We Have Forgotten How to "Live Well"

Life seems to have become increasingly frantic, artificially intense, rude, agitated, and shallow lately. I don't know if this is your experience, but it has been mine in many ways, and others can probably relate. Sometimes we put ourselves under so much pressure that we forget to live our human lives in the real way that they are being given to us each day.

We forget to live well.

The present problem, I think, is an intensification of a more widespread social illness in which even the most simple and often joyful aspects of human life are marginalized or entirely forgotten.

Human beings need a variety of activities: we need to read and study and think. We need to talk and to listen. We also need to eat, play, dance, make music, breathe deeply, walk, run, plant things in the ground, explore, and laugh. We need to share life with companions. We need to look at beautiful things. And, of course, we need to sleep.

We need to lift up our minds and hearts and bodies to the One who gives us life, the One who loves us and draws us to Himself. We need to pray. We need to love, and to let ourselves be loved.

We move our bodies and we also move our minds. A healthy human life encompasses this variety in an organic way. It's not healthy to obsess about anything, and especially it's corrosive to our humanity to fixate on an ideology or an emotion like anger or discouragement and allow it to distort our perspective on everything we encounter in the real world.

Even if our ideas are true (which is the case precisely because they conform to reality) we can distort their meaning by subtly withdrawing these truths from an engagement with our real lives, and turning them into an ideological system in the service of our own interests and power. Instead of entering more deeply into the mystery of life, we try to reduce it and manipulate it according to projects we invent with our own narrow desires.

This leads to various forms of violence: physical, verbal, psychological, emotional violence in which real human persons are subordinated to deformed, confused, exaggerated projects that unfold according to the logic of power. These fixations lead to apparent successes and apparent failures, social patterns of dominance and exclusion, human lives measured by external success, superficial wealth, or even by "being right," by "winning the ideological war," while others stoke their resentments into the desire for revenge. All of this perpetuates the cycle of violence. Violence begets more violence.

And nobody is happy. Life becomes inhuman.

It doesn't have to be this way. We are called to live as human persons, to engage life, to be constructive, to discover and fulfill our responsibilities, to love God and love one another, to be good stewards of the beautiful world that has been given to us, to enjoy being together, to help one another in our struggles, to work and also to rest.

We are called to do everything we can for the good, and then to beg God to respond to the depth of the need for more that we continually discover within our hearts, to trust in His mercy, and to receive His peace as we continue our journey.

We can get so caught up in our projects that we forget to pray with patience and trust. We can get so caught up in trying to change the world that we exhaust ourselves and do violence to the persons nearest to us, the persons whom we are especially called to love. We have forgotten how to grow as human persons, how to live well.

Instead, we vacillate between distraction and obsession with our own desires, plans, and the distorted perception of reality that inevitably weighs heavily upon us. This is what's killing us. It is, literally, killing us.

We think all there is to life is found in our crazy projects, our ideas, and our constructions. It's not surprising that we are overextended, drained, angry, and desperate about the future. Our frantic sense of urgency is drawn out of a deep fear that we are alone in defining the meaning of our existence and that we must succeed in measuring up to criteria we have imposed upon ourselves (individually or as a group). This seems like an overwhelming task, and no matter how much we pretend to have expertise or control, deep down inside we don't know what to do!

But we are not alone. We are never alone. Our lives are in the hands of the One who gives us everything in every moment, who gives us our own being, sustains us, shapes the very freedom by which we become capable of giving ourselves.

Certainly we must work very much. We must shoulder our burdens and help to carry one another's burdens, but we must not let ourselves be crushed by them. He calls us to Himself to give us "rest," and to remember that His yoke is easy, His burden light (see Matthew 11:30).

The Song Carries On

A good way to end Saint Cecilia's Day: listening to the music of a young woman of our own time who loved Jesus and who sang and who gave everything...

Christina Grimmie (March 12, 1994 - June 10, 2016).

Saint Cecilia's Day

Saint Cecilia's Day. Another heroic young woman who loved Jesus and gave everything for Him, she is the third century Roman martyr who praised the Lord in song. She is, in the presence of God, the friend and helper of all musicians and singers.

"The Lord is our savior; we shall sing to stringed instruments in the house of the Lord all the days of our life" (Isaiah 38:10).

The King Who Rules Through Love and Makes Us Free

Jesus on the cross with aureole in the image of a crown. Ivory and metal, Kongo (Central Africa), 19th-20th century.

"Almighty ever-living God,
whose will is to restore all things
in your beloved Son, the King of the universe,
grant, we pray,
that the whole creation, set free from slavery,
may render your majesty service
and ceaselessly proclaim your praise.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever."

~Collect, Feast of Christ the King


The Jubilee "Year of Mercy" came to an end yesterday with the final Sunday of the Roman Rite liturgical calendar, celebrated annually as the Feast of Christ the King. It is good to remember in faith that, whatever evils may be happening in the world, the ultimate victory has already been won by the Love that has overcome death.

The Kingdom of God is inaugurated in the Risen Jesus, and it marks its "beginning" as a transforming power in the history of human persons through baptism. Christ's kingdom is "not of this world" because it journeys the roads of this world on a pilgrimage. The Church is God's People living in this world, helping one another to attain the fullness of Christ by dying in Him so as to rise in Him to eternal life.

This does not mean, however, that Christ's kingdom has no connection with this world, with all the vast range of human problems and human aspirations of individuals, cultures, and societies. Insofar as they truly follow Christ in their Christian vocation, God's people embrace the depths of their own humanity in all of its vitality, with a capacity to appreciate the real meaning of things. Insofar as Christians are faithful to their calling, their lives in this world become a witness to the fact that at the heart of every real human interest and human longing is the Mystery revealed and given and triumphant in Jesus Christ, who is drawing all things to Himself.

Jesus "draws all things" in a way that is beyond our mind's power to comprehend in this world, which is why we walk herein by faith and trust. In particular He works within the heart of every human person on this planet by the grace of His Holy Spirit, with unfathomable mercy and love. But Love does not force Himself, or manipulate, or replace the human freedom that must allow itself to be loved and enter into a relationship of love.

We bear witness to Christ's Kingship with our preaching of the gospel, and also with our joyful conviction and our sharing of the vital experience of our own lives as they are being changed by Him. We must love our neighbor with all the vulnerability of a love that is personal, that is confident in the mystery of God's love for each person, and that does not reduce, coerce, or manipulate their freedom and dignity (recognizing that this is the "sacred ground" wherein God's most secret work of love unfolds itself). We must ask Jesus to manifest through our lives that He brings beauty and fulfillment to everything human, and that He overcomes our own sins and weakness and lifts us up even in the deepest darkness and most profound suffering.

Pope Francis addressed these points in his homily yesterday:

"The grandeur of [Christ's] kingdom is not power as defined by this world, but the love of God, a love capable of encountering and healing all things. Christ lowered himself to us out of this love, he lived our human misery, he suffered the lowest point of our human condition: injustice, betrayal, abandonment; he experienced death.... 

"Our King went to the ends of the universe in order to embrace and save every living being. He did not condemn us, nor did he conquer us, and he never disregarded our freedom, but he paved the way with a humble love that forgives all things, hopes all things, sustains all things. This love alone overcame and continues to overcome our worst enemies: sin, death, fear. 

"Dear brothers and sisters, today we proclaim this singular victory, by which Jesus became the King of every age, the Lord of history: with the sole power of love, which is the nature of God, his very life, and which has no end. We joyfully share the splendor of having Jesus as our King: his rule of love transforms sin into grace, death into resurrection, fear into trust."

All Our Wounds

People are suffering a lot in the present time. They are expressing their fears and anxieties in all sorts of different ways. These are human persons, children of God, whose pain cannot be dismissed and must not be mocked.

When suffering people try to express what they are undergoing, we should listen with compassion and respect, recognizing that we have much to learn from them. We must be willing to be provoked, even when their expressions are strange or inadequate, or they use terms that require more consideration or that are too easily misunderstood.

Often they don't know how to say what they really mean. Let us listen, respond from the heart, and try to help, to be constructive, to stand in solidarity with suffering people and to foster healing.

Of course, we will find false voices and opportunists in any group of human beings. There are those who are putting on a show, or exacerbating problems with ideological interpretations or false solutions, or trying to use the suffering of others as a pretext for violence. Realism requires a discernment that gives attention to each person in the places of their pain, and a patience that does not allow compassion to grow cold.

Suffering people are easily manipulated, because they are weak.

Some people have suffered in silence for a long time, and perhaps have felt that no one cares or understands their problems. They want to be heard, but they are also wounded, and sometimes wounds can make people lash out at others who, they think, are to blame.

People who are afraid and in pain are driven, by their fear, into conflict with one another.

What is hardest for me is when I find myself seemingly "in the middle" of such conflicts. I am pulled in all directions, and feel so overwhelmed that I don't know what to say to anyone. If I am quiet for periods of time, it's because I am at a loss. It's an excruciating silence. I don't have words not because I think I can somehow stand "above the fray" but because it's tearing me apart.

What's next in the days, weeks, and months ahead? There may be a moment of calm, but I hesitate to believe that any "lull" represents an improvement in the situation rather than a further retrenchment. This is a conflict that has poured over us all year, wave after wave after wave in this awful drenching storm of the year 2016. For me, personally, it has often been overwhelming.

But my desire is to stand in solidarity with those who are in pain, whatever may be the sources of that pain and however difficult it may be to comprehend from my own point of view. My own experiences and struggles have taught me what it's like to have suffering that people don't understand or don't take seriously. We are all afraid of the "strangeness" of one another, and I am no better than anyone in this regard.

I'm sorry that I don't have words to express this more adequately.

It's too dark and I'm too fragile and broken by my own weakness and smallness of love. I don't know what to do except suffer this weakness, and try to bring my wounds and all our wounds to Jesus.

Like One Who is Dead...

"Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress
my eye wastes away from grief,

my soul and body also.
For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing;
affliction has broken down my strength
and my bones waste away.
I have passed out of mind like one who is dead;
I have become like a broken vessel.
But I trust in you, O Lord;
I say, 'You are my God.'
Save me in your steadfast love"

(Psalm 31:9-10,12,14,16).

"In Sickness and in Health": When We are Weak, He is Strong

In twenty years of marriage, my wife and I have been made very aware of one part of the marriage vows that can be quite challenging: "in sickness and in health." So far, I have been the sick one but the suffering is shared. This is a dimension of being "one flesh" that is very real and very humbling.

I'm quite certain that the presence of Another--of Christ Himself through the sacramental bond of marriage--has been the source of grace that holds us together and holds our family together.

The nourishing food of marriage is Jesus Christ. He gives and sustains this bond that has been spiritually and physically consummated, this real human bond that exists to build up the human community, this supernatural bond that builds up the Church through new members of Christ's Body that are entrusted to our care, and that opens up a vocational path for us as persons who learn to grow in love through innumerable ordinary daily challenges to give of ourselves.

Jesus is the source of the strength of married life, especially when we feel weak and helpless in front of each other. Nothing in life turns out "the way we planned," because ultimately it's bigger, it's greater than anything we can understand. What unites us is His love, and He communicates that love through the married vocation according to the ways of His infinite wisdom.

We both know that this is true.

His ways can entail many sacrifices and much suffering, but the marriage bond is strengthened through these lived circumstances, even (especially) when they are hard, when we are made poor, when it becomes clear that we can't "save" each other or our children by our own power, that we can't make each other "happy" by our own power.

And we have a "good marriage." God has blessed us in so many ways and given us so much strength in our relationship, and with our kids, and with the support of family and friends. He has taken care of us abundantly. Even within this whole crazy-up-and-down-experience, how much joy there is, and how many surprising fruits. We are so grateful to you, O Lord!

We also know that we must do our best, we must use every human and Christian resource, we must always struggle to give more. We have gratitude, and we work, and we pray, and we trust in Jesus step by step.

And yet, still, on this road we continually discover "limits"--spaces in life where we just don't have the power to do anything. When I'm sick, it's a bracing, intensive reminder of these spaces that are the limits of every day: limits in ourselves, limits in each other, and--above all--limits that seem to be within life itself, because in so many ways life seems to be slipping away.

Love has promised us "forever" and yet time and suffering bring us to the recognition of our own poverty in front of this promise, our own utter weakness.

But in our weakness He is strong. The grace of Christ in the sacrament is here. Right here is where hope lives, and where love beckons us to go forward together into something beyond all our expectations and power to control, something greater, a greater love, His love....

We are, after all, living something that is "a great mystery..."

Welcoming the Person of Jesus

Today many have a limited understanding

of the Christian faith,

because they identify it

with a mere system of beliefs and values ​

and not so much with the truth of God

revealed in history,

eager to communicate with man

face to face,

in a relationship of love with Him.

In fact,

the foundation of every doctrine or value

is the event of the encounter

between man and God in Christ Jesus.

Christianity, before being a moral or ethical value,

is the experience of love,

of welcoming the person of Jesus.

Benedict XVI, November 14, 2012

Suffering With Us

"Man is worth so much to God that he himself became man in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way—in flesh and blood—as is revealed to us in the account of Jesus's Passion. Hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in all suffering, the consolation of God's compassionate love"
(Benedict XVI, encyclical Spe Salvi, 39).

Our Salvation Comes From Hope

Pope Francis made a point in a recent homily that is worth remembering as we try to discern our priorities. Our salvation is not gained through external spectacles. It is not found in following the latest trend, being among the 'in' crowd or on the latest winning team, or going from one superficial distraction to another. He uses the image of 'fireworks,' but we could just as easily speak about making money, winning the argument, becoming a celebrity, or gaining power.

As Christians we do not place our hope in these things. Nor do we lose our hope when our earthly expectations are not realized, when we have to deal with fears or dangers, nor (above all) when we face the apparently uninteresting and unexciting moments of almost all of our days.

This is not to deny the range of our human joys and sorrows, but to put them in perspective, and to remember that we attain the fulfillment for which we were created by patience, endurance, and perseverance on the road toward God, the road of hope.

"The Kingdom of God is not a 'show' religion: one that is always seeking new things, revelations, messages. God spoke through Jesus Christ: this is the last Word of God. The ['show' religion] is like fireworks that lit you up for a moment and then what is left behind? Nothing. There is no growth, there is no light, there’s nothing: just an instant. And we have been tempted many times by this 'entertainment religion' of seeking things that are extraneous to revelation, to the meekness of the Kingdom of God that is among us and which grows. For this is not about hope, this is about the desire to have something in our hands. Our salvation comes from hope, the hope of a man who sows the seed or the woman who makes the bread, mixing yeast and flour: a hope that grows. Instead, this artificial brightness only lasts an instant and then it dies away, like fireworks: they are not needed for giving light to a house. It’s just a show" (Pope Francis, Homily of November 10, 2016).

Meeting With One Another

Beyond Election Day: Learning the Way of "Solidarity"

It is Election Day for President in the United States of America. Regardless of who they are voting for, many Americans have low expectations, if not outright fears and disgust, for both major party candidates. We are tempted to regard the next four years with a helpless and morbid cynicism. But we must remember that our political responsibility does not end when we leave the voting booth.

We have a commitment to upholding the dignity of every human person over the whole course of life from conception to natural death. We must be active in building up our families, communities, local institutions and environment, and all that has been immediately entrusted to us. At the same time, we must not close in upon ourselves into tightly sealed bubbles of fear. With due regard to the legitimate needs of safety and order, we must also cultivate the magnanimous habit of hospitality. We want to build our own communal places with such strength, confidence, and generosity that we are free to welcome others--especially those among our brothers and sisters who are most desperately in need.

We may also want to take up new initiatives and begin to take steps that could lead to changes in the dysfunctional political culture that has brought us to the awful impasse of the 2016 election year circus.

Above all, we need a new cultivation of political virtue in America, in a way that will enable us to judge and act more effectively for the good in our own society and in our relationships with peoples and nations in the rest of the world.

Nearly thirty years ago, Pope Saint John Paul II gave us some very specific magisterial teaching that remains vital and relevant today. He stressed the particular virtue that we need if we are to be political protagonists in the third millennium--the virtue that is essential for an interdependent world in possession of historically unprecedented kinds of technological power.

The great Pope called this virtue "Solidarity."

To cultivate this virtue and allow it to change our way of thinking and relating to one another is a special political task that me and my countrymen need to take up anew in this time, regardless of who becomes President after today. We must have the courage to enlarge our horizons and recognize the responsibilities that correspond to the power and wealth that have been entrusted to us. We need to recognize that the interdependence of our world is a human reality--an interdependence of human persons--that has implications for our lives. These implications, these human realities cannot be dominated, controlled, or suppressed by our power. Neither can they be ignored or pushed away as insignificant. They are real human needs that cry out to us, problems of people in our own communities, our nation, and the world that are inseparably connected to our own needs and problems. They must be lived and judged in varying circumstances with realism, proper criteria, wisdom, generosity, and love.

The United States of America will not be able to grow and mature further as a nation in the 21st century unless we learn the way of solidarity, unless we learn to practice the virtue of solidarity.

Saint John Paul II says it much better in the excerpts below. His words, though not always easy to understand, are worth the labor of our prayerful reading, study, and consideration. I dare say, we ignore him and his successors at our own peril, and the world's peril.

It is above all a question of interdependence, sensed as a system determining relationships in the contemporary world, in its economic, cultural, political and religious elements, and accepted as a moral category. When interdependence becomes recognized in this way, the correlative response as a moral and social attitude, as a "virtue," is solidarity.

This is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.

[The political forces of domination that degrade the human person for profit or power] are only conquered--presupposing the help of divine grace--by a diametrically opposed attitude: a commitment to the good of one's neighbor with the readiness, in the gospel sense, to "lose oneself" for the sake of the other instead of exploiting him, and to "serve him" instead of oppressing him for one's own advantage (cf. Mt 10:40-42; 20:25; Mk 10:42-45; Lk 22:25-27).

The exercise of solidarity within each society is valid when its members recognize one another as persons. Those who are more influential, because they have a greater share of goods and common services, should feel responsible for the weaker and be ready to share with them all they possess.

Those who are weaker, for their part, in the same spirit of solidarity, should not adopt a purely passive attitude or one that is destructive of the social fabric, but, while claiming their legitimate rights, should do what they can for the good of all. The intermediate groups, in their turn, should not selfishly insist on their particular interests, but respect the interests of others....

The same criterion is applied by analogy in international relationships. Interdependence must be transformed into solidarity, based upon the principle that the goods of creation are meant for all. That which human industry produces through the processing of raw materials, with the contribution of work, must serve equally for the good of all....

Surmounting every type of imperialism and determination to preserve their own hegemony, the stronger and richer nations must have a sense of moral responsibility for the other nations, so that a real international system may be established which will rest on the foundation of the equality of all peoples and on the necessary respect for their legitimate differences.

The economically weaker countries, or those still at subsistence level, must be enabled, with the assistance of other peoples and of the international community, to make a contribution of their own to the common good with their treasures of humanity and culture, which otherwise would be lost for ever.

Solidarity helps us to see the "other"-- whether a person, people or nation -- not just as some kind of instrument, with a work capacity and physical strength to be exploited at low cost and then discarded when no longer useful, but as our "neighbor," a "helper" (cf. Gen 2:18-20), to be made a sharer, on a par with ourselves, in the banquet of life to which all are equally invited by God. Hence the importance of reawakening the religious awareness of individuals and peoples. Thus the exploitation, oppression and annihilation of others are excluded....

The goal of peace, so desired by everyone, will certainly be achieved through the putting into effect of social and international justice, but also through the practice of the virtues which favor togetherness, and which teach us to live in unity, so as to build in unity, by giving and receiving, a new society and a better world.

~Pope Saint John Paul II, Encyclical Solicitudo Rei Socialis 39, 40.

Minds On Fire

"It's not fire on the rooftops that threatens us. It's fire in the minds of men" (Dostoevsky, The Possessed).

Love and the Road of Sorrow and Hope

God has revealed His love for us. God is Love.

God has revealed that Love is His infinite glory, His infinite mystery. But after 20 centuries of Christianity, the words "God is Love" can sound merely sentimental. They are repeated in an effort to make us feel accepted and "safe" -- but often at the price of ceasing to have any clear significance.

We need love, but we are also afraid of real love, because real love changes us and takes us beyond what we already know. We are thus afraid of love, but still we cannot even imagine living without it. So we invent half-hearted substitutes, resemblances of love that are facile and shallow, that don't really respond to our solitude but merely distract us, for a time, from our loneliness.

Therefore we want "love" to remain trivial, but in this way we make God trivial too. We consign Him to the superficial places, to the margins of life. We keep His love at a distance, as though it were some vague comforting story.

We do not want to think about real love, because it is so fundamental and mysterious, because it encompasses sacrifice, and because our human experience of real love is so often one of failure, limitations, and disappointment. 

And even when we truly give ourselves in love, when we brave its risks and fight its battles, when we do all the hard work investing ourselves, moving beyond ourselves, building a relationship that changes us and renews us--even then love seems to be, at the end, a long road to sorrow.

We love someone, and then they die.

How can we bear this? Where is the person we have loved so truly and so much? Death is the final "unknown" in a relationship, where we are not only blind but also unable to find any footing in front of us that would allow us to remain with one we love.

We have "lost" them.

We look to our ideas and imagination, our understanding of religious teaching, our intuitions, our wishful thinking. They must be somewhere, resting in peace. Perhaps we envision a hazy "afterlife," strange and inaccessible, or else we allow them to attain some higher purpose by merging with the universe or disappearing into a kind of supercosmic nirvana. All this may bring some measure of solace and acceptance.

But does it satisfy us? Is it enough, for real love? Or does it still leave us without hope on the road of our own loneliness?

How can we ever have hope again? In life we knew a human person, someone we could walk with, with real feet firmly meeting the ground beside us. Here is our great sorrow: we want to walk again with the person we love. We want to see two pairs of feet, and instead we only see one. We walk alone.

And then, a stranger appears on the road to sorrow. Or, rather, we begin to notice the stranger who walks hidden and silently here, always going on ahead, to the vanishing point of all our loves, and beyond them.

He walks with us. We don't know who the stranger is, but hope is awakened within our hearts. The stranger is human, and hope discovers in his face a glimpse of all the ones we have loved.

Are we willing to follow that hope, and take the stranger into the home of our hearts? Or will we let him pass by?

Only if we let the stranger in will he open our eyes. He will show us that he has all the deep wounds of our sorrows. He has them.

But there is no easy way to learn this. We have to let the stranger in. We have to let Him show us His humanity and let the fire of hope burn in us.

We Depend on One Another

With the U.S. Presidential election less than a week away, tensions continue to rise, and Americans have dire forebodings about the future regardless of who wins. Meanwhile, the news from all over the world is dominated by a desperate litany of violence and intractable problems. The year of 2016 seems like one long dystopian nightmare. Will anything good come out of all this mess?

Perhaps we are going to learn in a more immediate way how much we all really do depend on one another.

The "human family" is not a cozy, tame little idea. If someone hurts, we all hurt. It's not really true that 2016 marks some radical departure from normal human experience. In fact, the human family always shares a profound bond of suffering. We all share a common affliction.

We also share a common hope.

We share a source of unity that is greater than everything that divides us -- greater than every fear.

In the days to come, we would do well to pray and "fast" -- i.e. voluntarily embrace some sacrifices within our daily routine -- so that we might remember our common suffering, our existential poverty, our dependence on God, and the mysterious bond that unites us in our journey to Him and sustains us in a posture of compassion for one another.

We must beg the Lord to change our mentality and transform our way of looking at the world and all of the problems and the dangers, and all the evil that has already been judged and vanquished.

All Saints

All Hallows Eve Nostalgia

After seeing all these pictures of cute little kids dressed up and going out for candy, I got a bit nostalgic. So I decided to look back, but not too far: just five years ago.

Here are the Janaro kids as they appeared on the night of October 31, 2011:

Your Spirit is in All Things

"You have mercy on all, because you can do all things;
and you overlook people's sins that they may repent.
For you love all things that are
and loathe nothing that you have made;
for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.
And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it;
or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you?
But you spare all things, because they are yours,
O Lord and lover of souls,
for your imperishable spirit is in all things!
Therefore you rebuke offenders little by little,
warn them and remind them 

of the sins they are committing,
that they may abandon their wickedness 

and believe in you, O Lord!"

~Wisdom 11:23-12:2

Chiara Luce and the Young Faces of the Communion of Saints

People are starting to recognize this beautiful young woman.

On this day which is her memorial on particular church calendars and which would have been her 45th birthday, I have been thinking about and talking to my friend Blessed Chiara Luce Badano.

I have only met her "in faith," a generation after her death in 1990 at the age of 18 and about a year and a half after her beatification. But I cherish her as a very real companion in the Lord, and I don't credit any initiative on my part to discovering her. The Communion of Saints is deeply mysterious, brilliantly awesome, gently intimate, and entirely human. She introduced herself to me, discretely, with something like a tap on the shoulder.

She is close to me and to many others, helping us from her special place within the heart of Jesus.

But I think she wants us to know that she is not the only "modern" teenager or young adult who is with Jesus now in the Father's house, and who prays for the rest of us. There is a cloud of young witnesses, a multitude of kids whose lives and sacrifices are not well known to us, whose days were very ordinary and hidden, or who may have been known to some but appreciated by very few. But they are no less heroic in their love for God, their willingness to embrace Christ.

They may not all have the kind of remarkable "coherence" that marks the Catholic saint, but the Lord made them ready to come to Him, bravely, in answer to His call, in circumstances that often seem to us to be "too soon" and perhaps even incomprehensible.

But their young lives were not wasted. Quite the contrary. The Lord has a plan, and the young people who have gone before us in love are especially vigilant in leading the way and being a light to the elders they have left behind. They strengthen our hope in the midst of all our struggles in this poor world.

Thank you, dear Chiara Luce for "tapping me on the shoulder" a few years ago and offering to be my friend. Thank you for praying for me, listening to me, helping me to see the goodness and share the suffering of others, introducing me to new friends in places I never would have looked, and for the surprises: when you tap me on the shoulder and say, "Look. There! There is the light of Christ. There is the love greater than death!"

Thank you.

Some words of Blessed Chiara Luce Badano (1971-1990):

His Peace

Jesus said to his disciples,

"Peace I leave with you;

my peace I give to you.

Not as the world gives do I give it to you.

Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid."

~John 14:27

Josefina: What A Decade It Has Been!

Same kid in the top row and the bottom row.

I just can't wrap my head around the whole thing. It's been ten years. TEN YEARS!!!

If someone had come up to me on October 25, 2006 and told me what the next ten years of my life were going to be like, I would have gone bonkers!

Actually I did go "bonkers" during this past decade, but that's only part of the story. (And "bonkers" is not an accurate term, but I'll let it pass since I'm making a joke at my own expense.) I have told most of the story elsewhere on this blog. Indeed, Jojo was only a bit over four years old when I began writing this blog. She has been one of my most consistently popular topics, for reasons that are obvious.

Josefina with her Birthday "loot"

She is still small for her age, though she can fill the entire room with her personality. She is still wacky and fun loving and likes to sing while she does things around the house. She is great company and has a generous heart.

She has a great imagination, and is fascinated by people and places. She doesn't like math but she loves history. Her mind is growing in so many ways that she keeps surprising me with how she looks at things, with the questions she asks, and with how much she is able to understand when she puts her mind to it.

She is utterly devoted to her mother, and I don't blame her. She is very good to me, and especially kind when I don't feel well. She is such a joy. And she can also be such a pain in the neck, haha! But so lovable.

I know there's no way I can imagine the next ten years. For all the many struggles, it's a marvelous life. There is joy when kids grow, but a kind of sorrow too because you have to "let them go," but only to discover them again in new ways.

Happy Birthday, Josefina. God bless you!

Josefina with Mommy, opening presents. One thing she wanted was a Capitals jersey so she could be Mommy's hockey pal.

Like a Watered Garden

"Their life shall become like a watered garden,
and they shall never languish again.
I will turn their mourning into joy [says the Lord],
I will console and gladden them after their sorrows."

~Jeremiah 31:12,13

A House Full of "Family Pictures"

The other day I posted an Instagram photo of part of a bookshelf in our house in which a five volume English edition of St Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae and other books have a framed picture of St Mother Teresa plunked against them casually, almost haphazardly.

Next to my bed, the Mexican holy 

water font, Our Lady of Guadalupe

and Jesus with his Sacred Heart (also 

from Mexico), Jesus in the Divine

Mercy icon, the papal crucifix, an 

icon of the Last Supper, St John Paul, 

St Joseph (image of our home statue), 

and then the words of Edith Stein

(St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) 

that so often give me strength. I can 

see this shelf even when lying in bed. 

It helps to focus my heart each day.

I noted that the reason we have saints' pictures all around the house is not because we are fanatics or idol worshipers (we don't worship the saints) but because they are our friends, indeed they are "family" -- members of God's family who are alive in the Church in glory and who care for us, inspire us, and pray for us.

Soon after that came St John Paul II's feast day and I posted our "personal" JPII pic, from our honeymoon journey to Rome in 1996. That is, of course, a very special picture because it is a kind of memorial of a real meeting that took place (I also met and spoke with Mother Teresa in 1993, but no one was around taking pictures of that event, nor do I feel the need of one).

The picture of JPII, however, is always there to evoke a memory for both of us. That encounter, our brief conversation, and his blessing of our marriage will always be precious to us. In those moments, we were struck by his amazing capacity to give of himself, his humanity, and also his vulnerability, his frailty, his own need to be loved. I think that, for a moment, we consoled him too.

It is an important memory of an event that has very much to do with the history of our journey as a couple and a family. It helps us remember that even now his prayers continue to accompany us. That intense interpersonal moment, I am confident, remains present in the glorified awareness of St John Paul and gives shape to the mysterious but close affection with which he cares for us and helps us to remember Jesus Christ.

And we keep that picture, in a frame, in a very ordinary place in the corner of the dining room.

Well trafficked though otherwise ordinary corner, next to the family Apostolic Blessing that was obtained for us by friend.

*Of course, you don't have to meet a saint during their earthly life in order to develop a deep and fruitful companionship with them. I am convinced that there are times when saints you've never even heard of will "come along" and "tap you on the shoulder" (in a sense). They initiate the relationship with you, and you become aware of their solicitude for you a certain times in your life even as you are prompted to ask for the assistance of their prayers.

Some saints "nudge" us frequently to make sure we don't forget about them, as if to say, "I'm here, you know!"

I'm using the terminology of ordinary human interaction because these are genuine human relationships, even though for us they live within the sphere of faith. The saints are our friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ, members of His Body just as we who are still on our earthly pilgrimage are members of one another in Christ.

God's Kingdom is a communion of persons, a great family gathered for the wedding feast. None of our great friendships with the saints in glory -- or with our fellow Christians in this present life, or with those others who have been given to us in life, who are loved by Christ and destined for this glorious banquet even if they do not yet know it -- take away from the uniqueness of our belonging to Jesus the Bridegroom. On the contrary, the fruitfulness of His love is their foundation and sustenance.

On another book shelf, the busts of Jesus and Mary carved in the Holy Land from olive wood.

 

One Hope

The text below this picture is one I have posted before, but it seems worth recalling once again in these days, especially since it was the first reading for today's Mass. This is one of those Scripture passages that is clearly inexhaustible, and speaks to us in so many ways. It's worth pondering.

"Live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,

with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the spirit
through the bond of peace;
one Body and one Spirit,
as you were also called to the one hope of your call;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all."

(Ephesians 4:1-6)