What is the "Joy" of the Christian Life?

Joy is one of the promised fruits of Christian life. But it is a very particular kind of joy, a joy that comes from a living relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It eminently corresponds to the deepest yearnings of the human heart, but also shares in the life of God, and therefore goes beyond finite human ways of understanding and measuring things.

Christian joy is deep and foundational. It is an underlying reality of the new humanity that we receive from Christ, through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The heart of Christian joy is a participation, already begun here and now in the life of grace, in the very mystery of God's own infinite joy, of His life, of His glory. No experience in this life can simply be objectified, analysed, and classified as "joy-in-the-radical-sense," because it is God sharing His joy with us — the joy that is God Himself.

God elevates and purifies our affections, draws us through them, and gives us much help that strengthens us by illuminating and affecting our reason, and our psychological and emotional experiences. But even when we cannot "feel Him" in any way, we still believe in Him by faith and cling to Him in hope. We know that the source of our joy is with us, and that if we love Him, then we possess that invincible joy even if the world rages at us, even if sorrow seems to overwhelm us in the face of earthly loss, even if we are lonely, sick, imprisoned, or oppressed, even if incomprehensible pain fills our entire conscious awareness.

It is for our encouragement (not our discouragement) that the grace of the Spirit touched in special ways some of the martyrs and saints, so that they embraced suffering and even gruesome death "as if going to a wedding feast." But I think that God's Kingdom is overwhelmingly made up of saints who probably went through their deaths with considerably less enthusiasm. Many lived their lives with temperaments that would not be classified as "joyful" in the mundane sense.

The joy of God is lived within the love of God, and it realizes itself vitally within our personality in the measure in which we love God and our neighbor. The resonance within experience and the external signs of joy have different forms, different levels of intensity, and variations that correspond to the secret ways in which the grace of God is at work transforming mysteriously the particular person according to his or her own history, wounds, and suffering.

If we are patient and loving with people, we will be surprised by their joy as it peeks through like the sun on a cloudy day. And a glimpse of it will enrich us.

There are certain dispositions, a certain "personality type," and certain ways of living that we commonly identify as pertaining to a "joyful person" (and that we rightfully expect to find abundantly in a healthy Christian community). It is not surprising that joyful people have a zest for life, a ready smile, and a disposition for friendship and hospitality. It is not surprising that they are prepared to serve others, and to work for peace, justice, and reconciliation amidst the conflicts of life in this world. Joy by its nature manifests itself externally, but Christian joy is a light that shines in darkness, a transfiguring light that grows in the midst of the many limitations of our frail and wounded human nature. It is the beginning of our mortal humanity's being clothed with immortality. This joy that is the gift of the Spirit is a vitality always deeper and beyond any externally perceptible "ebullience" in human actions or emotional states. Rather, the working and fruition of Christian joy opens new perspectives, gradually transforms our awareness of the meaning of reality, and prompts us toward the real, concrete possibilities of self-giving love within whatever circumstances we are called to live each day. 

Many will point out that life even in this world becomes more happy and fulfilling in general for those who love God. This is true, I think, because the foretaste and even the initiation of eternal life begins here and now, and gives a new depth of meaning to everything in our lives.  But the unfolding and increase of joy are not formulaic and predictable. Everyone shares a common, redeemed human nature, but each one has a unique vocation that includes unique challenges, circumstances, sufferings, and constraints. Christ's presence brings healing to the whole person... but in different ways and in different qualities, always mysteriously and personally, not always obvious and evident to our limited measure for "the way things should be..."

Joy is certainly greater and deeper than what we consider to be "good feelings" about ourselves, others, life, or the ways of God. After the resurrection, Jesus didn't ask Peter: "Simon son of John, do you feel good about me...." He asked, "Simon son of John, do you love me...."

It is in our belonging to the Risen Christ that we have joy, and nothing can separate us from this radical joy: neither principalities and powers, nor the present or the future, nor the kings of the earth and their designs, nor persecutions, tribulations, pains, nor the tragedies of life, the loss of loved ones, the oppression of harsh task-masters, nor sufferings, nor piercing screams from some horrendous illness or injury (whether it is us who scream, or the person we love most in the world whom we must accompany even when there is nothing we can do to stop the pain), nor the harrowing abysses of psychiatric disorders, the feelings of darkness and "deadness" of neuropsychiatric depression, the mental diseases that cause irresolvable anxiety and obsessions that rage like fire in our brains, nor the implacable daily unseen torture of a chronic illness that no one else seems to understand, nor any of the countless ups or downs of life — extraordinary or ordinary — that we can imagine.

When we hear that the mark of Christianity is joy, we shouldn't say, "Oh, I don't feel joyful, so I guess I'm not a real Christian." Rather let us say, "No matter how I feel, my joy is in Christ and in belonging to Him."

Certainly when we say this, let us examine ourselves, and see to what extent we are truly open to ways that the Spirit wants to fill our hearts with the joy that corresponds to our own vocations and circumstances. Let us ask the Lord to increase our joy, nourishing it through prayer and encountering Jesus in the sacraments, in our neighbors, especially in the poor who need our attention, solidarity, and merciful love. Let us seek forgiveness for all our sins (which never bring true joy in themselves, although our sorrow over them is already the beginning of joy). And let us live in hope, because the life of God is our joy, and His love is stronger than our sins, our suffering, our wounds, our frailty.

We have confident joy because He has reached down to our deepest need. God has joined Himself to us in the most desolate places of our pain and tribulation. Jesus is with us, and our wounds belong to Him; they are His wounds, forever. Joy is the revolution born from these transfigured open wounds, open forever in His resurrected body, because of His love which He gives to us.

The joy of this love becomes mysteriously radiant even within all the moments of this present life — this often arduous journey — because love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:7). In His love we keep going, we hope, we desire, we offer, we trust, we cry out for God, we never give up.

Bare Branches, Waxing Moons

“Looking up” is the beginning of artistic inspiration.

Maria’s Got a Good Grip

Maria is getting quite curious and purposeful; she also likes to GRAB things that interest her, like Papa’s beard!🤭☺️ (Most recent VIDEO below.)

The Hope of Heavenly Grace

*********************************************************

Here is the beautiful Collect Prayer from the liturgy for this week. 

We place our hope in the Lord's immense love, His "protection" and "unfailing care." He has poured out for us His "heavenly grace" through His Son Jesus Christ, who died and rose for us, who reveals the depths of God's love. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to form us into children of the Father - His brothers and sisters - and He remains in our midst, He dwells with us in His Church. 

He travels the roads of the world and all of human history, and He calls every human person to Himself through our prayer and witness as members of His Body, and through the mysterious workings of the Holy Spirit in their hearts.

We rely "solely on the hope of heavenly grace," which is given to us and to the whole world through Jesus Christ the sole redeemer of humankind, the center of the cosmos and of history, the meaning and destiny of the life of every person.

“Faces” and “Winter Scenes” from JJDigitalArtStudios

Self-Portrait? I’m not quite so wrinkled yet. I scrinched up my face deliberately in the original model photo.

I have been working a lot with images lately. The vast majority of my pictures never get posted, including some that I think are pretty good. The reasons why I share some things here or on other platforms are not clear to me. I know that I would rather not post something unless I feel that I’m “done” with it, and that it might have value for others. There are many other “works-in-progress” and even more “clutter” (fortunately, it’s virtual clutter).

Tools for visual creativity on the Internet are in an “expansion mode” right now. I don’t even have the “fancy stuff.” But I have improved my “digital palette” quite a bit over the past year, and I have extended my study to portraiture (mostly with myself as a “model,” along with a few athletes and celebrities whose images are everywhere). I have no interest in outlandish facial distortions, combining human and animal faces, and all that weird stuff. But the overall capacity to render a photographic portrait in cartoon form, and to vary light, shadow, colors, textures, etc. are things that I have been doing, even as the different possibilities for “presenting the human face” seem to be increasing by the week as the AI technicians try to outdo one another.

The geography of the human face is inexhaustible and full of wonders. Some of the techniques aim to remove all flaws and transform “AI faces” into bland avatars. Much is lost in this obsession with homogeneity. Portraits have their origins in the impressions of real faces that belong to real persons, however much change or originality the artist might introduce. For me, the dignity of the human person remains foundational, whether presenting an image that represents someone real (in which case I hope not only to respect, but to honor such persons) or constructing a “fictional face” which remains a type of our humanity and the persons who share it as our brothers and sisters.

I don’t know how much the present “AI technique boom” will really be useful. Most of the trending themes are fads. I am trying to discern what has value for my own artistic purposes (and trying to keep those purposes focused). My work leads to many dead ends, with some occasional progress, and virtual clouds full of failed experiments. But no sheets of paper are used. No trees have to die for my art.

Speaking of “dead trees” (and some live ones too) here are some “Winter Scenes” from 2022 thus far:

Saint Agatha: “Possess All That I Am — You Alone!”

“Jesus Christ, Lord of all things! You see my heart, you know my desires. Possess all that I am — you alone!”

Centuries of devotion to Saint Agatha of Catania attribute these words to the heroic fourth century virgin and martyr. Catania on the coast of Sicily was long part of the Greco-Byzantine world; thus Saint Agatha is much loved to this very day by the Eastern churches. She is also one of the martyrs mentioned in the Roman Canon (the ancient Eucharistic Prayer of the Roman Rite).

Through the centuries, in every place and time, in every culture, from men and women of every social status, words like these have been spoken and people have strived to be faithful to them: “Jesus, I give you everything.” Who is this man, Jesus, that people give him themselves, entrust their whole selves to him? Who is this man that people die for him, and live for him?

Fatherhood: Love Always Creates Freedom

Parenthood involves many sacrifices (as well as joys, of course). It is an ongoing journey of self-giving, attentiveness to others, and different kinds of suffering that are hard to grasp concretely until one experiences them. One can only be a good parent insofar as one is willing to die to one's self with trust that the value of one's efforts is beyond one's measure. Patience, purity of heart, and "poverty of spirit" are necessary in parenthood, as they are in all authentic ways of loving persons.

Nevertheless, I have long struggled with the temptation to regard my fatherhood within the context of our Western culture’s dominant mentality of “success,” external achievement, self-assertion, and wealth-as-possession-of-things. After all, I haven’t had much worldly success to brag about. But at least I’m the father of five (four young adults and one teenager still at home). Now I'm a grandfather too, right? Congratulations to me! And they are all "good kids." In fact, we often hear that they are remarkable and exceptional young people. 

I recognize that it's appropriate to find satisfaction in my family, and to be immensely grateful and joyful for them - not so much because they represent a "job well done" overall (thus far), but above all because I love them. 

Love is a gift and a mystery that calls forth much human effort - much work, responsiveness, attention, cultivation, openness, and vulnerability - but it’s never reduced to something we “produce” and “control.” Love is personal and interpersonal. Human love is always a gift, a source of wonder, a vocation, a sign of the transcendent Mystery for whom we are all made.

Most of my kids have grown up during the course of this blog, and I have begun to grow "old." The relationships are still real, personal, and woven-together, flawed, and "complicated" in ways that only family relationships can be. Still, their modality has changed (and continues to change). It used to be noisy around this house. Now it has become much quieter ... except when Maria is here!😉 Perhaps, in the future, it will be noisy again (at least sometimes) with the rumble-tumble of numerous grandchildren - siblings and cousins - running all over the place. 

In any case, life will continue to change. Things can only grow by changing, and human persons can only grow in love by changing freely, by using their freedom to deepen their own relationship to goodness, by opening up to embrace their destiny.

Pope Francis commented vividly on these points - in the context of the meaning of fatherhood - in some recent reflections about Saint Joseph. He sheds light here on the inherent dynamic of genuine fatherly love in particular, in a way that is true for all love, and that points also to the centrality of freedom for the fulfillment of every person. Here are some of Francis’s words that I found especially significant and helpful:

"One of the most beautiful aspects of love, and not only of fatherhood, is indeed freedom. Love always creates freedom. Love should never become a prison, a possession. Joseph shows us his ability to take care of Jesus without ever possessing him, without ever wanting to manipulate him, without ever wanting to distract him from his mission. 

“I think that this is very important as a test of our capacity to love and also our capacity to know how to take a step backwards. A father is good when he knows how to remove himself at the right time so that his child can emerge with his beauty, with his uniqueness, with his choices, with his vocation. In this sense, in every good relationship, we have to give up wishing to impose from on high, an image, an expectation, indeed a visibility, completely filling the scene with excessive protagonism. 

“The wholly ‘Joseph-like’ characteristic of knowing how to step aside, the humility that is the capacity also to slip into second place, is perhaps the most decisive aspect of the love that Joseph has for Jesus. In this sense Joseph is a very important character, I dare say an essential one, in Jesus’ biography precisely because at a certain point he knows how to step away from the scene so that Jesus can shine in all his vocation, in all his mission. 

“Faced with the image of Joseph, we have to ask ourselves if we are capable of knowing how to take a step back, to allow the other, and especially those entrusted to us, to find in us a reference point, but never an obstacle."

The “40th Day of Christmas” - an Epiphany in the Temple

Today we have celebrated the solemn Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.

It has now been 40 days since Christmas, when we recalled with joy the birth of Jesus, the Word made flesh who has come to dwell with us, to reveal the glory of God and the immeasurable depths of His love for us. 

Today Jesus is brought to the Temple in Jerusalem by Mary and Joseph in accordance with the Mosaic Law. Here He is revealed to the faithful of the Old Covenant who have ardently awaited His coming. By the grace of the Holy Spirit, there are a few who recognize the baby Jesus as the Messiah in this joyful "epiphany," as Simeon testifies: "My eyes have seen the salvation which You have prepared in the sight of all nations. A light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of Your people Israel" (Luke 2:30-32).

Then "Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, 'Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted—and you yourself a sword will pierce—so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.'" (Luke 2:34-35).

Since Jesus is the "light of revelation," today is also a special day for the blessing of candles, "Candlemas." One month from today, we begin the liturgical season of Lent, in penance and preparation for the observance of that Holy Friday when Jesus takes our sins upon Himself... and the Resurrection of Easter Sunday. 

Christ is our Light in every darkness.

******************************************

At the beginning of today’s Mass, there is often a formal procession, where this beautiful prayer is used:

Eleven Years of Blogging

It's time to mark the 11th anniversary of the Never Give Up Blog by remembering how it all began. The year 2011 was a decent stretch of time ago. That first day's "double post" is reproduced below. Much has happened since then, circumstances have changed, decisions and events have occurred, people have died and people have been born.

The truth remains always. Perhaps we are learning a bit more, growing a little, growing into wisdom. As Luigi Giussani said, "No gesture exists that does not involve the whole world. That's why we get up every morning: to help Christ save the world, with the strength we have, with the light we possess, asking Christ to give us more light and more strength."

Does Life Seem Like a “Broken Puzzle”?

Our lives are a “puzzle” and we can’t figure out for ourselves how the pieces are supposed “to fit together.”

We didn't bring ourselves into being, and we don't know what to do with the inexhaustible longing of our hearts. Moreover, we find ourselves “broken” but we can't fix ourselves. We don’t know how to escape our own solitude and sadness.

Instead we tend to harm ourselves and one another, and we fail to seek the One who is the true Source of our being and of all the truth, goodness, and beauty of reality. This might seem like the inescapable lot of the whole human race and of each one of us, in spite of all our desperate efforts to be “optimistic” and successful, and our pretenses to care about one another. We might easily become convinced that life has no reason, that everything ends in absurdity, and that all we can do is distract ourselves from moment-to-moment while time inexorably passes us by.

But Jesus is with us. He has come to dwell with us. He knows us even before we realize it, and He always knows us more deeply than we know ourselves. He looks upon each of us with an ardor and a compassion that is infinitely greater than the way we see our own selves, or one another.

Jesus is present, generating us, sustaining us, redeeming us, calling us, forgiving us, empowering us, attracting us, drawing us to His embrace.

We must never give in to discouragement, never give up, never let cynicism suffocate our hope or silence the plea for a worthy and meaningful existence, for happiness, fulfillment, communion - this plea that is always crying out from the deepest places within us.

He is listening. He hears us crying out. He understands our cries, our sorrows, our need.

This is something to remember in the midst of the many necessary struggles of life, and all our genuine and important efforts for justice and healing, respect and love, work and growth. We must remember again and again that His love for us is a real fact. And we must let His Spirit work within our hearts the liberating response of gratitude and trust.

Everything else that matters has its roots here.

The Spirit of God is Greater Than Our Fears

Here are some helpful texts from liturgy and preaching this week:

 

An Achy Cold Day in Which I Messed Everything Up

Ugh, another one of these cold days in January. It’s nice, at least, to see the sun shining, even though today I see it mostly through my bedroom window.

The cold weather is bothering me this year, more than it has in the past. Perhaps it’s the dampness. But I want to go out for a good walk. I want so much to go outside. But I can only step out onto the porch and take a few deep breaths of the brisk air as the sun sets.

Not that I didn’t have a “busy day” here at home in my bed. This is the Internet Age. Never before in history has it been possible for someone to interact with so many people and have access to so many resources without leaving the house. But what is the value of all of it? I want to accomplish things, engage my talents, build a legacy… my heart still bursts with aspirations!

The years of living, the stiff limbs (I have dealt with these kind of things for longer than most people my age, but experience affords no advantage here), the rapid onset of stress, frustration, exhaustion because I mucked it all up today. Distractions, problems, blind alleys, no adequate solutions.

But do I know what I am really called to accomplish? I follow the “signs” and make my daily efforts. “Success” is rewarding and brings some relative satisfaction, for a time. It also leads to more signs, more questions, more awareness that anything I do is insignificant in relation to the Mystery I seek in everything - the Mystery who calls me. “Failure”? Is it really the end of the world? No. I just need to get up and keep going, fixing what I can, getting help if I need it, and letting go of the baggage that’s just weighing me down. Letting go… because there is Another who will carry it away; there is Another who implores me to entrust everything - success and failure, joy and pain, life and death - and let myself be carried to a destiny beyond all my imagining. Ultimately, I am “carried,” even as I do my best to “follow the signs,” to be devoted, to serve, to witness to the truth, accomplish the good, and build up the beautiful along the journey of this life. This life is a precious reality; even if everything is passing away, something new is already beginning.

I fail a lot. So I get up a lot. Sometimes I “get up” metaphorically, because… that’s the way it goes with me (read THIS BOOK if you want to know more about why), but since my work is done mostly with the part of my brain that’s still in good shape, and there are so many gadgets that can assist me, I have confidence that I still have much to share.

Ultimately the goal of all our efforts, the goal of life, is the fulfillment of a promise, a gift that fulfills our journey and even now begins to transfigure us, gives a new value to our efforts (beyond what we know), even “uses” our failures and weakness and distractions if we allow ourselves to be converted and formed by the One who loves us and redeems us: the One who has come to be with us, to find us when we’re lost, to bind up our wounds.

The Wondrous Miracle of the Conversion of Saint Paul

January 25 is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. The first of my monthly "Conversion Stories" series addressed this dramatic and archtypal New Testament conversion, and appeared in the December 2013 issue of Magnificat. Obviously, Paul's conversion is as marvelous today as it was to the astonished Christians of Damascus in the First Century. Here is the text of my article: 

Saint Paul’s conversion from persecutor to Apostle is the radical instance of what constitutes every Christian conversion. His experience is fundamentally an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ who communicates himself in and through his Church. It reveals at this very early moment in Christian history an essential feature of the mystery of the Church: Jesus identifies himself with those who follow him, and extends his visible and missionary presence in time and space through them.

Of course, we are familiar with the story. After presiding over the stoning of Saint Stephen, Saul obtains letters from the high priest so that he can arrest Christians in Damascus. He is “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). Saul has met the followers of “the Way,” but there has been no real encounter; he doesn’t see that the God he longs for and seeks to please with a desperate zeal is communicating himself as a free gift in the midst of these people. “I had acted ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13), he explains later.

Saint Paul is converted by the famous “light from heaven” on the road to Damascus, in which Jesus reveals himself in his own voice, and at the same time indicates that he is the object of Saul’s persecution: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5). It is Jesus himself who opens Paul’s eyes and enables him to see that Christians are not an errant Jewish sect but the very presence of God’s redeeming love in the world.

The light from the glory of Jesus blinds Saul, and it is fitting that a disciple from Damascus, Ananias, is sent to him after three days to restore his sight and baptize him. After this, Saul is completely changed. Immediately we hear in very simple terms that he is “with the disciples at Damascus” and “in the synagogues immediately he proclaimed Jesus, saying, ‘He is the Son of God’” (Acts 9:19-20).

For Saul, conversion comes from the completely gratuitous gift of God, from an encounter that is pure mercy: “the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:14). The grace of this encounter with Jesus corresponds to a recognition of who the followers of Jesus really are, and an insertion of himself into this reality, the Church, and into its mission of witness.

Saint Paul’s miraculous conversion is one of the great events of the New Testament. Nevertheless, in it we can see the basic features that make up every conversion story. It was not just a change of convictions. Paul encountered a person, Jesus, who identified himself with persons that Paul knew or would come to know. He recognized Jesus in these persons, the disciples, and in his own transformed life (“it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” [Galatians 2:20] ) as he also witnessed Jesus through the grace of faith and love.

Conversion is always a work of grace. It is always an encounter with Jesus in the communion of the Church. St. Paul’s story is reenacted, again and again, in less outwardly dramatic ways, in every place, in every time, to so many different kinds of people.

“What I Longed For, I Now See…”

January 21 is the feast of our much beloved Saint Agnes of Rome, about whom I have written numerous times in this blog through the years (see, for example, HERE). This year, I present this simple graphic to commemorate the great third century virgin and martyr.

The Ice-And-Snow-Pocalypse of ‘22… Sort Of..?

We had the first serious “Winter Storm” of the year in the mid-Atlantic region of the USA. You know, the kind of storm that The Weather Channel gets excited about. Not only to we get the experience of extreme weather conditions, we also get to watch ourselves going through all the drama on reality TV. It makes it twice as exciting, right?😝 

Really, it’s odd how having our weather on national television makes us feel like we have “accomplished something important” just by living in an area that’s “on TV.” No matter how many gadgets we have, the Big Screen retains its mystique as the main “portal of extension” between our homes and “the world,” with an aura of authority vested in it by the Guardians of Program Content: networks, cable channels, and now streaming services that make decisions about what we can watch based on the power they possess. Their judgment, credibility, or expertise may not deserve this level of respect, and yet they are among the “lords” in the Aristocracy of Power in which we live. The gap has closed, a little, in communications media now that we “commoners” can also produce and disseminate media content. 

I spoofed this little video last Friday while in a silly mood, posting an “official report” to my YouTube channel. I don’t ever expect to have a YouTube video that gets more than a handful of views, which is not a disappointment since I put ZERO effort into making them. I actually use YouTube (at least for making videos) in the way its geeky founders originally intended it to be used, way way back in 2006: as a convenient internet site for uploading videos that I can then easily share in other places, like this blog. Oh yeah, by the way, let me share that no-longer-new “special report” here:

Anyway, I turned out to be right.😉 But rather than being the “on-the-seen” reporter (too cold!), I stuck to photography after that. Sunday and Monday gave us 5 inches of snow before the sleet and freezing rain left about a tenth of an inch coat of ice on top of everything. Traveling conditions off the main roads were hazardous for a couple of days, and we had to be careful walking around.

But when the sun finally came out, we saw some beautiful and unusual scenes:

“Maria’s Song” 🎶☺️

This video is about a month old, but I wanted to share my singing of “MARIA’S SONG” (I had songs for each of the kids, but this is my first song for a grandchild.🎶) 

Notice her “enthusiastic” reaction…😝🤣🙂☺️❤️

Maria has grown a lot lately. She can hold herself up in a sitting position, and is getting more engaged with the world around her every day. And she’s still cute when she sleeps too.

Winter: Warm, Wet, Bright, Fiery, Frozen

Winter weather in this new year has been "interesting," so far. 

At least, it has been interesting to look at. My arthritis and overall physical condition didn't exactly thrill over the roller coaster ride of temperature and barometric pressure changes during the past couple of weeks.😝 We've had a little bit of sun (as indicated by the "bright and fiery" images here) and sometimes the warmth to go with it, such as temperatures over 60F at the beginning of the month. Mostly, however, it has been cloudy. On some days the clouds are distinctive and striking; other times we just have an unbroken, dull gray sky. The latter conditions generally don't inspire me to portray them in pictorial arts.

I can get out a bit when it's not too cold and/or wet. A little wet is okay. These are the months when I cherish especially those non-deciduous hardy leafy wintergreen plants that are more conspicuously "awake" when most of nature sleeps. Rhododendron are impressive all year round, but in the Winter they are still bright and perky (see below) and when it's warm I like to hang around them and pretend I'm on vacation on a tropical island (hence the portrait).

We have also had a couple of days of significant snow accumulation (by Virginia standards, where it melts fairly quickly). Snow is certainly lovely... to look at... once in a while.😉

Christina Grimmie: A Face that Shows the Way

For the past five years and seven months, this face has been among the most important human faces in my life. It is a face that challenges me, consoles me, and changes my perspective on reality again and again.

I return to Christina Grimmie every month, not only because I find her to be one of the most truly compelling “media icons” of the past decade (that sounds like an enormous claim, but I think history will show it to be true), nor only because she is one of my favorite human subjects for digital graphic art, in my ongoing efforts to understand and make creative use of its continually expanding tools.

I return to the memory of Christina because I need to see her face.

The whole of her gaze on life is more than the sum of its parts. I certainly never noticed this before she left this world, and it took some time for it to dawn upon me even afterwards. Now I know the sincerity, the honesty, the wise innocence, the humor, the unguarded vulnerability, and the courage that shaped her most mundane gestures, and the powerful clarity with which she looked at everyone and every thing in her brief beautiful life.

When she spoke those occasional serious words of faith, of testimony to God’s love, of affirmation of the inestimable value of each one of us as persons, she spoke with a kind of “authority” unusual for someone her age. When she looks at us and says that “we are loved,” it’s convincing. Her face, her manner, her vitality, her whole life are a convincing testimony for us - a communication of the gift of unconditional love and mercy from a person who has experienced that love and mercy herself.

Her communication became uniquely expansive, unconditional, and open to every person through her perseverance in love right up to its ultimate, utterly vulnerable expression at the completion of her life.

Her offering of herself in love won’t fade away with the passage of time. It endures.

I need to see Christina Grimmie’s face because she reminds me of the meaning and the aspiration and the hope of my own life (which I still struggle to learn after 59 years of living - so much “more time,” but too often wasted time). She helps me to remember the source of my own confidence, to remember to live each day, to remember why I live, and the One I live for.

She also helps me begin to see the way toward the final moment that inevitably draws closer as I grow older. She helps me to remember the promise of joy that is worth all the risks of love: the risks of living and dying. She reminds me not to be afraid.

Theophany: The Glory of God Revealed

The culmination of the Christmas Season is the Great Feast of the Theophany, known in the West as the "Baptism of the Lord." 

The Byzantine tradition especially emphazizes that the events commemorated on this day involving Jesus's ritual immersion in the Jordan river at the hands of John the Baptist are a public "manifestation of God" ("Theophany") in a hitherto unprecedented way. Today the Holy Trinity - the One God who is an ineffable communion of persons, the God who is Absolute Love - begins to be revealed and glorified in Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate, the Beloved Son of the Father anointed in the Spirit. The great mission of God’s self-giving love is proclaimed.

Here are the antiphons from Morning Prayer in the Roman Rite:

(1) The soldier baptizes his king, the servant his Lord, John his Savior; the waters of the Jordan tremble, a dove hovers as a sign of witness, and the voice of the Father is heard: This is my Son.

(2) Springs of water were made holy as Christ revealed his glory to the world. Draw water from the fountain of the Savior, for Christ our God has hallowed all creation.

(3) You burned away man’s guilt by fire and the Holy Spirit. We give praise to you, our God and Redeemer.

My Research and Scholarship for 2022 and Beyond

Recently I indicated that I still was plugging away on my research, and I want to update where I am and broadly outline the aims and the scope of my studies in 2022 and beyond.

I do in fact have some “scholarly goals” for the time that remains to me, but as usual they are far too extensive to be realistic even if I lived literally all of what remains of the Chinese sage's symbolic 36,000 Days. But we’ll see how far we can get. What remains undone (insofar as it’s worth doing) can be taken up by others.

I would like to organize and develop my scattered writings on human power, technological infrastructure, media, and the challenges that persons and communities continue to face in the world’s massive, chaotic, and largely unexamined transition to a new global “epoch of power” of unprecedented proportions. My goal is neither naive celebration nor pre-judged condemnation of the continually emerging new technologies, but first to understand their impact on the life of the person and the (inevitably unnoticed) physical (including neurobiological), social, and relational environments they generate and sustain as they enter into common usage. 

I was born in 1963, and I am a first generation child of television. Our generation was raised without a thought regarding the impact of the T.V., this audiovisual communicator and processor of information and sensory experience that created a new and strange global “common space” in our homes, rearranging the furniture in our living rooms, altering our schedules, shaping the expectations of our sensory and emotional responses (in many ways? but how, and how much?). 

In any case, television has been a powerful force for good and evil, even if we remain perplexed (as I have been for my whole life) on what place it has in our lives and the ways it has impacted us, perhaps enriching, perhaps impoverishing our humanity in different ways. The same is true of other electronic media, which are emerging rapidly in the present time. When we understand how we are affected by these technologies, we will also be able to seek wisdom to subordinate them properly to the dignity of the person and the building of communion between persons. 

We must cultivate together the proper self-possession and self-discipline required to live in a media environment. Call it, if you will, “media ecology.” This is an important component of a wider (and urgently necessary) “technological ecology” that goes beyond all projects that try to manage technology and its human consequences simply by using other forms of technology. Nothing can replace the agency of the human person and the responsibility of human freedom - weak and embattled though it may be. This may all seem impossible in a world misshapen in so many other ways, but we must take heart, turn to the God who makes us exist, acknowledge God as the Mystery who moves our hearts, and then do the best we can. (Christians should know that Jesus is with us in this work, which is a work of mercy - both in relation to communication of the Gospel and the temporal good of this world in which we live here and now, which He loves and wherein our love - united with Him - sows the seeds of transfiguration.)

I would also like to progress far enough in my East Asian Studies Project that I can at least become familiar with the people who are “bridges” between East and West, and also between the ancient traditions and the current realities of Asian life and cultures during these unpredictable, changing, explosive times. I hope to be able to pass on some research (bibliographic if nothing else) that will help others to go further. This work is vital for a genuine globally inculturated “new evangelization.” It is also vital for the future of the world. Mutual ignorance is no longer an option.

I have always loved the Chinese people, and admired the many heights their classical humanism attained over the course of the centuries. I also have a very personal reason for wanting-to-understand-more, but I’ll tell that story another day. The odyssey of Chinese and Asian immigrants to the West, and their great hardships and quiet dignity, remain largely unknown by Westerners. When I was a boy I was much closer to a living experience of this story than I ever knew … and books and memoirs by others about their immigrant childhoods that I have recently read have reawakened in my mind and heart questions regarding things I never understood about my best friend in school: a brilliant, humble, jovial, articulate, amazingly talented Chinese-American guy. He was someone I really trusted, and something of a role model for me from Elementary School up to High School.

Yet I didn't know much about his life at home. He and his family were Evangelical Christians, and were serious about their faith. He had a couple of younger brothers, but I can't remember their names. I met his parents several times, but they spoke almost no English. I never knew when or why his parents came to the USA. I knew nothing about their work, or where they lived, or what financial position they held. He didn't talk about these things (in his perfect English); and when you're a kid there are lots of other things to talk about. We talked about serious things too: science, music, history, religion. We were both oddballs because we liked school and we excelled.

I never understood how - when we were 16 years old - what seemed at first like an ordinary illness for him became the awful tragedy that remains one of the great scars of my adolescence. I may never learn the answers, but I know now what I didn't know then, that so many of his people faced such immense challenges when they came to the USA. Many had fled horrific events in China, and accepted the lowest places and the most humiliating conditions so that their American-born children could succeed and have a better life. Their tenuous predicament at home was carefully hidden at school. I don't know if my friend was in any situation like this, but there were definitely Asian kids like him among our generation who were at the top of their class at school, but after school they would go to work in illegal sweat shops, and then do their homework at night in deplorable living conditions.

We never knew about this. Did my best friend die because he didn't have access to adequate medical care? In any case, I still can't make any sense of what happened, and I'll probably never know. But I want to know more in general about his people and their tragic, heroic suffering.

Asia: so much suffering. But, of course, we live in a world of suffering. I must remember to bear with hope, and to offer with love, the very small suffering that God allows to afflict me so that I might grow a little in love. I’m terribly impatient. Lord, grant that I persevere.

One reason that I persist in my study of China is out of loyalty to my friend from long ago. That, however, is not the only reason. Let me return now to my resume of future academic projects.

Regarding religious and theological topics, there are various possibilities. I have already written a lot of reflections on feast days and the spiritually rich variety of Collect prayers throughout the liturgical year in the Roman rite. I have an outline for a project to edit Patristic texts in a way that allows people to pray and meditate on the the testimony of the Fathers. I’m considering publishing in book form some (perhaps all) of the “conversion stories” I have written in my column, if nothing else to make them more accessible in a single source. Or, I may pick one story, or a few related stories, and expand on them in a book. There is much more to be said about so many of these people, and I already have drafts that I had to cut significantly in order to make the final article concise and within the limits of two pages. I could go on and on about “possibilities” in this realm, but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. Let’s first see what actually gets done.

O Lord, grant that I might remember that my aim is not more achievements, or diversions, or passing time in amiable comfort, or even being useful or “helpful” according to the way I perceive such things. I will gladly accept such things, and work in whatever way I can, for as long as I can… but (I pray that I will do so) with serenity and trust in God, free from useless anxiety or brooding over my own faults and limits. My aim, each day, is to live for the glory of Christ in whatever circumstances He places me. It is a daily work to remember that this is why I live and breathe, that this alone encompasses all other endeavors, successes, failures, joys, and sorrows in this world. Jesus, have mercy on me.

The “Wondrous” Beginning of Our Redemption

Here is the Collect Prayer for January 5, which is the “Twelfth Day of Christmas,” the eve of the celebration of the Epiphany in the universal Roman calendar (in the USA and some other places, it is transferred to the nearest Sunday).

Thus, we continue to say, “Merry Christmas Season!”🎄⭐️ 

God has come to save us and to dwell with us because He loves us immensely. Because He is with us, we can find joy even in the midst of our present sorrows and afflictions.

“He Loved Us and Sent His Son…”

“God is love. 

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 

“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

~ 1 John 4:8-12 

The 30th Anniversary of My 29th Birthday 🎉

The second day of the year has been my own personal “new-years-day” for… well… a long time; in fact, ever since I was born. It was 1963, which seems like antiquity to many people today. Indeed, so much has changed in the world at large (and in the small world of my immediate and extended family). So much has changed for me.

It’s in one way shocking for me that thirty years have passed since I noted briefly in my journal - on January 2, 1992 - that I was 29 years old. I was about to begin my last semester of graduate school as a lay student with the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, the Dominican college on the campus of the Catholic University of America. At the time, I was regarded as quite the “budding intellectual prospect” with lots of creative ideas and a brilliant mind. The future stretched before me. It seemed so vast, so full of possibilities, such a promising realm wherein I was sure to make my mark and accomplish great things. I was 29 and I was "moving up" in my world. I still had big dreams.

Now those thirty years stretch behind me. In the material and circumstantial sense, things turned out totally different than any thing I expected (insofar as it is even possible to “expect” how one’s own life will unfold through various stages). It has not been thirty years of published academic books, articles, lecture tours, accolades, and making friends with people in high places. I have published a couple of books, a few articles, and eight years worth of monthly columns on “conversion stories” for a widely-circulated Catholic magazine. At least I have some sense that the small amount of what I have published has been worthwhile. Perhaps it is just as well that I have been hindered from unleashing too many words on the world.

Not that any of this was my main aspiration during the course of these past thirty years. In any case, other circumstances took priority: like getting married, having five children, raising them; working to solidify the foundations of a still-relatively-new Catholic liberal arts university in the Shenandoah Valley, teaching lots of classes and students, wearing different administrative hats, working too hard while neglecting my health in this beautiful, tick-infested countryside until Lyme Disease and other issues brought about a midlife physical and mental collapse that necessitated early “retirement.” There’s a book all about that (see Never Give Up: My Life and God's Mercy, Servant, 2010) and the ongoing story fills eleven years of this blog.

Thirty years. Children who were not yet born are now grown up. We are grandparents. A new rhythm is taking hold, as the house becomes emptier and quieter (except when everyone comes over, which is fine too). I hope I’m ready for whatever this new period of life brings. It may be a very brief period. Death is not unknown to cut these so-called “golden years” short. I hope this doesn’t happen, mostly because I feel that I’m still called to be with Eileen and the kids for a bit longer. Josefina is still only 15 years old. But death may come, and I can only trust in God.

If I live out another era of days, they will not be easy ones. Perhaps I may finish a few projects (more on that soon). I will ponder many things. I will pray for the younger generations. I would love to see all my kids grown and established on their vocational paths, and get to know my grandchildren. I know that grandparents can be a special presence in the lives of their grandchildren, and receive much joy from them (I saw both of these realities at work with my own parents and our kids, and I’m so grateful that they had that whole season of life - for them and for the kids too). 

Lately, the family always tease me that (given my recent “East Asian Studies”) I inevitably find a way to bring up China in every conversion. So, here I go: the Chinese (historically) saw the togetherness of “three generations” as a great blessing. There was no small insight in this observation. Chinese sages also referred to the span of a human life as “36,000 Days” … and I ran the numbers and found that to be something like 98 years. Few of them ever lived that long, so (in my ignorance) I’m going to assume that’s a symbolic number. I’m not looking to get that far. I pray that I can live well and at peace, one day at a time, for the measure of days that God wills in His infinite wisdom and goodness. Hmmm... well, I wish I were more stable in such an attitude. The fact is, I worry about dying. Of course! But I pray that I might live with trust in the Lord. I still have to keep asking Him for that trust, with hope that I will grow in trust according to His plan.

If I live the fullness of my elder years, and if my health permits, I want to go back to Rome someday with Eileen. If it’s just us, we can take our time and rest when we need it. We can see vistas again, pray at Saint Peter’s tomb, walk around, sit in the parks, eat cheese and panini and drink wine and read poetry. Maybe meet the Pope again (who knows who will be Pope by then, but perhaps they’ll have a special audience for “old people”😉). Maybe see old friends. We would have to pace ourselves pretty slowly (I would, at least). We haven’t been to Rome in 25 years but every inch of it is still “our city.” Three of the kids have been there since, but we threw those coins in the Trevi fountain for us. May God grant it.

In any case, I pray that I might live each day - day by day - for the glory of God’s infinite love, revealed and given through Jesus Christ whose birth we continue to celebrate.

And yes, I want to note that we finally “celebrated” the family Christmas… on the same day as my birthday.

This Christmas Season, we’ve also experienced vividly how “you never stop being a parent” even for your adult children. Agnese began feeling sick with a variety of symptoms in mid-December. She tested negative for Covid, and decided to come “home” (i.e. our home) to convalesce. But she didn’t improve, and further tests revealed possible internal organ problems. She was in the hospital for over a week, and the staff worked to stabilize symptoms and make extensive further tests. She finally came home New Years Eve, and is feeling better every day. Nevertheless she still needs to take certain medications, and doctors are still monitoring her condition and trying to understand what brought on her illness and whether it involves any systemic chronic issues. We would appreciate prayers for her health.

But she’s back home and everyone is happy about that and hopes she won’t need more hospital odysseys. Meanwhile, January 2nd was a Sunday this year, “Epiphany Sunday” in the USA. Everyone came over and we wrapped presents and opened them and had a lovely dinner together. I didn’t get a family picture. I don’t think those are going to happen at Christmastime anymore: there are too many of us and we are too big to fit in (I know that larger families get it done, but they must be more organized than we are).

I got a few “sneaky pics” - they don’t read this blog so they’ll never know, haha.😉 I can share a few below. What I enjoyed most was just being together with everyone. It was the best birthday gift I could have hoped for. “Three generations together” is a blessing indeed.

A New Year, A “Marvelous Exchange”

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2022.🤓🍷

And Merry Christmas Day Eight, the Octave of Christmas Week, dedicated to Mary the Mother of Jesus, the Theotokos, Mother of God, Mother of the Word who became flesh in her womb, whose birth we continue to celebrate. 

[Image: Coptic Ethiopian icon of the Nativity]