Moonrise, Sunset

The moon was rising in the evening sky, before darker clouds moved in, colored all along the horizon by the subtle reflected glow of the setting sun.

Here are two photographs and a piece of digital artwork.

My Granddaughter is a Toddler!

 Here’s the latest “Papa and Maria” picture. Look how pretty she is!

Maria is getting smarter every day. She knows lots of words, sings songs, counts, tries to imitate Jojo in Irish Dancing, and loves to have books read to her. She is sweet and cheerful (unless, of course, she doesn’t get her way☺️). She had a good attention span; here she is playing with an “educational toy” (not exactly a Montessori activity, but similar).

We celebrated her birthday while Lucia and Mike were visiting from New Jersey. Two years of Maria spreading joy through our whole family! May God continue to bless her for many many years!

Saint James, Apostle and Martyr

Happy Feast of Saint James the Apostle! 

Saint James, the brother of Saint John and the son of Zebedee, was the leader of the church in Jerusalem and the first of “the Twelve” to suffer martyrdom. 

He was beheaded around 44 a.d., and the event is recounted in the New Testament: "King Herod laid hands upon some members of the church to harm them. He had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword" (Acts 12:2).

Today’s first reading is appropriate for this feast. The words of Saint Paul regarding the fruitfulness of the suffering of his own Apostolic ministry certainly apply to the blood shed by Saint James in Jerusalem nearly two thousand years ago. From the Holy Land (a land of too much conflict down the centuries even to the present day) to the Shrine of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain on the threshold of the Atlantic Ocean (a place of pilgrimage for centuries which claims some of his relics) to the whole world of every place and time (to which he and his companions were originally commissioned to witness to Jesus Christ), Saint James’s witness and suffering continue to bear fruit, accompanied by the constant solicitude of his intercession.

“We hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

“So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since, then, we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written—‘I believed, therefore I spoke,’— we too believe and therefore speak, knowing that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and place us with you in his presence. Everything indeed is for you, so that the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:7-15).

“The Hills of July” (ongoing project)

This should be easy, but it’s not. 

Digital art technology (along with lots of literally “manual” labor) plus an overactive imagination have me obsessing over these old Blue Ridge mountains with their range of bright and dark hues that vary in sun, haze, clouds, and ominous approaching thunderstorms.

Anyway, I’m not playing games here, but trying to discover and work with the genuine artistic possibilities within these most recent developments in “new media.” They seem to be changing from one day to the next. I’m sure that I’m barely scratching the surface of this wildly manipulative explosion of visual technique.

Here are “the Hills of July” in all the varieties I’ve been working on. I’ll continue to put more pictures here, if I do any more on this theme. I’m not adding comments. That would go on forever. Let’s all just look:

Mary Magdalene: “A New Creation”

“The love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Consequently, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh; even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer. So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (Corinthians 5:14-17).

So we read on this feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, “apostle to the apostles,” who encountered the Risen Jesus in the “Garden” near His empty tomb. The love of the Risen Christ impelled her to announce this good news to the apostles, to proclaim the beginning of a New Creation.

Blooming in the Sun

Closeups from Summer in the neighborhood! Hibiscus bushes and other garden flowers bloom in July, in various shades. They are mostly native to East Asia but they thrive in North America. They are popular in tended gardens, but no one knows when they first “arrived” on these shores in their wild forms.

Asia and the Americas have had more interaction through the centuries than we realize.

Saint Bonaventure on Progress as “Renewal in Continuity”

The late Pope Benedict XVI drew much inspiration from the Augustinian theological tradition and had a special affection for Saint Bonaventure (Feast, July 15), writing his doctoral dissertation on Bonaventure’s theology of history. In the brief selection below from the second of three homilies on Saint Bonaventure in his series of Wednesday audiences devoted to Medieval Doctors of the Church, Pope Benedict emphasizes Bonaventure’s profound conviction that the life of the Church develops and grows even as it remains rooted in Jesus Christ and His Gospel as handed on from the Apostles.

Saint Bonaventure saw that the charism of his teacher Saint Francis of Assisi represented a new “moment” in the history of the Church. Nevertheless, it did not represent a break with the past, but rather a coherent unfolding of the inner vitality of Christian faith and life. One might say—as Pope Benedict often emphasized regarding the Church today—that it was a moment of “renewal in continuity.” Bonaventure viewed the rise of the mendicant orders as a deepening of the Church’s own understanding of the “inexhaustible riches” of the revelation of God’s love given in Christ and handed on in the Church’s living tradition. The works of Christ “do not fail but progress” in the Church’s earthly pilgrimage through history in union with His fullness.

Here Pope Benedict summarizes the great thirteenth century Saint’s approach to the conflicts he faced as Minister General of the rapidly growing Franciscan order in its still-early days:

“Jesus Christ is God's last word—in him God said all, giving and expressing himself. More than himself, God cannot express or give. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. Christ himself says of the Holy Spirit: ‘He will bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you’ (John 14:26), and ‘he will take what is mine and declare it to you’ (John 16:15). Thus there is no loftier Gospel, there is no other Church to await. Therefore the Order of St Francis too must fit into this Church, into her faith and into her hierarchical order.

“This does not mean that the Church is stationary, fixed in the past, or that there can be no newness within her. ‘Opera Christi non deficiunt, sed proficiunt’: Christ's works do not go backwards, they do not fail but progress, the Saint said in his letter De Tribus Quaestionibus. Thus St Bonaventure explicitly formulates the idea of progress and this is an innovation in comparison with the Fathers of the Church and the majority of his contemporaries. 

“The Franciscan Order of course as he emphasized belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ, to the apostolic Church, and cannot be built on utopian spiritualism. Yet, at the same time, the newness of this Order in comparison with classical monasticism was valid and St Bonaventure…defended this newness against the attacks of the secular clergy of Paris: the Franciscans have no fixed monastery, they may go everywhere to proclaim the Gospel. It was precisely the break with stability, the characteristic of monasticism, for the sake of a new flexibility that restored to the Church her missionary dynamism.”

~Pope Benedict XVI (General Audience, March 10, 2010)

“Summer Skies”

Here’s a work of digital art by JJStudios: a breath of cool air for your mind on these warm buggy July evenings.

Christina Grimmie and the YouTube Creative Revolution

There are so many dimensions of Christina Grimmie’s life that I have grown to know and love over the past seven years, as anyone who reads these “almost-monthly” tributes knows. But sometimes I forget to express sufficiently my appreciation for the fundamental talent—the gift, the “genius”—that pervaded her life, that she developed with relentless dedication, that first drew the support of her frands from every corner of the earth, and that continues to amaze and astonish me afresh every time I see and hear it.

The simple facts are: Christina was a brilliant and creative musician and songwriter, a groundbreaking, innovative, and charismatic performing artist, and—above all—a great singer. But she also had the singular distinction of putting all of this into a “package” and communicating it through a new form of media when that interactive audiovisual media platform was still young and malleable, when its possibilities were still being discovered and invented.

YouTube was (and remains) the largest and most flexible “space” for the ongoing revolution that is flipping the whole dynamic of the relationship between the viewer and the screen—a dynamic that had dominated audiovisual media for half a century, which for my generation (the “late boomers” who never knew a world without ubiquitous TV) spanned our whole lives. It was like people hardly noticed the change as it was taking place. They started “watching” YouTube, and soon discovered that they could comment on the videos by opening their own YouTube account, and this account empowered them to post their own videos if they wanted to. Even if the vast majority of people remained “viewers” and didn’t “broadcast” their own videos to what rapidly became a global public audience, they could not avoid realizing that a new horizon had been opened. 

In the first decade of the 21st century YouTube turned every viewer into a potential broadcaster. After 50 years of “watching TV,” it took me some time to realize that, suddenly, I had been invested with my own personal television station with the potential to reach anyone in the world… for free! Like most people, I didn’t have the skill or the time to make much use of it. But the younger generation adapted spontaneously and began to produce innovative content. YouTube—almost “accidentally,” without anyone realizing what was happening—connected creative people to the whole world in a way that was unprecedentedly simple and inexpensive. It was so easy to share videos on YouTube that kids could do it. So, they did.

Mostly, they did it for fun. Some also daydreamed wildly of being “discovered” by a rich and famous entertainment-industry-“gatekeeper,” taken under his or her patronage, and launched into superstardom. It was still a crazy dream 15 years ago, but it did seem slightly less impossible than before.

The daydream of being discovered—in itself—was an old and inextinguishable daydream in the minds of generations of youth. My band mates and I “dreamed” in the ‘70s of being “discovered” and becoming famous. Both myself and my fellow guitarist could take turns shredding epic leads (actually, we were pretty good). But none of us could sing. If only we’d had a “Christina Grimmie” at our high school! But it wasn’t meant to be, and in any case none of us were sufficiently driven by our daydreams in this regard. We were happy enough having a nerd-fest pouring over the latest music equipment catalogues and “dreaming” of owning a stack of Marshall amps and all the latest sound-altering gadgets. 

After my own youth had passed, I continued to pay attention to the music scene, and I noticed the increased possibilities of sharing music through recorded media: quality cassette recording made “demo tapes” possible, and video tapes widened the sphere wherein one could seek an audience. Tapes could be copied and distributed through the mail. A simple demo tape might catch the attention of a person with bigger “connections” who might get it to a music manager who might pass it around until, maybe, an A&R developer at one of the many record labels in the vastly enlarged music industry took an interest in it. This could lead to a recording contract and, with determination and a lot of luck, eventual superstardom… which was the only way to spread your music around the world and build a global base of committed fans who appreciated and supported it.

Worldwide popular music success was necessarily linked to celebrity status, with all the vainglory, pressures, expectations, anxieties, isolation, and self-alienating and destructive behavior this status frequently entailed. Music needed new outlets, new ways expression that enabled the artist to remain in control of his or her craft.

Although I took up the teaching and academic profession and it remains the primary focus of my professional activities, I have also been immersed for most of my life in many facets of music. I have been on both sides of the stage in concerts of diverse genres. I was classically trained on the cello, and taught myself electric and acoustic guitar. I learned to read musical notation and wrote instrumental music (and I’m trying to revive those efforts). I have also participated in the tremendous expansion of media and technology for musical performance and recording that has taken place during the span of my own lifetime. From “stereophonic” vinyl records to cassettes to CDs to iPods to Spotify and streaming audio, from “concert films” and documentaries to multi-camera-angle television broadcasts to MTV to concert DVDs of outstanding quality, from basic musical instruments (which in themselves are the fruit of centuries of craft and technical refinement) to analogue electronic augmentation (I had a “transducer” in the 1970s to amplify my cello) and the complex, huge, and amazing versatility of the analogue Synthesizer (1960s-70s) to the increasing sophistication and digital transformation of the portable electronic keyboard… I could go on and on…

In any case, I knew that the outlets for musical creativity (and other forms of creativity) were bound to expand in the wild explosion of interconnectedness that the internet was spreading like fire in the global village. We were already seeing this phenomenon (with regard to the written word) in social media as the years passed in first decade of the 21st century. Blogs were everywhere. I began blogging in 2006, although my early ventures didn’t last. This present blog, however, has endured. 

But I was blindsided by YouTube. When it first appeared, it seemed like just another way to watch videos. By the time my adolescent kids started showing me what was happening with YouTube creators, it had already been going on for some time and already had established artists. Only in retrospect did I see how it all began and how it grew.

Mainstream highly-produced music videos by pop stars grabbed most of the attention of music audiences and got the most “views” in the beginning—for that matter, they still do today. But people began to post their own videos, playing music and singing from their own bedrooms (and, sometimes, bathrooms—because of the superior acoustics there). This often began with the sense that only a small circle of friends would be watching them sing cover songs karaoke-style. But from the beginning, remarkably talented people stood out and drew larger audiences. At first, YouTubers were as surprised as everyone else to see their videos “take off,” to get encouragement and comments from people from distant places, and to accumulate more views than they ever imagined possible.

Among these creative pioneers was a 15-year-old girl from Marleton, New Jersey, named Christina Grimmie. In the Summer of 2009 she began recording cover songs in her room with a laptop and a webcam. What was rare about Christina from the start, however, was not only her singing quality but also the way she interpreted each song, arranging her own “stripped down” versions for piano and then accompanying herself live on her electronic keyboard. Even with relatively primitive recording equipment, Christina put enormous work into crafting performances that were perfect (or nearly perfect) from start to finish. Her agile, beautiful voice and her unique arrangements captivated people in those first days. I try to imagine how astonishing it must have been to go through a bunch of different videos and suddenly stumble upon this girl expertly playing her piano and singing like an angel songs that you had heard “on the radio” (or wherever) before but that you had never heard in the form Christina Grimmie had given them. She brought her own sense of beauty to the songs she played and sang in that room, in front of a poster of Sonic the Hedgehog.

She was a regular kid—with no promotion, no overhead, no tricks—creating beautiful new renditions of popular songs and broadcasting her videos directly on to your screen. I can only imagine what it must have been like to see her in those days, when the videos that (thankfully) we can still watch in her archives were posted fresh—for the first time—entirely unique in comparison to any of the other content surrounding them. It must have been a cause for wonder. It certainly inspired other young artists who came after her to take the risk of sharing their best music, to take the new media platform seriously, to “aim high” in their artistry.

Of course, it wasn’t long before Christina was noticed by people who could help her advance her music career in more conventional ways. She gained everyone’s attention in those few unforgettable weeks in 2014, on Season Six of The Voice (broadcast in the USA on “old-fashioned” network TV). Her singing became more expansive and more passionate as she gained experience and her voice began to mature, and as she expanded the repertoire of her own original songs. During those final two years, her music became more inspiring, comforting, thrilling, evocative, luminous, and soul-shaking. Still she stayed with her YouTube channel and continued her series of inimitable cover songs. She had frands all over the world, and met some of them face-to-face in tours and performances in Europe, Singapore, the Philippines, and the USA. Her voice and her talent were at the level of once-in-a-generation by the time she was 22 years old. I tremble when I imagine how great she might have become. For anyone who is an artist, or a human being, the awful tragedy of Christina Grimmie’s death seven years and one month ago is an enduring sorrow. We will not see or hear the likes of her again in these times (even if we are sustained by the hope to be with her again in God’s kingdom, where all sorrows will be turned to joy).

Still, she left a creative legacy that remains foundational for music and media in our time, and—undoubtedly—for the times to come.

The Story of “Young Saint Benedict”

On this beautiful July 11th—the feast of Saint Benedict—I knew I had more to offer than experiments with digital graphics or colorful renditions of the “proper prayers” for the liturgical celebration. I decided to reproduce the my column in Magnificat from March 2015 (more that eight years ago) on the “conversion” of Saint Benedict. As you will see, this is a different kind of “conversion,” as Benedict was raised a Catholic Christian and remained faithful to his baptism. This is the story of  Benedict’s deeper conversion—we might call it his “vocation story” (and every vocation prompts a more profound, interior conversion).

Saint Benedict’s “flight to the desert” was a radical response to a grace which he hardly understood at the beginning, but which began to be realized by his fidelity to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and the guidance from brothers in Christ to whom he was entrusted along the way.

The column is below. As you see, also, I did not neglect the JJStudios virtual workshop. I have rendered (above) a visual “interpretation” of Saint Benedict in his later years, when he was Abbot of the Monte Cassino. I also have placed today’s (very rich) proper prayers in colorful settings. Perhaps these efforts remotely approach something like “beauty” in the widest and most expansive analogical sense of the term.😉

Nevertheless, let me share the fruits of my own primary and professional labors, in the medium of words from my monthly column (which tells a new story every month from December 2013 to the present):

Indeed!

And here are the prayers for today:

Escalation in the Ukraine War: Can We Find “Paths of Peace”?

Some sectors of opinion have expressed frustration at Pope Francis because he doesn’t seem to be more “Pro-Ukraine” in the ongoing war. However, not only would such temporal partisanship serve no practical purpose. It would also hinder the Pope from carrying out his essential role for Christian peoples and for the whole world.

Francis has recognized that the Ukrainian people have a right to defend themselves. He has expressed his awareness of and solidarity with them in the immense suffering that has been inflicted upon them. He is not speaking here (see below) as a diplomat trying to broker some sort of inadequate compromise that ignores the requirements of “a just and stable peace.” As a Pastor, he must encourage peace because he knows that God will give the gift of peace to those who convert to Him and seek ways to love one another. The inherently reckless trajectory and desperation of intractable wars—especially modern technologically destructive wars—wreak havoc on a huge scale, radically destabilize the international order, tend to spiral out of control more and more, and sow the seeds of vengeance and resentment between peoples that lead to further wars. The Pope is therefore emphasizing that every morally possible means that might contribute to building peace must be given attention and consideration, in order to move toward bringing about a just and equitable conclusion to this conflict with its increasingly wanton and large-scale destruction. The explosion of the Nova Kakhovka dam, for example, has not only put homes and lands throughout the region underwater—see top picture—but it is also an environmental catastrophe much larger than many of us in the West appreciate. The time and cost (even the possibility!) of recovering the land for habitation and restoring its prior terrestrial vitality are incalculable. The fact that this was almost certainly the fault of Putin’s Russian forces cannot be forgotten (nor can anyone afford to ignore the danger that the massive Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant might be deliberately damaged—sending toxic radiation on west winds over Ukraine, Poland, Germany, and other parts of Europe in a disaster that would make 1986 Chernobyl look small by comparison). .

International law points to the duty to impose punishments, insofar as it is possible, on the perpetrators of these war crimes according to justice in the service of peace (not, however, as a tool for revenge by the victors). But wars often brings their own “rough justice” (or vengeance) against those who commit crimes within them. At present, it seems that Putin no longer has stable control over his own armies, especially the large “contract forces” of the Wagner group. Their recent march toward Moscow was not “defeated” but rather “called off” by Wagner’s own leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Wagner troops remain in their camps. If Putin is ultimately overthrown, he is likely to be replaced by someone more reckless and dangerous.

Meanwhile, wars are fought between human persons. Even the Russian leaders are persons. The Ukrainians are (and will be) challenged immensely by the need to look upon their enemies as persons—with the dignity they ineradicably possess as persons—even as the Ukrainians use military force in their efforts to liberate their country and rescue their own people. Only the grace of Christ can empower them to face this challenge and sustain this “inner non-violence” that is the radical foundation of true peace. And then there are Ukraine’s Western (undeclared) “allies,” some of whom want to avoid risking their own super-comfortable materialist-saturated lifestyles and choose instead to give Ukrainians weapons and money according to their own agendas; there are undoubtedly many agendas at work here—not in a conspiratorial way, but haphazardly—fraught with inner tensions and known only to those who are driven by them. Such is the dynamic of chaos, power, internal divisions, and alienation that results from “the idolatry of money.” As for our respecting the dignity of persons in this conflict and everywhere else in the world, we in the West need to resolve our own unprecedented level of confusion about human realities, our reductionist identity politics, our callow disregard for vulnerable and powerless people from whom we have nothing to gain for ourselves, and our bewildering hyper-excessive, thoughtless, heartless lifestyles, so that we can renew and cultivate our understanding of what it means to be a human person.

Human persons are suffering because of this war. Channels of dialogue between human persons must be sought out and opened up, however small they may be. So many circumstances in war are uncontrollable, and even those who strive to use force with justice and restraint to defend themselves need also to talk to persons who represent the other side. They must remember the humanity of the actual persons they fight—often helpless young conscripts—who are being used (even coerced) to do the dirty work of brutal and incompetent leaders. This is a heroic posture to maintain; it is a spirit of “inner non-violence” that must be held firmly even (especially!) when it becomes necessary to use external force. Modern warfare so easily loses the sense of restraint and honesty in the use of “proportionate means,” and pushes forward technological weapons that are designed to prioritize “efficiency” over respect for the human dignity of the adversary. That dignity must not be violated, even when the enemy doesn’t seem to deserve such respect. It remains a matter of honor for those who truly wish to serve their homeland by defending and rescuing their compatriots. When there is failure here, it should be followed by sorrow, humility, repentance, and a renewed dedication to the difficult task of loving one’s enemies even in the fight—to keep one’s honor and to be ready always to seek ways toward peace. 

The channels of dialogue must therefore remain open to the humanity of the others, with readiness to allow space for change, for repentance, for new perspectives, for a willingness to engage in honest conversation. They also must be ready for the possibility that suddenly “the other side” might be led by different persons with different aims. Their aims may remain violent, but their rationales, their grudges, their grievances, their personal and social wounds may be very different. Firm, frank, open-hearted dialogue is the only way to learn who these person are, on “the other side,” how they may be changing, and what new possibilities may open up. 

The point of dialogue is above all not negotiating compromise but building (however slowly and painfully) mutual understanding. It is a small, seemingly powerless “instrument” through which people can actively “love their enemies” and sow seeds for interpersonal relationships. This is not achieved by naïveté but by hard work that only God can make possible. Societies and cultures, as well as particular people, must not “return evil for evil,” but trust in God and work relentlessly to “overcome evil with good” (see Romans 12:17-21). Seeking true dialogue engages people in the works of mercy, and mercy is what is needed to bring fully human healing to war-torn places.

 

We all need to remember these things, even if there aren’t any easy answers for how to bring about a just peace. Vladimir Putin and his government unleashed this war, but all of us must seek peace, pray for peace, be converted for peace, make sacrifices for peace, and look beyond our own selfish interests for the sake of a peace that has any chance of being real.

Pope Francis says these words quoted below because they are true. And he is speaking not only to Russia, nor only to Russia and Ukraine, but to all of us in a world where we can no longer afford not to work together, where we must recognize one another as neighbors—brothers and sisters—even if we’d rather not. The possible dangers are too great for us to just wave banners and look upon this conflict like it’s a game (and be proud of ourselves for backing the “winner”).

Here are the Pope’s recent words: 

“All wars are in fact disasters, utter disasters: for peoples and families, for children and the elderly, for people forced to leave their country, for cities and villages, and for creation, as we have recently seen following the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam… The tragic reality of this apparently interminable war requires a common creative effort on the part of all to envision and create paths of peace, in view of a just and stable peace.

“What stands in the way of peace is ultimately the bitter root that we carry within us: greed, the selfish desire to pursue our own interests at the personal, community, national and even religious levels.

“The remedy is the conversion of hearts, renewing them with the love of the Father,” the Pope emphasized. The achievement of true peace requires “a gracious and universal love that is not confined to our own group.”

“How Many Fireflies?”

At nearly 9pm it’s still light. I’m not sure of the number. But there are more than we can see in this video. They are all around as it gets dusky.

Can you guess? Look closely!🙂

After Two Years, I Still Miss My Mom

Today marks the second anniversary of my mother’s death. We pray for her, entrusting her to the goodness and mercy of God. May the Lord Jesus give her eternal life.

I know that “in death, life is not ended, but changed.” My parents are nearer to me than I realize, yet with my eyes of this world I can’t see them, and my ears can’t hear them. I miss them in these days of the mysterious journey of my own life. 

Time is so fragile. I can’t see the new steps that lie before me. Sometimes I wish I could talk to my parents, to ask them how to grow old, how to let go, how to become simple. I move forward with a sense of obscurity, but also with hope. May the One who is Infinite Love embrace us all in his mercy.

A “Catholic Uncle” in the British Royal Family?

Not many people know that the world-famous man who will one day become King of England has an ancestor who is “on the path” to sainthood in the Catholic Church, who was declared “Venerable” in 2021.

The early 19th century conversion story of George Spencer (later known as Father Ignatius Spencer)—the youngest son of the 2nd Earl Spencer of the Althorp estate—is noteworthy for all people of England and the United Kingdom. Father Ignatius is the great-great-great-great uncle of William, current Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, a relation that passes through William’s mother, the late Princess Diana, daughter of the 8th Earl Spencer. Althorp in Northamptonshire is one of the most historically and culturally significant “Great Houses” of England, and the Spencers remain among England’s highest aristocratic families. In the first decade of the 19th century, George Spencer grew up in the same house that would be—in the latter part of the 20th century—the home of then-“Lady Diana Spencer” and the scene of her difficult childhood in a broken family. After her tragic death, she was buried on the estate in 1997.

Stay tuned to my monthly article series in Magnificat magazine for the remarkable details of this journey to the fullness of Catholic faith by Prince William’s ancestral uncle (coming to Great Conversion Stories in February 2024).

In thus introducing George (Ignatius) Spencer, I am not seeking to draw him into the whirlwind of cheap journalism that surrounds the British royal family, nor do I desire merely to scrutinize the pedigree of today’s largely symbolic British aristocracy. The Venerable Ignatius Spencer was profoundly dedicated to promoting prayer for Christian unity in his native land, and surely he continues to intercede for this great grace even to this day from his place within the Communion of Saints that unites us through all the generations of history. This is the fundamental basis of his significance, and of the value of his “story.”

Nevertheless, I am not one to neglect an apparent “coincidence” when it appears in the history of our faith. As someone who hopes and prays ardently that Anglicans and their rich Christian heritage will be drawn into full communion with the Catholic Church, I value any connection I can find that links the pioneers of the ongoing “Catholic movement” that began in the early 19th century with current British persons who hold exemplary ceremonial public offices. It was, after all, a King who separated England from Rome 500 years ago. It might seem like a miracle would be needed for the full conversion, renewal, and ecclesial reunion of the remnants of Anglican Christianity in today’s England. 

But I believe in miracles. And it doesn’t hurt to pray for them.

Saint Junipero Serra: Faithful to His Mission

July 1st is the feast day celebration of Saint Junipero Serra, who remains the patron saint of California and one of the crucial saints for all the people of the United States of America, even (perhaps especially) for those who have slandered and attacked him in recent years.

Father Serra is a saint; we know this from the Holy Spirit’s guarantee that insures the veracity of a formal canonization by the Church. Certainly, Father Serra was a man shaped by his times and constrained by the limitations of the evangelizing methods available to him in 18th century Spanish America. But this only makes his heroic dedication to the spiritual and temporal welfare of the indigenous peoples more remarkable. 

In spite of a painful physical disability that made him virtually lame, Serra traveled thousands of miles on foot up and down the coast and the mountains from San Diego to the Bay Area during the last 14 years of his life (1770-1784), establishing mission communities, serving his people, and defending them tirelessly against the powers of the military forces and the colonists who would have otherwise pushed the natives to the ground without a thought. 

Becoming a saint does not mean never making mistakes, or always enacting miraculously visionary judgments and having perfect solutions to every complicated problem. Father Serra knew he was a sinner, but he had a passion for the glory of Christ and he allowed the grace of the Holy Spirit to transform him by leading him from the comforts of his home and his university professorship in Mallorca to serve Christ in His poor brothers and sisters on the other side of the world. He became a saint by persevering in following Christ and fulfilling his vocation, with a humility that the millions who have come to California in the past two centuries and live from the wealth of its land would do well to admire.

Our family made many journeys to the California Missions in our younger days, when we visited Eileen’s parents in California. But it’s been eleven years since the last time we all traveled to California together—eleven years since the last time I was there. I miss California! The tall redwoods and the dry sea air always seemed to rejuvenate me.

Saint Junipero Serra no doubt continues to have a special solicitude for the people who live in California today: such multitudes of people—the few remaining descendants of the indigenous inhabitants (many of whom continue to foster their own historical identity in relation to the Missions that were homes to their forebears) as well as Anglos, Hispanics, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and others whose ancestors came (or have come themselves) from all over the world—and with every one of them in need of the Gospel and the experience of a new encounter with the love of God in Jesus Christ.

“Images of June 2023”

Images of June 2023 by JJStudios.

Saint Irenaeus: The Harmonious Melody of Creation

Today is the feast of the great Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Doctor of the Church from the late second century. His response to the gnostic heresies of the time resulted in more than a polemic. It articulated a profound early theology of the Trinity, the creation of the world by God, and the reality of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.

Here is a text of Saint Irenaeus that I would like to share for today’s feast:

“Created things, in their great number and diversity, fit beautifully and harmoniously into the creation as a whole. And yet, when viewed individually, they appear discordant and opposed to each other, just as the sound of the lute makes a single harmonious melody out of many and opposite notes by means of the intervals between them. The lover of truth must not be deceived, therefore, by the interval between the different notes, nor imagine that this note was the work of one artist and author, and that note due to another… He must not forget that one and the same Artist was responsible for the wisdom, justice, goodness, and munificence of the whole work. And those who listen to the melody ought to praise and glorify the Artist, and admire the tension of some notes, appreciate the relaxation in others, enjoy the moderation of those between the two extremes… Recalling that some things are symbols, they will consider what it is that each thing points to and what causes it. But they will never alter the rule, nor stray from the Artist, nor abandon faith in the one God who made all things, nor blaspheme our Creator. When someone fails to find the cause of all that he is investigating, he should recall that man is infinitely inferior to God. Man, you are not uncreated, and you have not existed from eternity with God, as His own Word has done. No, by His overflowing goodness you received the beginning of your existence, and have gradually learned from the Word the dispositions of the God who made you.”

~Saint Irenaeus, Against the Heresies II:25 (2-4)

The “Golden Rule” Challenges Us

“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

Here we have quite a succinct statement from Jesus regarding how we should treat one another. We know from other statements (see e.g. Matthew 22:36-40) that Jesus preaches the intrinsic and inseparable relationship between the love of God (“the greatest and the first commandment”) and the love of neighbor as one’s self (the “second” commandment, which is “like” the first). Later, in His final teaching to His disciples, Jesus reveals the profundity of this integration: “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

We are challenged to get up every morning and go forth and really love our neighbors, to actually care about the people who are given to us within the fabric of daily life with an attention and affection that corresponds to how we regard ourselves. This is much harder than we imagine it to be. Still, most of us try to fool ourselves into thinking we’re “pretty good” at it. But we’re not.

The good news is that Jesus has loved us first. His love empowers us to grow in love for one another, if we remember Him, if we ask Him for His mercy, if we live from His love, trusting in His love.

Jesus says, “Love One Another”—Do We Listen to Him?

We Catholic Christians are called to live in communion, to regard one another as brothers and sisters. By His death and resurrection, Jesus has reconciled us to the Father and made us His brothers and sisters—called to live a new life, the hope of eternal life that begins to transform us here and now by the power of the Holy Spirit who enables us to love God and to love one another. 

But does this reality make any difference in our understanding of who we are and how we live our lives?

All too often, we judge the significance of our daily lives not according to Christ’s redeeming love, but rather according to the dominant mentality of our society and its conflicting ideologies. We conceive of ourselves as radically alone and “autonomous,” with the power to pick and choose who we want to be according to our own preferences. We control our relationships with others according to our own measure. Perhaps because we are Christians we recognize that we are supposed to share our lives in some sort of fashion. So we gather together to worship God, and maybe we try to "help" one another every so often. But ultimately we go back to our own inner shells, to being alone.

Or perhaps we belong to a “group” that affirms our ideas and engages in activism on behalf of good causes. Yet even this way of being "together” can easily degenerate into a dialectic of loneliness and invasiveness, in which we inevitably clash with one another, engage in power struggles, or distance ourselves from one another. We hold on—radically—to our self-definitions, our inner walls, our self-determined limits, our places of hiding.

Even if we wear our “Catholicism” large and loud, and conceive of ourselves as courageous defenders of the truth, we can still end up isolated, alienated, unhappy, loveless, and alone. This happens insofar as we forget about Jesus, insofar as we forget about the Holy Spirit. This forgetfulness can happen even when there's lots of talk about Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the Church and the Eucharist and the sacraments and community and the dignity of the human person and all the rest. It's easy to "domesticate" these words into our vocabulary and forget about the mysterious, intimate, concrete realities they signify.

We need Jesus. He is present, drawing us to Himself, calling us to follow Him. We need to recognize our total, complete dependence on Him. We need to allow His Spirit to move our hearts and open us up to the wisdom of the God who at this very moment is the Source of our very selves, and who alone generates our true identity and capacity for fulfillment in freedom and love. Otherwise we will remain imprisoned in the darkness of our own solitude, and our efforts to be together will fail, resulting only in superficial groups offering temporary distraction from our loneliness or belligerent partisan entities that try to “fix society” but only end up contributing to its whirlwind of violence.

It’s important, of course, that we help one another discern what is right and what is wrong. But it’s easy to reduce the Church in our own minds to nothing more than a fraternal organization for moral improvement. Is that enough? Do you want to belong to a group of people who just correct your behavior and call you “brother” or “sister,” but forget the real Jesus, and therefore don't really, actively love you? That's not the life of the Church. That's manipulation. That's the dynamic of a fundamentalist sect. It's just another form of power imposing itself upon the weak.

Without Jesus emptying Himself on the cross out of love for sinners, for each one of us, for every human person, without Jesus and His love to the end... what are we? Nothing!

With Him, and depending completely on Him, trusting in Him, we really live the mystery of the Church. We are His presence in the world. This is our vocation, and this is what He wants so ardently, for us and for others, because He wants to love. We have to turn to Jesus (again and again) and beg Him to renew this vocation in each one of ourselves, our families, and our friends. We have to beg that the Holy Spirit will make this new life grow in us, change us, transform us—taking up all the weakness and the fear, opening up all the selfishness.

When we talk about our relationships within the Church, we use these terms: "brothers and sisters" and "members of a body." Why? Are we just being nice? Why these metaphors, or even better, are they just metaphors? The Church is our Mother. Baptism is a new birth. In the Eucharist, Jesus is substantially present—body, blood, soul, and divinity—because He wants to be with us, He wants to stay with us, He wants the infinite love of His redemptive sacrifice to nourish us and build us up in this new life of communion with God and with one another. Jesus has made us brothers and sisters and more, members of His "mystical" body (and "mystical" means real, but in a mysterious way beyond our understanding). Thus incorporated into Christ's body, we are members of one another.

We are Christ’s light in the world only if we love one another as He has loved us. We are called to live this witness to Him so that others may encounter Him through us and discover the healing and transforming love He has for each of them and for every human person.

Celebrating 27 Years of Marriage

Some important anniversaries are approaching in the coming weeks and over the course of the Summer. I begin by saying “Happy 27th Wedding Anniversary” to my beloved wife, Eileen Janaro!

Our Suffering Gives Us Compassion For One Another

Here’s a vlog from beautiful Virginia after 8:30 PM on a June evening. It’s nice to enjoy what still seems to be unusually cool air for this time of year. Please forgive my slow speech; I’m not feeling very well lately, but the “brain fog” hasn’t been too dense (still, I’m frustrated with the way it slows me down).

Eh… It’s not so bad. A small thing. The whole world is burdened and heavy-laden with so many different kinds of suffering in body and in spirit. We can offer our small pains in union with Christ’s Heart, and help one another in ways  beyond anything we know. We can also stand as mysterious instruments of Christ’s saving love, remembering Him and crying out to Him on behalf of those who do not understand their suffering, those who are at war within themselves, those who inflict pain on themselves and others, those who are desperate and discouraged and in darkness. We all know something of what it’s like to be in that kind of pain because we are all sinners.

May the infinite mercy of God transform every kind of human anguish into prayer, into a cry that recognizes itself (by His grace) as an expression of our total need for Him. In this recognition we discover everything else—our own need for healing and forgiveness, our need for reconciliation, our need to make peace with our brothers and sisters and look upon them with compassion.

I Still Miss My Dad

Dear Dad, after four years I still miss you. May the Lord receive you into His glorious embrace. Help me to be strong and loving to my own family and all those entrusted to me. #FathersDay

Ultimately, I’m full of gratitude. We had a happy Father’s Day. I was blessed to be surrounded by my family, including this “little muffin.”☺️

I look forward in hope to that Day when we will all be together, forever, with the One who is the Father of us all, in a New Creation where every tear will be wiped away…