The Practical Force of Love

As the United States of America honors the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., I present a few texts from many of Dr. King's sermons and speeches that I have seen today.

Again and again we hear in his words the underlying themes of confidence in the dignity of human persons and love as a practical force for building up good in the world according to the will of God.

The spiritual human person, made for eternity:

"We thank thee, O God, for the spiritual nature of man. We are in nature but live above nature. Help us never to let anyone or any condition pull us so low as to cause us to hate. Give us the strength to love our enemies and to do good to those who despitefully use us and persecute us… Help us to realize that man was created to shine like stars and live on through all eternity" (excerpt from a prayer).

Image of God:

"The whole concept of the Imago Dei or the Image of God, is the idea that all men have something within them that God injected. This gives him a uniqueness, it gives him worth, it gives him dignity. We must never forget this. There are no gradations in the Image of God. Every man from a treble white to a bass black is significant on God's keyboard, precisely because every man is made in the image of God. One day we will learn that. We will know one day that God made us to live together as brothers and to respect the dignity and worth of every man."

Truth worth dying for:

"Unless you have found something to live for that is more important to you than your own life, you will always be a slave. For all another man needs to do is threaten to take your life to get you to do his bidding. [But if you have found it,] even if they try to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there are some things so precious, some things so eternally true that they are worth dying for."

Forgiveness and Love of Enemies:

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one’s enemies without the prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us."

Globalization, Technological Power, and Fraternal Love:

"The world in which we live is geographically one. The challenge that we face today is to make it one in terms of brotherhood.

"Now it is true that the geographical oneness of this age has come into being to a large extent through modern man’s scientific ingenuity. Modern man through his scientific genius has been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. And our jet planes have compressed into minutes distances that once took weeks and even months. All of this tells us that our world is a neighborhood.

"Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools.

"We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.

"This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured."

Cana in Galilee

There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee,
and the mother of Jesus was there.
Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.
When the wine ran short,
the mother of Jesus said to him,
“They have no wine.”
And Jesus said to her,
“Woman, how does your concern affect me?
My hour has not yet come.”
His mother said to the servers,
“Do whatever he tells you.”
Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings,
each holding twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus told them,
“Fill the jars with water.”
So they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them,
“Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.”
So they took it.
And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine,
without knowing where it came from
— although the servers who had drawn the water knew —
the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him,
“Everyone serves good wine first,
and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one;
but you have kept the good wine until now.”
Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee
and so revealed his glory,
and his disciples began to believe in him.

John 2:1-11

Zacchaeus the Tax Collector

I have begun a new year of Great Conversion Stories in the pages of that unique magazine that is smaller than a pocket tablet and still has real pages. It should be another fascinating year of stories of the action of Jesus through His Church in so many different times and places.

Returning once again to the pages of the New Testament, here is the story of Zacchaeus the Tax Collector in the January 2016 edition of MAGNIFICAT:

How Can I Love People Truly?

Nothing in the world can satisfy the human heart. 

We stand before each other like open wounds, aching for the love of God. It is Jesus who brings us God, brings us healing, and brings us together.

Jesus, I bring to You my broken heart,

broken by the desire to love

and the confusion over how to love well and truly.

O Lord, forgive me.

I have not loved You as I should,

and I am self-seeking and divided in all my relationships.

How can I love people truly,

with the "detachment" that recognizes that they belong

to You alone,

and also with the passionate attention that recognizes

in each of them

the beauty of Your image and the glory of Your redeeming power?

Jesus, open my heart to receive Your healing mercy.

Change my heart, and make me silent, patient, and tender:

full of awe and wonder and gratitude

before Your gift of Yourself to me and to every person I meet.

I am so in need of healing.

I am so in need of conversion.

Have mercy on me,

and make me the person You will me to be.

Death Comes for the Artists... and Hope for Mercy

The author is also a musician

Recently, there have been several deaths of actors, composers, and musicians from various causes. Indeed, as I get older, many of the entertainers and celebrities that I remember from my youth reach the end of their lives.

When the news comes out, I am certainly moved to pray for these people's souls as I would be for anyone. Often I can't help thinking about the sometimes deeply disturbed and distressing lives many of them have lived, and their apparent lack of faith.

At the same time, I cannot help being touched by nostalgia as the reviews of their life work raise long forgotten personal memories and the striking recognition of their originality and creative achievements in their artistic fields.

Among those who have died recently there were some remarkable artists. I can appreciate a career and the work that came out of it without endorsing the crazy, dysfunctional lifestyle of the artist. No amount of special talent exempts anyone from responsibility for their actions. I must admit, however, that (being a poet and musician myself) I have a particular empathy for artists, musicians, writers, and performers.

Artists in general endure much suffering in the creative process. They often carry other forms of psychological baggage that come with their gifts. Moreover, in the strange and stressful and turbulent times we live in, with the need to negotiate the pressures (as well as the possibilities) of the explosion of technological media, the artistic vocation can be a very hard life. It has been destructive in many ways to talented young people who are thrust suddenly into wealth and celebrity status, without a human context that can guide them, and under intense pressure to manufacture products for sale that stultify their real artistic aspiration and perception. This does not simply excuse, but it may give some context to a lot of outrageous behavior of artists in our time.

So they live, take the stage, crave attention, fear failure, make their marks, and then if they survive exhaustion, physical neglect, and/or addictions they grow old and die. I can only pray for them and hope. I have reason for hope, because I know that there is Someone greater than all the chaos of our world.

Jesus's sacrifice is infinite. His mercy is infinite. He died for everyone, even the poor crazy artists (and they are poor, no matter how much wealth they may have hoarded or squandered in their brief lives). He knows the real depths of their sufferings, the desires of their hearts, their questions and their (often hidden) cries for help. He knows how much or how little culpability they bear for their sins, however huge and preposterous they may look to the world.

I myself am a sinner who has been foolish in my youth and stubborn in my old age, and it may be pride and timidity as much as anything else that keep me looking "respectable" on my own small stage in life. If all we had was our own fragile human freedom, what could we do? But the grace and mercy of the God who loves us finds ways to draw us, surprise us, provoke us, and even "outwit" us.

The Good Shepherd seeks out all His sheep, He knows our roads. He has traveled them all the way to the end.

The mystery of human freedom remains. We must walk with God and struggle and fight against the evils we face and our temptation to settle for less, to go our own way, to be self-satisfied and self-centered. I pray especially for artists to be faithful to their calling, and me to mine and all of us.

My hope is that the infinite mercy of God will win our hearts in the end.

God Comes in History to Change Us

BLESSED AND HAPPY FEAST DAY!

The Christmas season culminates in the celebration of "the Baptism of Jesus," known in the early Church (and still in the Byzantine tradition) as the Theophany. The mystery of the Trinity is revealed as the Spirit descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove and the Father's voice is heard (theophany means the "appearance of God").

We see this event portrayed and written in images in the basic structure of the icon of Jesus's baptism. Let us note a few other details: Jesus is immersed in the waters, not for his own purification (he doesn't need it, obviously) but to consecrate the waters of the world by contact with his body and to begin the restoration of all creation as the New Adam. Jesus is naked (sometimes, as here, portrayed with a loincloth), which symbolizes the restoration of Adam's innocence before the Fall. Strange beasts and humanish forms under his feet symbolize the demons defeated by Jesus. John the Baptist gazes not at Jesus but at the Holy Spirit, corresponding to his own testimony in John 1:32-34. Angels wait upon the shore in adoration and in readiness to serve Jesus who is the Lord of all creation.

This is brief reading of the icon above. As we reflect on the important symbolism here, however, let us not be led to think that this is nothing more than a clever and imaginative mythological story. This imagery conveys the truth about a real event that happened to a real man, Jesus. This man is the answer to the human search for the Mystery that sustains everything and gives ultimate meaning to life.

God has answered the question of our hearts by entering our history as a man, giving His life to us, and accompanying us on the journey to our destiny, to live in the glory of His love forever. Christians receive the sacrament of baptism from Jesus, through His ministers, because God's love for the world and for every human person is not abstract, distant, cold and inaccessible. God has touched us in Jesus, our brother. His love enters our history and changes us.

Let us be grateful for our baptism, or—for those who do not yet know Him—ardently seek this encounter with the Mystery who heals and saves and brings the heart to fulfillment, this touch of God who has come to meet every person on their journey, and who will begin to draw to Himself whoever opens their heart and asks for the truth and beauty of life.

"He Will Baptize You"—Water, Spirit, Fire

"...And We Saw His Glory"

"The Word became flesh, and made His dwelling among us, and we saw His glory..."

(John 1:14).

In His humility we see His glory, for He humbled Himself to reveal His love, and thus He reveals the mystery of Himself, for God is Love.

The Infinite Mystery is revealed as Infinite Love. The Trinitarian God is the absolute, inconceivable communion of love eternally "poured out" within His own Divine life. And this Mystery has chosen, out of the freedom of love, to create free persons and invite them to share in this communion.

God is love. God loves us. Each and every one of us. His taking flesh, His life, His death for our sins, His resurrection are all the manifestation and communication of this love, which is His glory.

He is Love, and His love for us—His mercy—endures forever.

Pope Benedict XVI reflects on this at the beginning of his first encyclical in the year 2006:

"We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a Person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.... Since God has first loved us (see 1 John 4:10), love is now no longer a mere 'command'; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us" (Deus Caritas Est, 1).

The Manifestation of God in the Flesh of This Man!

"In the beginning and before all ages, the Word was God
and he humbled himself to be born the Savior of the world"
(antiphon, Epiphany Week).

The full significance of Christmas is found in the celebration of the Epiphany (or "the Theophany," as it is know in the Eastern tradition).

This is the celebration of the manifestation of God to the world in the flesh of this man Jesus, who was born of the Virgin Mary. God manifested Himself to the world as a child.

Here is a rendition of the beautiful Byzantine icon of the Nativity, which I present for your contemplation. Perhaps it is good that I am neither prepared nor sufficiently energetic to attempt to explain it right now. Let it be thus, and let it show itself to those who dwell upon it:

The Western Christian Epiphany tradition places emphasis on the Magi from gentile lands, who travel by the light of a star in search of God's promise. Now the Three Kings have arrived at the end of their journey. Here is a picture of the Nativity Scene in the Janaro house (above) and the Kings at our parish church (below):

The parish church sanctuary continues to glow with the lights of Christmas:

What I would really like to do is give a shout-out to the unsung hero of the Three Kings' entourage, without whom they never could have made the trip:

The Camel!

May the light of Jesus Christ give you joy in this Epiphany season. It is good to begin the new year with the memory of the extraordinary and unforeseeable event that has happened in history, in real life, in real "space and time" -- the Infinite Mystery has come to dwell with us, to reveal and communicate His love.

God became human, took flesh, and gave Himself for us.

This event defines everything in history. It changes everything. It gives us an unconquerable hope.

Young Jesus in the Eyes of an Old Scribe

I have been thinking about this thing of being 53 years old. It's a bit striking to realize that I am twenty years older than Jesus when He was crucified.

I'm old enough to be one of the Scribes or Pharisees.

I can imagine myself watching this young Jesus and stroking my beard and remarking on the "interesting novelty of the Jesus phenomenon." I would be determined to give further study to this religious and sociological development... a some point, when I could find time.

After all, a venerable scribe, noted for his wisdom—someone who enjoys being called "rabbi" (or "teacher," "professor," whatever)—such a person has many other pressing concerns and plans to do good things for people, for society.

Then the dark night would come when I would be roused from sleep and called to a hasty assembly of my colleagues to vote on the fate of this unusual young man. I would be bothered by having to make a rash decision, but in the end I would vote with the group because that's where my interests would be vested. As always, when it comes to a decision, I would be looking out for myself.

I hardly need to project myself back two thousand years and imagine such a scene. How much of my real life has been taken up with this kind of intellectual distance, coldness, indecisiveness, vanity, selfishness.

Nevertheless, what reaches me is the grace of the Holy Spirit and the witness of His disciples. A person can be "born again even if he is old." God pours out His mercy and love upon us all.

"In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another" (1 John 4:9-11).

And It's Another Birthday For Me

Here are some birthday pictures from last night. Some pasta with red wine:

Then there is the masterpiece of cake. "Sing 'Happy Birthday' fast or we'll have to call the FIRE DEPARTMENT!" But there it is, a beautiful cheesecake baked by my wife, so yummy:

It's a very simple cake, not a "Doctor Who" cake. Although we did notice the opening on the top of the cake when it came out of the oven. Scary! "It's a crack-in-space-and-time! Well, sort of... looks like part of one, anyway. But we must not be too precise because the very existence of the universe itself may be in danger! Call the Doctor!!"

Let me try to illustrate the crisis:

The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) and Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) find the cracks everywhere, even on Amy's childhood bedroom wall. It's hard to summarize the dangers here (they're proposterous but they're really bad).

Oh NOOO! See the problem???

 — Well, never mind. "Whovians" will know what I mean. Everyone else will just think we're a nerdy family (which is true). It's all fun and nonsense!

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But seriously, it was a difficult day in some ways, full of reflection, some anxiety, and prayer. On this January 2, I turned 53 years old. Fifty three. Years!

I admit that I'm slightly freaked out by that number.

Where did the last decade go? Can I possibly be just two years away from "senior discounts"?

Still, I feel healthier today than I did ten years ago (I was very sick back then) and—strangely—I even feel "younger." Who knows? The future is in God's hands, always. He gives me this moment here and now, full of miracles of His love, inviting me to trust in Him and walk with Him.

During the day, I worked up an "impressionist-art" style graphic with digital software from a photo I took not long ago of a country road going off into the evening light.

Lord, lead me on this journey of Yours, one step, one day at a time.

Forward to What Lies Ahead

The Church Fathers ... they really 'get it.' Here Gregory Nazianzen ("the Theologian") preaches around the year 390 on Christian community. He nails it.

"Let each one of us, no matter what his walk of life or circumstances, offer to God all that he can on every occasion according to the measure of his capacity, according to the gift bestowed upon him.... Let one contribute his riches, another his abject poverty;...one a commendable deed, another a perceptive thought; one a timely remark, another eloquent silence;...one virginity that is pure and severs all contact with the world, another a marriage that is devout and in no way divorced from God; one fasting that is not tainted with pride; another feast tempered by restraint; one unbroken prayers and spiritual hymns, another the care of the poor; all of us our tears, all of us our purification, all of us our upliftment and a straining forward to what lies ahead" (Saint Gregory Nazianzen).

Roberto Clemente: Grace in the Flesh of the Moment

New Year's Day.

It means many things, but to a group of people from my generation who happened to be sports-crazy kids growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or Puerto Rico, this day will forever be associated with El Magnifico, "the Great One," Roberto Clemente.

We had witnessed his passion and courage on the baseball field, and it was clear even to a ten year old boy like me that this was something more than just playing a game for Roberto Clemente. This was a way of living life, of going out into the day and putting forth everything, risking everything for the possibility of finding beauty and grace in the flesh of the moment.

January 1, 1973 is as clear in my mind as yesterday. My Dad was doing something (shaving?) in the bathroom with the door open, and he had turned on his transistor radio.

It was a news report. An urgent news report. And we couldn't believe what we were hearing. We just couldn't believe it....

Roberto Clemente and a plane loaded with relief supplies for earthquake-stricken Nicaragua had disappeared over the ocean off the coast of Puerto Rico.

The Coast Guard.... Search parties, divers.... What were they looking for? Was there still hope? Maybe he survived and swam to a little island somewhere!

I kept hoping, we all kept hoping... for awhile.

But then reality dawned upon us.

Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash, on a mission of mercy to people in desperate need. It was clear to us even then that he had taken the ultimate risk, that he had offered his life on that day.

We mourned the loss of him. At the same time, the whole thing was somehow "not surprising." We watched Roberto Clemente "offer his life" over and over, in every at-bat, every time he ran the bases, and in right field... Oh yes!--the man marshaled his entire body into a cannon and threw bullets to third base and home plate. He was always pouring himself out: the way he played baseball gave the impression of a man with a singular passion, a very specific destiny that was worth dying for.

I didn't have these words when I was ten years old, but it is that ten-year-old who lives in me today who is speaking from an indelible memory.

As the years went by I learned the details of the event. The earthquake of December 23, 1972 in Nicaragua was a humanitarian catastrophe of epic scale. It was comparable to what happened in Haiti in 2010. We all remember how difficult the Haitian relief effort was, especially in the first days. And in 1972 coordinated humanitarian aid for natural disasters in third world countries was in its pioneer days.

There wasn't much of a "script" to follow (there still isn't, really). But Clemente, who has just returned from a month of coaching a youth sports camp in Nicaragua, rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He was one of the most well known and well respected figures in the Caribbean and Central America. He summoned his fellow Puerto Ricans to give whatever resources they could. Food and medical supplies were desperately needed.

But Nicaragua's government and military were corrupt, and were looting the supply planes that came into the country. Clemente had no troops to accompany and secure his relief effort. He had only one "political" asset on hand that could command the respect of everyone and ensure the safe delivery of needed supplies: himself. In the midst of such an emergency, El Magnifico thought his own stature in the region would be sufficient to put local government looters to shame and focus the work of everyone on the ground.

In any case, he thought it was worth the risk.

There has been much discussion about the faulty aircraft, its excessive load, and its unqualified crew. It appears that Clemente himself was aware of the dangers, as he refused the offers of several friends who wanted to accompany him on the night of January 31, 1972. For the chance of helping thousands of people, he took the risk only for himself.

Roberto Clemente often acknowledged that God holds the life and death of every person in His hands. It was his simple trust in God that gave him strength to take risks--not out of recklessness but in the service of building up the good. He knew that "greatness" is nothing if it does not spend itself in service and fulfill itself by being given away. Clemente was a flawed man, certainly, but he was a man of faith, and in the end he really was not only a "sports hero," but a hero pure and simple, a man who showed us the greatness of the human heart.

All these things I learned later.

But I can still feel the sorrow I felt as a child on New Year's Day. It is a sorrow mixed with awe and something like gratitude. Roberto Clemente defined an aspiration in me that still remains (though I nearly always fall short): the desire to be courageous in responding to the needs of the moment, to risk everything to find beauty and grace in the flesh of the moment.

Roberto Clemente, acknowledging cheers after his 3,000th (and last) hit, Sept 30, 1972. Rest in peace, brother. And thank you.

We're Awkward, Clumsy, Blundering, but We Move Forward

Well well, 2015. Goodbye.

You have been a hard year for many people. A year of sorrow and pain. You are ending, however, with the promise of mercy. The Jubilee Year of Mercy is about so much more than we realize.

The Infinite Mystery, who gives us our being and draws our hope, wants us to know that He is with us. He is with us.

Mercy is more than just "helping those in need." It is a solidarity of the heart. Ultimately we are truly merciful when we turn to one another and say, "Your suffering is my suffering... your need is my need." That is why the "works of mercy" are not only benevolent acts we do for others. They are also a school in which we learn the depths of our own poverty, our hunger, and how these depths are transformed into the great spaces for giving and receiving love.

In this way, we can begin to understand that God is Mercy.

We will also begin to see the only possible foundation for peace in our families, our communities, our nations, and among the peoples of the world. It is not "tolerance." It is not mere "coexistence." It is solidarity.

Yes, it means that we will have to suffer. But we are all suffering anyway. We can suffer alone, or we can suffer together. We can remain isolated, holding onto our pain like a grudge, refusing to let go of the rage, the bitterness, the cynicism that we use to cover over our own humiliation. Or we can open ourselves, in a real way, to the mystery of mercy, to the discovery of our own aching need and the needs of others.

Only if we open up our own vulnerability will we find the One who has taken our weakness upon Himself, who is bringing forth from our nothingness a new existence, a new healing, a new capacity to love and to be loved.

And this openness takes place in relation to the persons who have been given to us, our "neighbors," our brothers and sisters.

This takes time. Suffering together in solidarity, coming together in our hearts, is a hard work that we must learn. It is awkward, clumsy, full of mistakes and apparent failures, messy, blundering... but we move forward. We never give up.

We find strength, courage, light, and hope, because He is with us.

A God Who Has Entered Time

"Since the Day of the Lord's Nativity, the fullness of time has reached us.
So there is no more room for anxiety
in the face of time that passes, never to return;
now there is room for unlimited trust in God,
by whom we know we are loved,
for whom we live and to whom our life is directed
as we await His definitive return.
Since the Savior came down from heaven,
man has ceased to be the slave of time that passes to no avail,
marked by toil, sadness and pain.
Man is son of a God who has entered time
so as to redeem it from meaninglessness and negativity,
a God who has redeemed all humanity,
giving it everlasting love as a new perspective of life."

~Benedict XVI

The Hope of the World is Our Hope

Mercy is an incredible thing.

During Christmas we remember Jesus coming among us. He comes for the poor, and for the Gentiles, and for Israel--for the whole world. He comes to seek out and save what is lost. He comes for sinners.

Jesus loves the worst sinners, the people we would consider disgusting. He has not given up on them. He loves them, He goes out in search of them, He gives Himself completely for them.

He wants sinners. He wants the most awful people, the disgraceful people, the people we don't want anything to do with. He wants to change their hearts by His grace, to bring them to repentance and conversion, to heal them, to forgive them, and to enable them to love Him. He wants them to be with Him forever. His heart burns with love for them: the ones we look upon as gross, horrible people--not just "ordinary sinners" but really bad people.

This should be a cause for great hope. For who among us looks in the mirror and sees a face with no cause for shame? The hope of the world is our hope. Jesus wants to awaken in us and draw forth from our hearts a true sorrow for our sins, and then He wants to fill our hearts with His love and transform us and make us beautiful.

On the Cross, in the Church, in the sacraments, and in these beautiful days of Christmas that we celebrate, He shows how He has given Himself to us, and how He longs for us.

He wants us to pray and to open our hearts to Him in trust. We must pray, "Lord, make me the person You will me to be. Shape me, change me, lead me. I believe in Your love for me. I trust in You."

Remember: CHRISTMAS IS NOT OVER YET!

I'll write more about the Janaro family Christmas Day and ongoing celebration when I get the chance. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a simple message:

Don't forget to KEEP CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS!

The "Christmas Season" is not over. Some think otherwise. In the world of Retail Sales, December 26 is...

...Valentine's Day? SERIOUSLY??? This is a real picture from a real store this morning!!!

No no no no no no no no no no no no! Just... totally... NO!!!

Oh well, sales is a wacky world of its own. But those of us who are Catholic Christians should not shape our lives according to this pattern. We should know better.

Christmas is not over. Indeed, it has just begun.

We are celebrating the fact that God has come to dwell with us. The Infinite Mystery has become a man so that He can walk with us and endure our pain... because He loves us!

Jesus is born. We need more than one day to take in the magnitude and the wonder of this event. Thus, in the great family of Jesus that is the Church, we celebrate Christmas for an entire season.

"Christmas Day" itself is extended into an Octave: like Easter, Christmas properly speaking encompasses the whole of Christmas Week, capped by the "eight day," the feast of the Mother of God in the current Roman calendar.

Then the Christmas Season continues until the feasts of the Epiphany (hence the classic "twelve days of Christmas") and the Baptism of the Lord. This concludes the proper liturgical season in the current Roman rite, but it is traditional (and very nice too in the dark days of January) to extend Christmas season and especially to keep our Nativity scenes and some of our decorations up for 40 days, taking us all the way to February 2, the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the temple of Jerusalem.

In any case, this is just DAY TWO. You know, "the second day of Christmas..." etc.?

So by all means, continue to have a "Merry Christmas"!

Merry Christmas Day!

Agnese's Birthday: An Adventure in Time and Space!

We had a great day for Agnese's 17th birthday. She had grown so quickly into such a beautiful, intelligent, and talented young lady. So quickly indeed.

In fact, when I went online that morning, I immediately learned a remarkable fact: Facebook cares about me! Wow. And they showed their love by marching me down my own memory lane. Since I began using Facebook in 2009, I have (with the exception of one year) faithfully noted Agnese's birthday, sometimes with pictures.

Meanwhile, Agnese has been growing up.

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Thank you, God. It has been an amazing six years. Eileen and I have "grown" too during this time; we have grown in the adventure of parenthood, which continues to be surprising and challenging and above all gratuitous. These human persons: nothing is more obvious than the fact that we did not make them. They belong to themselves, from the hand of the only One who can give them this fundamental gift.

At the heart of parenthood there is wonder. Astonishment. Gratitude.

Agnese baked her own birthday cake, as she has for several years now. (She also makes my birthday cheesecake.) The theme for this year was from everybody's favorite goofy wacky British space adventure/fantasy, Doctor Who. The reboot beginning in 2005 has been a big success in America even while preserving its silly aliens with their hilarious costumes, and its preposterous plots woven together with baloney-"science" that creates adventures for its occasionally powerful, sometimes brilliant and often bumbling hero.

The contemporary series has benefited from the talented and dashing young Englishmen who have played the role of the Doctor. I think David Tennant remains the favorite around this house. He is the imperiled Doctor in this amazing cake. His blue time/space machine, the TARDIS (disguised as an early 1960s British police phone booth) is here surrounded by the deadly Daleks (and they do look pretty much like this in the show:

Seriously, the most dangerous beings in the universe look like this, but with a bit more "metal." Just see for yourself:

Of course, they shoot death rays while shouting obnoxiously: EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! Needless to say, however, the Doctor always finds a way to beat them.

Woooosh! The TARDIS escapes through time and space, with one birthday candle representing all seventeen years of Agnese's life (you know, "wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff!").

We promply exterminated those chocolate Daleks with mocha icing and truffle tops. The cake should last a long time, because (as every Whovian knows) it's "bigger on the inside"!

Okay, I'll stop.

Actually, Agnese has many talents besides baking fun cakes. She draws magnificently. I don't hesitate to post this since she has shared it and other drawings on Pinterest and art websites. David Tennant as the Doctor rendered in pencil by my daughter:

Happy Birthday Agnese!

Radiant Dawn

An Open Letter to My Dear Former Students

Dear Former Students,

As Christmas approaches I have a few words especially for you. I speak here not only of those of you that I know well, but also the many familiar faces who never had me in class as a professor but saw me every so often on campus. We passed through important years together in the life of a growing school.

I want to say, first of all, "Thank you!"

It's beautiful to watch your lives mature after you graduate from college, to see the adventures, the work, the young families, and to continue on the path of life together as adults in solidarity.

I love your pictures: the places you live, your travels, the food you eat, and--of course--your kids. I can relate directly to kid craziness. Most of mine have gotten older, but it wasn't so long ago when they were all little. And, of course, I still have one that qualifies as a "little kid" and requires the attention of a little kid (though not nearly as much as when I started writing this blog over four years ago).

I also know that some of you are experiencing troubles, sorrows, frustration. Some marriages have led to separation. Children have been a source of many trials. People have grappled with various illnesses, including mental illness.

Some people have left the Church. I know that. You have found that the old inspiring speeches and the charge of "Instaurare Omnia in Christo" and even a solid (but by no means complete) education have been inadequate for the complexity of the world you now live in. And the questions of life are larger than you had realized.

I'm sorry, of course. At a college, we can only do the best we can with educating and building up a constructive environment. We teachers and administrators have our own idiosyncrasies and limits. We are sinners. Please forgive us.

But there is nothing in this world that can address the complexities and answer the questions that are not just intellectual but that constitute the depths of you as a person. Only Jesus can do that. The real Jesus: that tremendous Person who loves each of us with a wild and unpredictable love.

Sometimes when people "lose the faith," they are actually going through a phase of life in which what they're really "losing" are their own reductionist ideas. They are finding that it's not enough to know philosophy or theology as a collection of logically connected terms. It's not enough to have ideas about God. They are finding that they cannot live life with a mere conception of God, Christ, and the Church that is devoid of mystery, relationship, and the freedom of love.

We can become disoriented when we are stripped of our illusory images and false self-confidence. But we can also allow a space to open up within us where the Mysterious One who is beyond-all-things can really begin to speak. We can rediscover Jesus and what it means to belong to Him in the Church.

Dear students, we are all suffering in different ways. Maybe in school we teachers didn't appreciate that fact as well as we ought. I'm sorry on my own behalf. I had many sufferings in those days and yet I knew so little about compassion. I think I have learned a bit more since then.

The poor internet is not much. Just pictures and words, often ill-considered words. But I hope it at least reminds us that we are not alone.

You are not alone.

Whatever you're going through--whether things are going well or badly, whether your faith is strong or weak or gone entirely--the journey that you and I began to make together at a little college in Appalachia continues. We can still help each other.

Whatever may be the distractions of the internet, this possibility is one of its great benefits, and it is a special blessing for those of us who are united in Christ. To be able to pray for one another and share one another's joys and sorrows is a real grace.

And for those who have drifted away for whatever reason, or find themselves in darkness, please remember that we are still with you. I'm still here. I'm still your old professor, though I have no plans to lecture you. We're at a different place in life now. It's more important that I listen to you.

That is something I am always ready to do.