. What I hope and pray for in this year is that each of us, starting with myself, might discover Jesus Christ anew and belong to Him more fully. For is there anyone among us who is not utterly poor in front of Him? 

We can always grow in our adherence to Him, and our allowing of our hearts to be more deeply healed and penetrated by His love for us. The faith we have been given, and that we want to share, is nothing less than the event "of encountering Jesus as a living Person, of letting ourselves be totally involved by Him and by His Gospel" (Benedict XVI).

The New Evangelization must be this, or else it is just more clanging cymbals. Every human person has been created to encounter Jesus Christ, and to be transformed by His mercy. And my awareness of this is real only if it is fundamentally an awareness of my own need as a person.

First of all, I need to be newly evangelized. Every moment of every day, I need Christ.

*Jesus, I pray, open the depths of my self so that I might let You love me more!*

Jesus stood up and proclaimed, "If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.'" (John 7:37-38)

Time: An Education in the Love of God

ALMOST THREE O'CLOCK (picture courtesy of
 http://www.picture-newsletter.com/clocks/index.htm)

"Time is a gift."

That's what they tell us, anyway.

It usually seems like something else. We presume upon it. We take it "for granted." Or else, we feel like we don't have enough of it. We're afraid of losing it. On the other hand, it can seem to stretch out before us like an endless dry desert, or burden us like a terrible weight.

Its hard to say anything good about time that doesn't sound cliche. Of course, many things sound cliche to us because we go around repeating them without trying to understand what they really mean.

Human things take time.

Even that apex of human existing--the free decision--that instantaneous flash of spiritual vitality, usually occurs within a context of time, as the fruit of deliberation, the process of formation that shapes our way of perceiving goodness, and the cultivation of good (or bad) inclinations.

Time signifies the "becoming" of things, and especially the becoming of human persons. We are not born in a state of complete realization. We are born with the vocation to become the persons that God, in His wisdom and love, wills us to be. Time is given to us for the discovery and the fulfillment of that vocation, for the learning and the carrying out of God's plan for me.

Time is necessary for that unique human endeavor and experience that we call education.

But we never learn the whole of God's plan, even as we struggle to cooperate with it and, often, endure it in its many incomprehensible aspects. The "map" of human nature only sketches some parts of the journey, and shows us the boundaries of the road.

This is because the person that is "you" and the person that is "me" are called to a supernatural vocation--we are called to transcend "human nature" as we can conceive it, and become sons and daughters of God. And we are born into a human family that bears the mark of this vocation and at the same time the strange alienation and incapacity to attain it. Yet it is this vocation that corresponds to the very depths of what it means for "me" to be "myself."

And so the Word became flesh. In his humanity the Son used time, to dwell among us, to educate us, and above all to love us with that transforming love that expresses and communicates God's plan for each and all of us. Jesus on the Cross conquers our alienation and separation from God, and makes it possible for each of us to become children of God, which is the real destiny that corresponds to our vocation--the path upon which God continually draws our hearts.

Thus the ultimate answer to the question, "Who am I?" is inseparable from an event that took place in time (but that is not limited by time). My person and my life are defined at every moment by the redeeming and transforming love of Jesus Christ. This is the truth for every person, and it is the great mystery that is woven into God's plan for each of us--the plan that unfolds in the time we are given.

Time is the realm of faith. Time is where we are educated to trust in God, to lose ourselves in order to find Him, and to find ourselves in Him.

Who am I? What gives my life value? What shapes my personal vocation, and places before me the steps I take? What is the meaning of my life, of this present moment? What is the real, concrete foundation of my unshakable dignity as a human person? It is this: Jesus Christ loves me.

"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).

Homecoming and Friendship

This weekend's annual Homecoming at our college drew me to the post I wrote for last year's Homecoming. I was then prompted to reflect and develop further these (still very incomplete) thoughts about friendship. On a certain level, the things I said last year are a precise "fit" for this past weekend. But my reflections have continued to grow, and so here is a revised post of considerations that are still in progress:

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

And then, finally, there were the people I see all the time, and who help me in my own life. Especially with them, the pace of daily events often crowds out the simple possibility of "visiting" one another. This is something we hardly realize until some celebration comes along that brings us together gratuitously. This is one of the great values of a celebration.

It is a blessing to be with friends. I marvel with gratitude that my life has been 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 particular event or experience they have shared. They have had an encounter with persons and circumstances that seem quite ordinary in themselves, and that might be spread out over a significant period of time. But this apparently ordinary history of place and time and circumstances carries within it the experience of something extraordinary and utterly convincing.

These friends have experienced together 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 they 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 this 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. We help each other simply by seeing the different ways in which this awareness has shaped each of us thus far, We recognize--in the various ways that our personalities are maturing, and also in our struggles and failures--the Reality that we still have and still seek in common, even if we haven't seen each other in a long time.

And, of course, we can become great friends with others who have found this same truth under different concrete circumstances, whom we meet further down the road.

All this, however, raises another question: When I encounter the truth of my life, does that mean I can no longer have the "first kind" of friendship? Does it mean that I ought to look down upon those who are still searching, with pity and a sense of superiority? Not at all. Quite the contrary!

The truth of my life is not an abstract theory, which I can master by learning its terms and its logic. The truth of life is a Person. He has not come into my life to end my journey, but to show me where I'm going, to draw me to Him, and to shed light on everything along the way.

This means that my friendship with those who are still seeking the truth can only become more profound. The relationship with Him who is the truth of life can only deepen my appreciation and reverence for every person, and my desire to be their companion. I recognize that I myself am part of the experience of that person's life, through which the Mystery-who-dwells-among-us invites and draws their freedom.

Those of us who know Jesus Christ cannot simply live like a club, or a partisan group that controls truth and that preaches down at others. We are called to stay together as brothers and sisters, but also to dwell with others and share their lives and their sufferings and their searching. He who is "the truth" has us. He is changing us, and He wants us to be living witnesses within the journey of others...with the right words in their proper time, but above all with the love that He generates and shapes according to His particular plan for each person.

What's "New" About The New Evangelization?

Artificial lights conceal the gathering storm....

The Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization begins this coming week. It is worthwhile to recall the words of Benedict XVI when he established the special Congregation for the New Evangelization last year. Among other things, Benedict has a special concern for the need to bring the Gospel in a new way to Western culture that has become alienated from the faith that shaped its past:

The term, “new evangelization” recalls the need for a renewed manner of proclamation, especially for those who live in a context, like the one today, in which the development of secularization has had a heavy impact, even in traditionally Christian countries.

The Gospel is the ever new proclamation of the salvation worked by Christ which makes humanity participate in the mystery of God and in his life of love and opens it to a future of strong, sure hope. Highlighting that at this moment in history, the Church is called to carry out a new evangelization, [which] means intensifying her missionary action so that it fully corresponds to the Lord’s mandate.

The Second Vatican Council recalled that “The groups among whom the Church operates are utterly changed so that an entirely new situation arises” (Decree Ad Gentes, n. 6). The farsighted Fathers of the Council saw the cultural changes that were on the horizon and which today are easily verifiable. It is precisely these changes which have created unexpected conditions for believers and require special attention in proclaiming the Gospel, for giving an account of our faith in situations which are different from the past.

The current crisis brings with it traces of the exclusion of God from people’s lives, from a generalized indifference towards the Christian faith to an attempt to marginalize it from public life. In the past decades, it was still possible to find a general Christian sensibility which unified the common experience of entire generations raised in the shadow of the faith which had shaped culture. Today, unfortunately, we are witnessing a drama of fragmentation which no longer acknowledges a unifying reference point; moreover, it often occurs that people wish to belong to the Church, but they are strongly shaped by a vision of life which is in contrast with the faith....

Throughout the centuries, the Church has never ceased to proclaim the salvific mystery of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but today that same message needs renewed vigour to convince contemporary man, who is often distracted and insensitive. For this reason, the new evangelization must try to find ways of making the proclamation of salvation more effective; a proclamation without which personal existence remains contradictory and deprived of what is essential.

Even for those who remain tied to their Christian roots, but who live the difficult relationship with modernity, it is important to realize that being Christian is not a type of clothing to wear in private or on special occasions, but is something living and all-encompassing, able to contain all that is good in modern life.

St. Francis Part One, Creation, and Benedict at Loreto Too!

The dateline on this post is October 4th, which was when the remarks below were given by the Pope during his pilgrimage to Loreto, to consecrate to the Blessed Mother the upcoming Year of Faith and the synod on the New Evangelization. These are the beginnings of what we trust will be specially blessed, even extraordinary days for the Church, as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council.

Of course, October 4 is the feast of St. Francis, and this post was supposed to be devoted to him. But to adapt for my purposes Boromir's popular meme:

I rather think he has a point. So far I have not been able to get out much about St. Francis beyond *GASP! What a man!*

There is so much to say. One could start right here: without St. Francis and his way of being-at-home-in-the-world while not belonging to the world, it is hard to imagine that anyone could have written The Lord of the Rings. St. Francis embodies that new Christian vision of the created world, in which things have their own truth and beauty precisely through their reference to One who made them.

LOTR is a "myth" without any gods, not because it is atheist, but because it is everywhere indicative of the transcendent source of reality. It is a "Christian myth" by the very fact that the divine is not to be found in nature or in fate, but rather in the pervasive presence of a transcendent Providence that calls forth personal responsibility and also shows mercy.

St. Francis provokes a lot of thought about a lot of things.

And that means that I intend to devote a post to him. Its just going to take a little more time. But its coming soon.

Meanwhile, to return to Pope Benedict's schedule, the Year of Faith begins October 11. It is intended to be a time for deepening our faith, and growing in awareness of the amazing event that is God's presence in the world through Jesus Christ. Like Mary, we must entrust our freedom to Him. He is not a restriction on our freedom. On the contrary, He alone is adequate for our freedom. He is the source and fulfillment of our freedom. Here are the words of Benedict XVI:

"As we contemplate Mary,

we must ask if we too wish to be open to the Lord,
if we wish to offer him our life as his dwelling place;
or if we are afraid 
the presence of God may somehow
place limits on our freedom,
if we wish to set aside a part of our life
in such a way that it belongs only to us.
Yet it is precisely God who liberates our liberty,
he frees it from being closed in on itself,
from the thirst for power, possessions, and domination;
he opens it up to the dimension which completely fulfils it:
the gift of self, of love,
which in turn becomes service and sharing."

Our Guardian Angels Are Our Friends

My Guardian Angel has a hard job. In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a reserve squad on call to protect me from my own stupidity.

"Stop philosophizing and pay attention to the road!"

Wait, that's not my guardian angel. That's my wife. Although she gave up saying that a long time ago. Instead,  whenever we're in the car together, she drives. More and more these days, that voice would be John Paul. (Although both of them are more gentle in the way they say it.) John Paul says things like, "um...Daddy, what is the speed limit on this road?" Ah yes! Speed, car, road...got it!

How do our angels watch over us? There is much here that is mysterious. But our guardian angels are our friends. They are part of that great family constituted by God's loving embrace--that vital communion in which God enables us to love Him and to love one another.

They help us every day in so many ways that we never notice. They will help us even more if we ask them. God expresses His love for us in a great chorus of relationships.

Certainly, everything is accomplished by Jesus Christ. But the participation in His particular love for my life--by my wife, children, family, friends, Mary, saints, and angels--is not something that diminishes His love. On the contrary, it shows that His love for me is so powerful that it generates the love of others.

God wants us to recognize, love, and rejoice in all of His creation, and above all in the wonder of created persons--human and angelic too--who are made to reflect His love in the mystery of their own freedom.

I pray to my guardian angel (and those of my wife and children) every day. We pray to our guardian angels in our family prayers each night.

I know that my angel helps me very much. His work, nevertheless, is almost entirely woven into the environment of ordinary life. We're not talking about flashy, visionary displays. We're talking about help to live life, and strength to face its challenges.

The work of the angels is carried out mostly in that vast realm of ordinary life that escapes our conscious awareness. We know that, among other things, it is their task to fight against sinister spiritual powers that are opposed to us, and that seek to destroy us. The good angels take care of us as instruments of Jesus, and their protection is a gift that comes from His victory over evil and sin.

Let us not take this "for granted." Rather, let us rely upon it. Let us invoke the holy angels with confidence and gratitude. Let us love them as brothers and friends, for they are devoted to Jesus, and they are companions in our lives to help us on our mysterious journey toward God, through Jesus in the Church.

Angel of God, my guardian dear,
to whom God's love commits me here.
Ever this day be at my side,
to light and guard, to rule and guide.

St. Therese Understands

"Do not fear to tell Jesus that you love Him, even though you may not actually feel that love. In this way you will compel Him to come to you, and carry you like a little child who is too weak to walk."

St. Therese, pray for us, that we might give our weakness to God and let Him love us.

My Hunger Cries Out For You

Lord Jesus,
in the Eucharist You are present
with the whole of the love
that penetrates the depths of our suffering.

Lord Jesus, I am hurting.
I am haunted by my own failure.
I cannot live by myself.
I am dry and shriveling and dying
of hunger.

I turn my heart to You,
O Eucharistic Lord
I need You.
My nothingness cries out
to Your small, hidden, humble love.

O Lord, unite me to Yourself.
Fill this depthless hunger,
this me,
this gigantic longing
that breaks through all my strange pains
and cries out for You. 

How You Can Be United With Jesus in the Eucharist...Right Now!

What follows is a revised version of a post that first appeared one year ago today, September 27, 2011. Reading it again and working it over a bit has helped me to remember the singular gift that Jesus has given us in the Eucharist, and how He uses this sacrament to transform our lives and bring His redeeming grace to the world.

The Eucharist is at the center of everything. Here the Presence of Jesus for us 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 the total involvement of Jesus in every aspect of our lives, for the constant invitation to discover Him and love Him in every moment on the particular personal path that He lays down for each of us.

The tremendous 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. Sunday is the day of the resurrection, and stands for us as an ongoing sign and celebration of the fact that our redemption has been accomplished, and that we are called to participate in the very event itself of Christ's sacrifice, through His Church. Sunday also points to the necessity of a regular and sustained renewal of our relationship with Jesus, one 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. Indeed, 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 also 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; indeed, 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.

And it is from this "Source and Summit" of Himself that He will fill us with His Spirit and open the eyes of our hearts to recognize His presence and His love in every circumstance, and in the face of every person we meet.

The Blessed Sacrament is a plenitude, and an authentic love for His fullness in the Eucharist will not be a distraction or an escape from ordinary life. On the contrary, it will deepen our awareness of the value of every moment--of the embrace of Love and the opportunity to give ourselves in love that every moment contains.

Jesus in the Eucharist is here for us, to nourish the whole of our lives.

"This wondrous sacrament, in which Christ becomes our food...." Let us also keep in mind and heart the billions of people throughout the world whom Jesus longs to feed, who hunger--unknowingly--for this Mystery which has been revealed and made available to us. As Catholic Christians we have the possibility, and indeed the office, to unite ourselves to His saving love by participating in the Mass and receiving Him worthily in Holy Communion. And we can partake "spiritually" of the sacrament right now, in this very moment.

We should receive the Eucharist often, sacramentally and spiritually, remembering our neighbors and all the peoples of the world who do not know His face, as well as those who do know Him, but are not fully aware of how  great and radical is His love.  Let us offer for them what has been given to us.

For each and every one of them is personally loved by Christ. Each and every one is the object of His ineffable Mercy. "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.

Give Me Patience and Trust

The road to a peaceful and cheerful acceptance of God’s plan passes through the practice of patience and trust. “Jesus, I trust in You” begins as a prayer (a prayer that in a certain sense starts out by saying, “Jesus I am afraid. I do not know how to trust. Give me the grace to trust in You.”).

The practice of this prayer develops into a habit, and out of this habitual prayer God forms in us and with us (slowly) the Christian virtues, especially humility and courage.

And so I pray to grow more actively aware of the truth that God’s mercy defines my life.

The Love That Reaches Every Nation, Culture, and Epoch

Today is the Feast of the Korean Martyrs of the 19th century. Over a hundred are celebrated, many of them lay people who took heroic steps to spread their faith in Christ and to keep it alive under the relentless persecution of a hostile government. St. Andrew Kim Taegon, the first native Korean priest, was tortured and beheaded in 1846. He was 25 years old. Below are some excerpts from his farewell epistle to the Christian faithful who were struggling to remain steadfast.

Who is this man Jesus, that people of every nation, culture, and epoch are willing to suffer and die for Him? What is it about this man that gives the human being an awareness and a freedom that can stand against every kind of power, every attempt to suppress the person? 

St. Andrew Kim Taegon and companions, pray for us as we struggle to follow Jesus in our own trials. Pray that those who oppose us might encounter, through our witness, the truth and love of the presence of Christ.

From the farewell epistle of St. Andrew Kim Taegon, Korea, 1846:

Dearest brothers and sisters:
when he was in the world,
the Lord Jesus bore countless sorrows
and by his own passion and death founded the Church;
now he gives it increase through the sufferings of the faithful.
No matter how fiercely the powers of this world
oppress and oppose the Church,
they will never bring it down.
Ever since his ascension
and from the time of the apostles to the present,
the Lord Jesus has made his Church grow
even in the midst of tribulation.

For the last fifty or sixty years,
ever since the coming of the Church to our own land of Korea,
the faithful have suffered persecution over and over again.
Persecution still rages
and as a result many who are friends
in the household of the faith,
myself among them,
have been thrown into prison
and like you are experiencing severe distress.
Because we have become the one Body,
should not our hearts be grieved
for the members who are suffering?
Because of the human ties that bind us,
should we not feel deeply the pain of our separation?

But, as the Scriptures say,
God numbers the very hairs on our head
and in his all-embracing providence he has care over us all....
Hold fast, then, to the will of God
and with all your heart fight the good fight
under the leadership of Jesus;
conquer again the diabolical power of this world
that Christ has already vanquished.

I beg you not to fail in your love for one another,
but to support one another
and to stand fast
until the Lord mercifully delivers us from our trials.

....I embrace you all in love. 

A "Magnificat" Hat Trick! (September Too!)

By now the exclusive, elite, and small group of people who actually read this blog are familiar with the wonderful Magnificat monthly devotional magazine. I am very grateful that I have been associated with various Magnificat publications for some years now. The monthly devotional provides a simple morning and evening prayer for each day (in the form of the Liturgy of the Hours, but with different texts). It also has the readings and prayers for each day's Mass, a daily reflection, and other articles related to the liturgical season. There are also beautiful color reproductions of sacred art, accompanied by commentary. The print edition has a very wide circulation, and the monthly is also available now online and through its own iPhone application.

Magnificat also publishes particular volumes for certain special liturgical years (in a few weeks, The Year of Faith will be available--including a contribution from me). It has also published numerous volumes of New Testament reflections, as well as other books and materials. I want to encourage people to visit the website and take advantage of these excellent resources (https://www.magnificat.net/english/index.asp#). I'm not saying this because the reflection from last Monday was the third month in a row that they have featured my writings. I really think these publications are a great way for lay people (especially busy lay people) to cultivate a prayer life that follows the spirit of the Church's liturgy. If you really want to start praying and giving greater attention to Sacred Scripture, Magnificat is rich, but also not overwhelming. It is beautiful, simple to use, and easy to carry.

Okay, so on September 10 they featured a selection from my book as the daily reflection. In case you missed it, here is the excerpt:

I pray that God may sustain hope in my heart. In faith and hope I know that it is possible, that God’s grace can make something out of my nothingness, and therefore I must not—I will not—be discouraged.

My own trials have opened my eyes, my ears, and my heart to something I never noticed in my youth. Maybe it is because I have finally started listening to people. The fact is that so many people are struggling with suffering, most of them more than me.

Indeed, suffering is deeper than the immediate external struggles that engage most of us. Everyone has something missing in their life, something that has disappointed them, something that does not measure up to a once-cherished hope, something that inhibits their freedom, some burden that tires them, some hunger that is never satisfied.

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

Why is this? We suffer because of sin: original sin, our own personal sins, and the sins of the world. We suffer in Christ, who is God’s love made personal and particular for each one of us. Jesus is God drawn close to our wounded humanity, so close that He takes it upon Himself—not only in some “general” way, but in a way that encompasses each one of us.

Jesus is the intimate companion of each and every human person, even those who do not know Him. He knows each one of us; He unites Himself (He—God the Eternal Son of the Father) to my humanity and to your humanity; He lives in us and suffers in us and through us.

He knows “who I am” and who He wills me to be. He knows the secret of why I was created. He knows my sins. He knows how to heal me of them, how to draw me to Himself, how to make me the “adopted son” that I am meant to be in Him for all eternity.

What I Wanted to Write About....

I wanted to write a post, but I've got nothing to say. I'm too tired.

And yet, here I go; I keep writing. I wanted to say something about the need to keep trying, in the face of whatever kind of obstacles. I wanted to say something about not being defined by failure, because I fail over and over again, but I still have to get up and keep trying.

Why do I keep trying? What am I trying to do? If I am trying to fix myself, to make myself worthy, to scrub myself clean so that I can finally look in the mirror and say, "I am a good person, I have achieved self sufficiency, I am immune to failure"...then I am wasting a lot of energy.

I can't eliminate the fact that I am constantly in need of forgiveness.

What I wanted to write about was how I have these kids who look at me every day and call me "Daddy" and who actually love me. Who I am and what I do matters to them. I have to keep trying, because I am their father.

I wanted to write about the wife who loves me. She is talented and competent and capable of doing the work of three people. Still, she loves me, and she needs me to love her. There is an unbreakable bond between us. If I hurt myself, she suffers. I love my wife. I have to try to give her whatever I can muster of myself.

I have to keep trying. And that includes trying to write, because that is where my work is right now. "Work" is the word we use to indicate this process of trying and failing and getting up and trying again. The other word we use for this effort is "love."

What I wanted to write about was that even if I thought there was no one in this world who cared for me or depended on me, I would still have to keep trying, working, loving. This is because I know I am not made for nothing. I am made to be a gift. I am made to love. My heart begs to be able to love. I can't give up on this: no matter how desperate or small or broken I am, I have to keep begging for love.

Thoughts of a Tired and Troubled Mind

I'm plugging along. Some times are better than others. I may as well write something.

I am still a bit too close to the edge of things. Perhaps its better not to write too much. The intensity of my writing turns too much toward brooding right now. Brooding is not healthy. I want to avoid that.

As I have emphasized in my book (in different terms), it is a constant struggle to avoid getting sucked down the hole of ... what is the phrase? ... feeling disgusted with one's self? Something like that.

But it is not a matter of self-pity. I can't emphasize that enough, so let me emphasize it again: it is not a matter of self-pity. This is not something you "do" or "consent to" with intellect and will. It is something that pulls you and eats at you and tries to consume you.

Yes, it can be an occasion for self-pity or other kinds of self-indulgence; these are things you might mistakenly take up as part of the struggle, the effort to block up the hole. I expect it can also be triggered by self-indulgence and sin; there is a mysterious unity of soul and body, and sin can have many kinds of consequences. And Screwtape gets in on the act as well.

But not everyone who sins gets sucked down the hole. Many people sin with a vigorous mental health. And there are saints who are bi-polar, depressed, obsessive, or wracked with all kinds of neurological disorders.

These things are afflictions. They are diseases. Whatever else may be going on in the moral or spiritual realm, you are sick.

If you can struggle against it, then that means the sickness is not so bad.

A lot more people struggle than we realize. The brain is a delicate instrument. It has its strengths and weaknesses and propensities in different people, and we will probably never reach the end of analyzing the material factors that shape it. Heredity is certainly a major factor. We can mark certain overall common tendencies in whole peoples. Brain health is also affected by many things in a person's particular experience; things which a balanced and not overly ambitious psychotherapy can help to identify and modify.

And, please, take the medicine. If you need it, don't be ashamed to take it.

Who knows what role bacteria and other microbial agents might play in all of this? Environmental toxins? Heavy metals? Processed food? Hormones? The crazy, hyper-lifestyle of the contemporary western world? There are all sorts of theories.

In my own situation I have to take into account the possible role of a chronic infection. Its one reason why I need to be especially careful. 

Enough. I said I wasn't going to write too much.

Really, my problems seem like nothing when I hear about what some are called to endure. But who can understand the depth of another's suffering (much less make comparisons)? We cannot even measure our own. The question is not, ultimately, about who is suffering "more" or "less" ...  the truth is very simple: we are all suffering.

The question is: "How can we help one another?" We can stay with one another in solidarity, giving and receiving mercy, embraced by the heart of Jesus.

Ultimately, what is it that gives each of us value and meaning? It is the fact that each of us is loved by Jesus.

Maybe our brains and bodies don't work very well. Maybe we've failed at everything we've done. Maybe we constantly disappoint people. Maybe we are dull, cantankerous, bad company. Maybe we are ill-tempered, or boring, or too intense, or too reserved. Maybe we are uninteresting, uncultivated, poor, wretched human beings. Maybe we're just not very good people.

But Jesus loves, right now, each and every one of us with an infinite love.

Remember this. Remember your dignity. You are loved. Do not be discouraged.

Hiatus

I'm sorry to say that I'm going to have to take a break from the blog for awhile. I'm going to have to really slow down and take it easy for the sake of my health.

Please pray for me.

God bless you all.

More Than Conquerers

          Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
          Shall tribulation,
          or distress,
          or persecution,
          or famine,
          or nakedness,
          or peril,
          or sword?
          As it is written,
            "For thy sake we are being killed all the day long;
             we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."
          No, in all these things we are more than conquerors
          through him who loved us.
          For I am sure that neither death, nor life,
          nor angels, nor principalities,
          nor things present, nor things to come,
          nor powers,
          nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
          will be able to separate us
          from the love of God
          in Christ Jesus our Lord.


          --Romans 8:35-39

The Hundredfold of St. Augustine

St. Augustine. There's no end to what we could say about him. There is one particular thing that has always fascinated me. St. Augustine is a radiant example of what Jesus calls "the hundredfold" (Mark 10:31).

Jesus says that if we follow Him, we will receive eternal life...but also, we will receive a hundredfold in this life (along with "persecutions"). He also says "seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added as well" (see Matthew 6:33).

What does Jesus mean? He does not mean the we should follow Him in order to get stuff in this life. That would be to reduce Jesus to our own measure. Jesus wants to transform us according to God's wisdom. He wants to give us a new mind and a new heart. He promises eternal life, which is the mystery toward which everything in this life points, and which is therefore the real meaning of everything in this life.

The Servant of God Msgr. Luigi Giussani often said something that resonates deeply in me, and corresponds to my own experience. He said that if you really follow Christ, you will also discover that you love your wife a hundred times more than you ever could have imagined; that you love your children a hundred times more, your work a hundred times more, your friends a hundred times more. You will discover the real greatness of this life, and you will even be able to embrace suffering.

There is a particular way in which St. Augustine's life indicates this pattern. Here was a man who aspired to be a great rhetorician, an artist with words. He pursued this ambition with relentless passion, but without understanding its true value. And then he found Christ, and he gave up all thought of being a rhetorician. He gave up the desire to be known for his speeches and writings and works in this world. He longed for Christ, followed Christ, and kept his heart fixed on Christ.

And from out of his singular passion for Christ--without even thinking about it, or caring, or noticing it--he wrote an amazing book. Desiring only to praise Christ, he wrote a book that was not only the greatest book of its epoch, but one of the greatest ever written in human history. He gave the world inimitable and unforgettable Latin prose, soaring and poetic diction, and timeless, soul-penetrating insight into the heart of the human being.

Aurelius Augustinus the rhetorician and scholar, had he followed his ambition, might have become a teacher with some following, or even perhaps a minor provincial statesman of his period. Students of late antiquity might have known his name. But Saint Augustine, by following Christ, became also a hundred times more in the history of this world. He wrote books that speak to every time and in every language, and he gave us words that ring out through the ages--words that rival any that have ever been uttered in human speech.

There is something of the hundredfold here, although it has been more for our benefit than for his.

"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace" (Confessions X:27).

Here We Go Again?

Okay, it's time to say it: I'm not feeling well.

No, this is not the usual "ups and downs" I've been going through during this remission (which has lasted two years). No, it's not the flu either.

I know this disease. We're old friends. But, is this just a little bump? Or a flare-up? Or a relapse? I don't know. And, yes, I am worried. What can I do? Not much of anything, beyond what I already do.

I know there are always new ideas out there, and for some people they can help. But I've been to the whole circus. More than once. I've been on all the rides. And we've spent all of our money! Nothing has helped. My own little regimen, developed from experience, has worked better than anything (and its cheap too!)--so I'm gonna just ride this out.

First of all, I have to bring all of it, including my hopes, frustrations, fears, and even the anger and bitterness to Jesus, and give it to Him, and say "Jesus I trust in You. Have mercy on me!" I have to abandon myself to wherever He wants to lead me. Sometimes (really, most of the time) I have to pray, "Lord, give me the grace to want what you will for me."

Sometimes I don't want to pray. I don't feel like it. What I feel is something like, "Why did You create a universe, and then let the human race fall, and then throw me into this life with a brain and a body that don't work, and then just allow me to fail, fail, fail? What kind of a deal is this?"

I know, of course, that it's all about the mystery of the redemption, and the love of Jesus for the Father from the Cross which is greater than every sin, and is the deep truth about my own being and my suffering. There is a mystery here. It's transforming my life. But I am not always going to feel warm and fuzzy about it!

This is not a reason to get discouraged. Never give up! I must take this "feeling," this whole drag on my consciousness, and offer it to God. Somehow. Even if it's nothing more than the struggle to refuse to let discouragement take hold of my will. There is a mysterious kind of choice we can make in the midst of the most crushing desperation, which (I'm trying to describe it, but no terms are adequate) is to allow our being to keep praying. It's the choice not to snuff out that radical hope. Sometimes people (especially people with mental problems, which can make it impossible to think properly about anything) need to grab that place and just hold on.

Meanwhile, I can still write about these things, right here, for you. At a certain point, I wrote a book about all this (see the link on this blog). It's been going on for a long time, and it has drastically changed the life of my family, although I believe we have grown from it. But it's not easy. I'm sure your life is not easy either.

I think it builds solidarity when we share our sufferings with one another. One of the hardest things is that all suffering bears the taste of loneliness, of being misunderstood, abandoned, unloved. Jesus knows that "place" and He is with us there. He calls us to be there for one another.

I'm in a "Real" Magazine...Two Months in a Row!

Well, what do you know! The Meditation for the Day for August 27 in Magnificat is by...gosh!...me! Well, there it is. No matter how much I do on the internet, everyone (including me) still gets excited to see something in print. Perhaps printed books and magazines won't become obsolete. You can hold a book in your hand, according to its own real dimensions. You actually have the thing. Is it the sense of touch? The feel of pages? I don't know. I know that I love the internet and electronic media and electronic books and magazines, but I also love "real" books and magazines and even dumb, unwieldy, oversized, print-staining newspapers! Maybe its just the transition between epochs. Or maybe not.

In any case, here is a selection from the "meditation"--in case you don't get the magazine IRL ("In Real Life," hahaha). Although I must say, I feel more and more that the "IRL" tag is maybe a bit silly and misleading. The internet is very real indeed, and a lot of real life is played out on these electronic connections. Miracles even happen through the internet. Its not a problem for God. But He needs us to surrender all of our media, and all of our lives, to the mysterious workings of His wisdom and love.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, the meditation:

Jesus is the intimate companion of each and every human person, even those who do not know him. He knows each one of us; God the eternal Son of the Father unites himself to my humanity and to your humanity. He lives in us and suffers in us and through us. He accompanies us through our companionship with one another and reaches out to others through our witness. 

Jesus knows who I am and who he wills me to be. He knows the secret of why I was created. He knows my sins. He knows how to heal me of them, how to draw me to himself, how to make me the adopted son that I am meant to be in him for all eternity.

And so my joys and sufferings are his infinitely wise, uniquely crafted, and tender love through which he shapes my life and leads me to my destiny. How little I really understand about my destiny. How little I understand about the eternal life that means belonging to him for ever.

We must remember every day that God is with us and that He draws us toward our true identity, which is to reflect His eternal glory in that unique way that corresponds to each of us as a person created in His image and likeness—a reflection that we do not yet understand but that He sees and knows.

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

How Can We Make The World Better?

We're all so worried about the world, about its evils and injustices. These are evil times, we say. People are full of selfishness and violence, and our political leaders are driven by destructive agendas.

It would not be realistic to deny any of these points. And indeed, we are all called to do what we can to build up the good, and to struggle against the evils that afflict our society, our communities, our families, and our own lives. There are many things we can do.

Here is something all of us can do: Pray the Rosary! Every day.

I'm not "getting pious" here (i.e. I'm not suggesting that "piety" is a substitute for grappling with human problems, or a pretext for hiding from them). We must engage the circumstances of our lives. But as Christians we should know that if we don't pray, we'll be neglecting the most important dimension of our circumstances...and our lives.

Pray the Rosary! Pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This is something Our Lady of Fatima asked us to do. She often asks for simple things: "Build me a church...." "Make this medal...." "Say this prayer...."

"Yes," we reply, "but the Rosary is not simple. It's hard!"

Not really. It's not so hard. What's hard is to be confronted, day after day, with the smallness of our love. We always make a bad job of the Rosary, because we don't love God very much.

So let us ask the Lord, through His loving Mother, to give us the grace to love Him more, and the grace to say the Rosary better. That won't make us perfect tomorrow. But the daily Rosary will teach us to be humble and to be faithful, in one small thing. And thus we take little steps, with trust.

Let us entrust it to Mary's heart. Let us entrust everything to her, and through her, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I think Mary asked for the Rosary and devotion to her Immaculate Heart at Fatima because the New Evangelization is all about the faith becoming concrete. It's about the faith being recognized as reality, and adhered to with affection--because what we believe in is the Love of a Person.

Mary makes things concrete. The Rosary is a way of joining with Mary in the "pondering of her heart." If we pray it, we will grow. It is an extraordinary, healing, miracle-working prayer.

Ten Years Ago: From An Old Book Of Mine

Ten years ago I began writing The Created Person and the Mystery of God, and it went through editing and finally publication a year later. I was glad to have a book that I could show people and say, "Here, this is the stuff I do." It was my schtick, my "song and dance" routine. "It is a youthful work of Janaro's early period," haha!

In many ways, the "routine" has changed. The words were larger then, and the perspective was, perhaps, smaller. I'm not sure I agree with everything that fellow wrote. Above all I think what I write now comes from a deeper place, and I even think I understand texts like this one better today than when I wrote them.

Perhaps getting knocked around a bit has done me some good after all. Still, many will probably think the writing sounds the same. As my kids say, "blah blah blah, blah blah blah!" But to be fair, there is much value in the truth expressed here. In any case, I hope that I have time to mature as a "thinker," because it appears that I'm going to need a lot of time.

The Mystery who gives man his being has drawn close to him, spoken to him, and become his companion within history. What we want to begin to understand is that this gift, this message, this continued presence of God in man’s history is an affirmation of the value of man himself; it corresponds to all that is most noble and beautiful in man, and it heals what is broken in him.

God addresses man His creature according to the fullness of the dignity of his humanity—God addresses man as man, as a person. Man therefore is not called to adhere to God in a way that contradicts his humanity; he adheres to God with the full richness of his nature and his capacities—that is to say, by a fully personal act—an act that fully engages his reason and his freedom; an act that does justice to his reason and emerges from the depths of his freedom; an act of knowledge and love.

--from The Created Person and the Mystery of God by John Janaro (Click Here)

Happy, Happy: So What Does It Mean?

Happy is not sappy.

Like so many other words that relate to the human being, "happiness" has been twisted, degraded, and used to fool people. It is not the solipsistic state of being pleased with one's self. Nor is it the temporary (and merely apparent) satisfaction of human impulses. Nor is it even the exaltation of any kind of earthly success. None of these things last. And we all know that happiness is meant to last. Forever.

In this passing world, we may call a person truly happy if they have found the beginning of happiness, if somewhere in the midst of all their human incoherence, the flower of joy has taken root and sprung a shoot inside the soul. In this world, true happiness always remains a goal. But it begins within us and sustains us--sometimes in mysterious ways--as we travel the arduous road to its final destination. The name for happiness in this life is hope.

Following up on yesterday's post, here are the words of a happy man, who makes reference in this little piece of text to another happy man (a man who taught thousands of people--including me--how to follow the One who makes us happy):

Thus do we discover the truest dimension of human existence, that to which the Servant of God Luigi Giussani continually referred: life as vocation. Everything, every relationship, every joy, as well as every difficulty, finds its ultimate meaning in being an opportunity for a relationship with the Infinite, a voice of God that continually calls to us and invites us to lift our gaze, to find the complete fulfillment of our humanity in belonging to Him....

The Lord...calls everyone to recognize the essence of our own nature as human beings: we are made for the Infinite. And God has our happiness at heart, and our complete human fulfillment.

Benedict XVI (August 20, 2012)