Something Greater Than This World

July 11 is the Feast of St. Benedict.

St. Benedict was a man who went off into the desert in search of God. He sought to dedicate himself to God alone.

He had no project.

He did not plan to establish a monastery.

He did not plan to found a religious order.

He did not plan to lay the foundations for the Christian civilization of the Middle Ages.

He did not plan the preservation of classical learning and culture.

He did not plan to feed the poor, care for the sick, found schools, or become a counselor to the great and powerful.

He sought only to give himself to God. He found God in the desert. He found Him in silence and prayer. He also found Him in obedience, which for Benedict meant responding to the little things that God gave him. It meant loving God in those first followers who sought him out. It meant helping them to live together as brothers. It meant writing his directives down, as a rule "for beginners."

Silence, prayer, obedience, humility, love. These are still the things that really matter. These are the things that build up the heart of the Church. But we must acknowledge all of God's gifts: it is also this radical self-forgetfulness of love for Christ that builds up the world. St. Benedict was not aware of this, but God used him nonetheless, and for centuries in the West he has been known as the "Father of Europe." By seeking God after his example and according to his rule, Benedict's followers would also change the history of the world. Benedictine monasteries rose out of the ruins of the Latin Roman Empire, preserved and fostered all that was good from antiquity, and inspired and helped shape the institutions of the new peoples who built Western Europe's Christian culture.

Our world today may be on the threshold of a new dark age. Are there, even now in our midst, the "St. Benedicts" whose prayer and sacrifice are sowing the seeds of a new Christendom in the future? Or is this not in some way the calling of each of us? We must go into the desert of daily life, in this world which cannot but be a world of sorrows because we are not yet in the embrace of the God for whom we have been made. We must go into the desert of our hearts that are so distracted, and we must cry out for His mercy and healing. We must live in the midst of a world that has tried to make God absent, that has obscured the signs of His presence, and we must seek Him and stand with Him as He unites Himself to humans in their loneliness.

This is what makes the world a better place: knowing that we are made for Something greater than this world, and letting that "Something" touch us in the midst of this world and shape our way of looking at everything.

The Icon of St. Benedict is by Lu Bro:
http://www.bridgebuilding.com/narr/lbben.html

Three Thousand Hits

Derek Jeter got his 3000th hit today. It's a great day.

Perhaps I should explain first, for those who don't know anything about baseball. 3000 hits is an outstanding achievement in a baseball career. Only 27 players have ever reached this milestone. And Derek Jeter is the first Yankee to do it.

The Yankees are known for many things. They are the most winning team in the history of organized sports. They have fielded legendary teams since the 1920s. And almost every decade has had one or more standout players who have represented the franchise: Babe Ruth in the 20s and 30s, Joe DiMaggio in the 30s and 40s, Mickey Mantle in the 50s and 60s, Reggie Jackson in the 70s, Don Mattingly in the 80s, and for the past two decades, Derek Jeter. These men have stood as heroes to generations of kids, and introduced those kids into a world of play that they would inhabit mentally and emotionally all their lives, long after they became adults and their physical capacity to play the game had past. The same thing could be said for many athletes in many different sports.

I love almost all sports, and tried my hand at many of them in my youth, but I want to talk about baseball because it is the one I love best, and the one I understand most "from the inside." Baseball has a particular hold on its fans because of its rhythms and its variations of possibility, because of the way it marks the seasons of the year, because of the patience that it cultivates over a six month season of daily games, because of its multitude of statistics, because of the unique atmosphere of the ballpark--convivial, pastoral, leisurely, but then gradually building or suddenly bursting into intensity. Its ardent spectators are not being "entertained" passively; they are participants in the action in a vital way--whether at the ballpark or through the media of television or radio--they are engaged in that mysterious and essential human activity called "play". In the final analysis, play does not need to be justified. It is one of the fundamental ways that human beings enter into relationship with reality. It is a modality of knowing and loving, and in its proper place it is right and good and fruitful of many things.

My son and I root for the Washington Nationals (which are his "home team"), but the Yankees will always have a special place in my heart. I was born in New York and discovered baseball growing up in the Bronx. The first games I attended were at Yankee Stadium. The Pinstripes will always have a symbolic significance for me beyond what I can articulate.

There is too much money and too much pressure in baseball today, just like in the rest of professional sports. It has become an oversized monstrosity of a spectacle, just like the grotesque, bloated society that engenders it. Many say that the Yankees, who are today perhaps the largest sports corporation on earth, are the epitome of everything that is wrong with sports. I expect that an investigation of Yankee Corporation would reveal many unseemly things beyond the ones that are in plain sight. Nevertheless, the Yankees remain a baseball team. They are more than a business. 

People don't understand that the Yankees are a symbol of tradition, continuity, and roots. I may not live in New York anymore, but I root for the Yankees because I can still smell the Italian bakeries and the Jewish delis in the Bronx where I was born; I root for them because my father did, and my grandfather, because it was once a rite of passage for my Bronx Italian immigrant forebearers to become Americans.

The human good of "play" builds bonds between people and across generations. It is an instrument of human communion, and its awkward expressions are human struggles to taste beauty and goodness. And the men who play the game on the field make it possible for the rest of us, and are therefore worthy of our gratitude.

And so today I am happy to say, "Thank you, Derek Jeter."

Building Up a More Human Community

On this night I am grateful that our family is together again, and that our living situation is going to return to what passes for normal in our household. We have come to the end of a small trial, but one that seemed quite daunting when we began in 2008. Everyone in the family has cooperated in their own way to live through it piece by piece, step by step. Cooperation and sacrifice for the overall goal shows me something profound: that our family is indeed a little community. We live more fully in relation to one another; indeed we understand ourselves in relation to one another. The tasks of work and growing up and suffering are things we all share.

We stand together in our common mission of building up a more human community. That can sound abstract and overwhelming, except if we remember that we are called to give by engaging the circumstances and opportunities that our real human life presents for us. The crises of war and peace, the destinies of nations, the world's great social problems, the great weight of human personal pain are complex intersections of the drama of a multitude of lives, and we only touch those who have been entrusted to us. We reach out to all, of course, in the mystery of prayer and the aspiration of solidarity. But because we are beings of space and time, building the human community always means beginning where we are, cultivating the soil of human relationships and fostering the institutions that serve them by using the tools and talents we have.

We do not, however, seek to place limits on God. We seek to make ourselves available to His mysterious plan for our lives, with all of its possibilities and burdens. It is God who gives the growth, and who uses everything we offer for a reality that is ineffably great: His Glory.

The Ordinary Sacrifices of Daily Life

The ordinary sacrifices of daily life.  What a drag!  But this is the school of love; this is where we learn to give.  This is where God opens us up and draws us into that mysterious “giving away” of ourselves.  It is a challenge to go through the day without grunting and grumbling inwardly.  The little things are exactly where we don’t want to “open up.”  It is easy to love in our imaginations, or in the future.  But it is hard to love today, because today is full of little things, and these are the real things.  How can we walk the road of daily sacrifice?  Indeed, how can we learn to become cheerful givers?  Do we believe that Jesus has made the One Sacrifice that encompasses all our sacrifices?  Do we believe that He really wants to make us holy?  Perseverance is first of all a matter of faith.  I fail and I repent and I fail and I repent day after day.  It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. But this is no surprise.  I am weak.  He will change me in His way, according to His plan, in His time.  The great temptation is always frustration, discouragement, and—finally—forgetfulness of God.  “Selfish,” an evil voice whispers, “that is the way you are.  You are never going to change!”

No!  What I am is a need for God’s saving and transforming love.  I need to remember Him, believe in Him, adhere to Him, be forgiven again and again and again.  It always comes down to faith.  Faith recognizes that He is here and that He has promised me the fullness of life and love.  “He who believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:31).  “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9).  Believe in Him.  Hold on to Him.  Trust in Him.  It is He who make the little things into great love.

--from the book by John Janaro, Never Give Up: My Life and God's Mercy
(link to amazon.com:  http://t.co/ddwYeqX)

Mommy Will Be Home Soon

Today is Wednesday.

Tomorrow is Thursday.

Then comes Friday.

On Friday evening Mommy comes home. And she stays home. I am so ready for her to come home.

We're still having fun. The girls have been camping out in the living room, three of them sleeping on the floor. I'm not sure why they like to do that. Then John Paul stays with me in the big bedroom, where we can listen to late night baseball on the radio.

Its too hot during the day to do much outdoors. The highlight of the day is a trip to the grocery store, or the library, or the gym. Then dinner and T.V. and the rosary. Sometimes we have family conversation, but those are always better when Mommy is here.

Everybody bosses Josefina around. She stands her ground, and whines as only a four year old can when she doesn't get what she wants. But I think she's a little on edge because she misses the Mommy connection.

It seems like a usual lazy summer evening. The ball game is on. Kids are lounged around, reading. If Mommy were here, she might very well be on her laptop doing some work.

But she would be here, and the house would feel like home.

Instead everything seems messier (well, it is messier), everything seems a little disconnected, a little scattered, a little "temporary," like a camp. I don't feel completely myself without her around.

It's hard to have a "home" when both parents are not there. I have had just a taste of that in these summer experiences we've had. My heart really goes out to families where there is long term separation, due to whatever particular circumstances.

Meanwhile, Mommy has the sprint to the finish line with finals and presentations and submitting her paper topics. We just have to get through a few more days.

"The Perfect Harmony of Truth and Love"--Some Words From Pope Benedict XVI on Beauty and Art

Benedict XVI speaks to artists on the occasion of the opening of an exhibit in the Paul VI Hall Atrium, July 4, 2011:


Truth and love coincide in Christ. To the extent that we draw close to Christ, in our own lives too, truth and love are blended. Love without truth would be blind; truth without love would be like "a clanging cymbal" (I Cor 13: 1). It is precisely from the union, I would like to say from the symphony, of the perfect harmony of truth and love that authentic beauty emanates, capable of eliciting admiration, marvel and true joy in the hearts of men. The world in which we live needs the truth to shine brightly and not be obscured by lies or banality; it needs love which enflames and which is not overwhelmed by pride and egotism. We need the beauty of truth and love to strike us in the intimacy of our hearts and make us more human.


Dear friends, I wish to renew to you and all artists a friendly and passionate call: do not ever separate artistic creativity from truth and from love, do not ever search for beauty far from truth and love, but with the richness of your genius, of your creative leanings, be always, courageously, seekers of the truth and witnesses to love; let truth shine brightly in your works and make their beauty elicit in the gaze and in the hearts of those who admire them, the desire and need to make their existence beautiful and true, every existence, enriching it with that treasure which is never lacking, which makes life a work of art and every man an extraordinary artist: love, truth. May the Holy Spirit, author of every beauty that is in the world, always illuminate you and guide you towards the final and lasting Beauty, that which warms our minds and our hearts and for which we wait, one day, to be able to contemplate in all its splendor. Once again, thank you for your friendship, for your presence here and for bringing a ray of this Beauty, which is God, to the world.

America, America

Shall I add more words to the vast commentary that has been made upon this document? So much has already been said, over and over again.

I am an American. I love my country. I am also fascinated by it in many ways. But my study of American history is still very much a work in progress. I have learned enough to be hesitant about making any rash or sweeping statements about what is a very complex national experience.

This makes me feel peculiar, however, given the fact that it appears to be a very "American" thing to make vast and grandiose proclamations about the importance and significance of the United States. I have no desire to underestimate that significance. But I have read a great deal of history--enough to know that the character of peoples and nations is something that develops over a long period of time. The United States emerged in the midst of a historical epoch that began, for the West, in the 15th century and that--arguably--is just now coming to an end. The period that styled itself "the modern world" (and that was in reality a phase of Western European civilization) is ironically coming to an end just at the time when Western ideals, technological innovation, and lifestyle have become "standard" for the whole earth.

We are entering a new, globally interdependent phase of human history; indeed we have been for some time. Whether or not this is a good thing, and what social forms it takes, remain to be seen. The United States, as a people who self-consciously formed their own nation and institutions, paved the way to the eventual collapse of modern imperialism and the foundation of constitutional republics all over the world after World War II. The new nations look to the American experiment for their example; indeed, the success and persistence of American institutions have inspired the world.

So what does this mean about the significance of the document whose anniversary we celebrate today? Looking at the great scope of human history, my inclination--following the Chinese proverb--is to remark that it is too soon to tell. America is still a new country, relatively speaking. Many of the political experiments taking place in different parts of the world today involve ancient peoples with long memories. Much remains to be seen.

To a significant extent, however, the enduring legacy of the United States remains in our own hands. For in the midst of the various circumstances and ideas that contributed to the birth and formation of this country, there is a core ideal that became a working political hypothesis on this day in 1776: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights....


Much depends on the continued working out of this core American ideal of "equality"--I believe that we are still very much in the process of trying to understand what it means. It is imperative that "equality" be conceived and lived as a matter pertaining to the dignity of every human person, and the solidarity of human beings in a dedication to the pursuit of the common good. We must also look more deeply into the relationship between human dignity and the mystery of "being created"--that there is a Transcendent Source and Purpose that ultimately gives significance to human dignity and human rights.

Purity, Destiny, and a Mother's Heart

In today's liturgical feast, the Church draws attention in to the Mother of God with a particular emphasis on her "Immaculate Heart."

The term "Immaculate" refers to Mary's complete freedom from sin from the first moment of her conception. This freedom, of course, has a positive corrolary: her purity. Mary is uniquely attuned to the Wisdom and the will, the goodness and the beauty of God and His loving plan for all creation. The Greek term "Panagia" expresses this.

Then there is, like yesterday with Jesus, the focus on "the Heart." The heart of Mary is that center of faith, love, and contemplation during her earthly journey with her Son, and now in glory it remains the source of her maternal solicitude for each one of us. The Mother of God wants to lead each of us, in the journey of our own lives, to ponder in our hearts and in her Heart the mystery of Christ, who has assumed her love into cooperation with His own mission of salvation, and has given her to each of us as a concrete expression of His love, and as a means of bringing it to us with a particular intimacy. It is fitting that the attainment of our salvation, our destiny, our happiness should involve the living tenderness of the heart of a woman, and the special companionship of her maternal love.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, thank you for being my mother.

Here are some selections from a homily on this feast day by Blessed John Paul II, whose particular love for the Mother of God contributed so much to his exquisite sensibility for the whole greatness of the human vocation:

Today the Church’s Liturgy commemorates the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We consider Mary, filled with anxiety and concern, as she looks for Jesus, lost during the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As devout children of Israel, Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem each year for the Feast of Passover. When Jesus was twelve, he went with them for the first time. There the event which we contemplate in the fifth glorious mystery of the Rosary took place, the mystery of the finding in the Temple. Saint Luke describes it touchingly, on the basis of information we may suppose he received from the Mother of Jesus: “Son, why have you treated us so? . . . We have been looking for you anxiously”. Mary, who had carried Jesus beneath her heart and had protected him from Herod by fleeing to Egypt, acknowledges in a very human way her great worry about her Son. She knows that she needs to be present on his journey. She knows that through love and sacrifice she will cooperate with him in the work of Redemption. In this way we enter into the mystery of Mary’s great love for Jesus, that love which embraces with her Immaculate Heart the ineffable Love, the Word of the Eternal Father....

Christ says to us: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). These words bring us to the heart of the Gospel truth about man. Those who seek Jesus will find him, as did Mary and Joseph. This fact sheds light on that great tension present in the life of every human being, namely, the search for God. Yes, man does indeed seek God; he seeks him with his mind, his heart and all his being. Saint Augustine says: “our heart is restless, until it finds its rest in God” (cf. Confessions, I). This restlessness is a creative restlessness. Man seeks God because in him, and only in him, can he find his own fulfilment, the fulfilment of his aspirations to truth, goodness and beauty. “You would not seek me, if you did not already possess me”, wrote Blaise Pascal (Pensées, Sect. VII, No. 555). This means that God himself takes part in this search, wishes us to seek him and creates within us the necessary conditions to be able to find him. Moreover, God himself draws near to us, speaks to us of himself and enables us to know him. Sacred Scripture is a great lesson on the subject of this process of seeking and finding God. It offers us many magnificent images of people who seek God and find him. At the same time, it teaches us how we should draw near to God, what conditions we need to fulfil in order to encounter this God, to know him and to be united with him.

One of these conditions is purity of heart. What does this mean? At this point we touch upon the very essence of man who, by virtue of the grace of the redemption accomplished by Christ, has regained the inner harmony lost in Paradise because of sin. Having a pure heart means being a new person, restored to life in communion with God and with all creation by the redemptive love of Christ, brought back to that communion which is our original destiny.

Purity is first and foremost a gift of God. Christ, by giving himself to man in the Church’s sacraments, comes to dwell in our hearts and enlightens them with the “splendour of truth”. Only the truth which is Jesus Christ is capable of enlightening the reason, purifying the heart and shaping human freedom. Without understanding and free acceptance, faith withers. Man loses sight of the meaning of things and events, and his heart seeks satisfaction where it cannot be found. Purity of heart is thus, above all, purity of faith.

Purity of heart prepares us for the vision of God face to face in the realm of eternal happiness. This is so because already during their earthly life the pure of heart are capable of glimpsing in all creation what comes from God. They are capable in a sense of recognizing the divine value, the divine dimension, the divine beauty of all creation. The Beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount, in a certain way, shows us all the richness and all the beauty of creation, and exhorts us to discover in all things that which has its origin in God and that which leads to him. Consequently the carnal and sensual man must draw back, he must give way to the spiritual man, the spiritualized man. This is a profound process, which involves interior struggle. Sustained by God’s grace, it bears marvellous fruits.

Purity of heart is thus given to man as a task. He must constantly struggle to oppose the forces of evil, those which press upon him from without and those at work within him, and which would distract him from God. And thus there takes place in man’s heart a constant battle for truth and happiness. In order to gain victory in this battle, man must turn to Christ. He is able to win only if he is strengthened by Christ’s power, the power of his Cross and Resurrection. “Create in me a clean heart, O God”, exclaims the Psalmist, conscious of his own weakness, for he knows that to be righteous in God’s eyes human effort alone is not enough....

Let us turn our gaze to the Immaculate Virgin of Nazareth, Mother of Fair Love, who accompanies people of all times on their “pilgrimage of faith” to the house of the Father.... Even the Mother of Jesus, to whom the mystery of Christ’s divine sonship was most fully revealed, had to learn gradually the mystery of the Cross. “Son, why have you treated us so?”, today’s Gospel reports her as saying, “Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously”. And Jesus replies, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” “But they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them” (Lk 2:48-50). For Jesus was speaking to them of his messianic mission.

Before understanding it, man learns “by pain of heart” the meaning of crucified Love. But if, like Mary, “he keeps all these things in his heart” (cf. Lk 2:51) — all that Christ says — and is faithful to God’s call, he will understand at the foot of the Cross the most important thing, namely, that the only true love is love which is united to God, who is Love.

Blessed John Paul II, Homily of June 12, 1999

The Heart of Jesus and Our Hearts

This is the heart of the man who loves you.

Today is the First Friday of July and, on this year's Roman calendar, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Church dwells on the heart of Jesus. Jesus's love for us is not some abstract thing. It is love communicated through an act of sacrifice. A man died on the Cross in order to transform death, in order to unite Himself to the death of every person. God the Only Begotten Son of the Father, made flesh and dwelling among us, gave us His flesh out of love. His heart, the vessel of His life's blood, suffered and poured itself out as an offering for us in a real death that transformed our death by the power of His love. Death has become, in the Heart of Jesus, the path to a new creation, a transfigured life, a resurrection to eternal communion with God that will never end.

Pompeo Batoni, Sacred Heart (Chiesa del Gesu, Roma)

Images cannot encompass the reality, but we can make images because the reality is that of the Word made flesh. The Son of God in His human nature died a real death in history, on a particular day, so that history would no longer be a prison for our lives, but a path to our destiny, to that unending life for which our hearts long.

This really happened. I want to cry out, "This is not a theory or a sentiment. This is a real event. His love happened in history for us. It happens now for us. He lives!"

The Sacred Heart. The Holiness of God (all purity and wonder and beauty and glory, fulfilling and going beyond all that we yearn for) has been given to us, that we might become holy. If this is not a real event, then why bother talking about it? It would be a crime to raise such elemental hopes for a happiness that did not really exist.

I speak of the Heart of Jesus, as I speak of my own heart, because it is real. 

Fun Times With the Little People

The "Daddy and the Kids" show is nearly three weeks old! Next week is our last week and then Mommy will be home for good.

It will be the end of our chaotic and freewheeling lifestyle. Rooms will get cleaned. We'll start eating things like vegetables again. Dessert portions (as well as random snacking during the day) will decrease. Kids will go to bed much earlier.

As I expected, Josefina has been in some ways more of a handful this summer. Without Mommy's presence to give her the right amount of discipline and pampering and whatever that secret thing is that only mothers can give, she has been sometimes a little wild and willful.

Yikes! The four year old is crying and screaming, "But I WANT to!!!" Daddy says, "No!" And the four year old says, "But I WANT to!!!" Repeat. Over and over again. I try to be "tough" with her, but I don't have Mommy's creative toughness. So she doesn't always buy it. She charms, she begs, she throws a temper tantrum. Stubborn kid. So there ends up being a lot of screaming, but she is not going to get her way.

Suddenly she has decided to develop a sense of fashion. "I don't wanna wear that!" Oh boy. I give her to one of her sisters and say, "just put anything on her." They doll her up and give her braids.

Today we had an afternoon out. We went to the local community gym, and the kids had plenty of room to roller blade (you can see from the picture that Teresa is just learning). Meanwhile, Josefina played in the toddler room, on one of those amazing plastic things with all the holes and doors and tubes and slides. She showed me all the things she could do.

Then we went out for smoothies. Our kids are not spoiled, so these kinds of treats are appreciated and remembered. I'm glad, because they cost a lot of money.

At night we said the Rosary. By then we were pretty snippy with each other. Everyone was tired. Although we're also snippy during the day, when we're not tired. Bearing with one another is the great challenge of the day. As the father, I should set the example. I usually remember this only after I have failed.

Love is patient, love is kind. Love of children involves attention, affection, encouragement, and discipline. To do all of that, and to do it patiently and kindly is a heroic task. And it is one that must be taken up again and again. Mercy begins at home. Jesus, make me merciful to my children.

The Meaning of the Pallium

On the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the Pope bestows the pallium on new Archbishops. The pallium is a portion of the Archbishop's garment, worn on the shoulders, and--like all the garments of the clergy--it has symbolic significance. Here, in his homily for the feast day, Pope Benedict XVI explains the meaning of the pallium, and its importance as a symbol of the unity of the Archbishops with the Successor of St. Peter.


The metropolitan archbishops appointed since the feast of Saints Peter and Paul last year are now going to receive the pallium. What does this mean? It may remind us in the first instance of Christ’s easy yoke that is laid upon us (cf. Mt 11:29f.). Christ’s yoke is identical with his friendship. It is a yoke of friendship and therefore “a sweet yoke”, but as such it is also a demanding yoke, one that forms us. It is the yoke of his will, which is a will of truth and love. For us, then, it is first and foremost the yoke of leading others to friendship with Christ and being available to others, caring for them as shepherds. This brings us to a further meaning of the pallium: it is woven from the wool of lambs blessed on the feast of Saint Agnes. Thus it reminds us of the Shepherd who himself became a lamb, out of love for us. It reminds us of Christ, who set out through the mountains and the deserts, in which his lamb, humanity, had strayed. It reminds us of him who took the lamb – humanity – me – upon his shoulders, in order to carry me home. It thus reminds us that we too, as shepherds in his service, are to carry others with us, taking them as it were upon our shoulders and bringing them to Christ. It reminds us that we are called to be shepherds of his flock, which always remains his and does not become ours. Finally the pallium also means quite concretely the communion of the shepherds of the Church with Peter and with his successors – it means that we must be shepherds for unity and in unity, and that it is only in the unity represented by Peter that we truly lead people to Christ.

The New Cardinal Archbishop of Milan

The Holy Spirit is at work in the Church.

Cardinal Angelo Scola has just been named Metropolitan Archbishop of Milan. After many years, he is going home.

I knew him a generation ago, when he was just "Don Angelo," and then later when he first became bishop of Grosseto on the tranquil, lovely coast of the Mediterranean. He was a professor at the John Paul II Institute, and when the American faculty was first formed in Washington, D.C. he would come to teach for a few weeks each year. He would also spend time with the Washington group of Communion and Liberation. In these contexts I got to know him and benefited from his advice both personally and in the shaping of my vocation as a theologian.

He is a simple, humble, down-to-earth man who is also brilliant, prolific, and a pioneer in the building of educational institutions that are specially suited to serve the needs of the Church today. After becoming a bishop, he became the head of the John Paul II Institute. In 2002, he became Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, and took advantage of the historic character of Venice as a "crossroad" of civilizations in order to establish institutions and periodicals and hold conferences dedicated to the increasingly intense and important encounter between Christianity and Islam. In trying to grapple with issues such as Muslim immigration and the situation of ancient Christian churches in Islamic countries, Cardinal Scola's approach is neither irenic nor confrontational. Rather, he is a realist and he is constructive. Indeed, this is his approach to every problem.

In this way he is very much like his older friend, mentor, and collaborator of many years, Josef Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Scola is about to become pastor of one of the largest and most important churches in Europe. The Archdiocese of Milan has its own rite, the "Ambrosian rite," which differs slightly from the Roman rite in the Latin Western tradition, but highlights the antiquity and distinctiveness of this church, and its connection to the great Church Father St. Ambrose. Milan also has the only Catholic "undergraduate" university in Italy, the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. Cardinal Scola is a graduate of this institution, and no doubt it will be an important focus of his new pastoral ministry.

He is a man devoted to education and catechesis. He is arguably the foremost expert on the thought of Blessed John Paul II. He is dedicated to the New Evangelization. He has both the experience and the vision necessary to grapple with the new encounter between the West and the Islamic world. He loves the Church.

May God grant Benedict XVI many years. But eventually, there will be another conclave. The Church will look for someone to carry on the great work of Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Only the Holy Spirit knows who that person will be. But I must say, I wouldn't be surprised....

Of course what matters now is the present moment. Let us pray for Cardinal Scola in his important new work, and thank God for the gift that he is to the Church.

Far From Home, Near to My Heart

Well, the weekend is over and Eileen is back in Baltimore. We had a nice (inexpensive) dinner and a walk down Main Street in the twilight to celebrate our Anniversary. And we had thoughtful, uninterrupted conversation, which is never something to be taken for granted in a house of five kids who are always expressing themselves.

I love my time with my wife. We were good friends for five years before--how can I put this?--the "opportunity" was given for us to discover that we loved each other. For a short period of that time (when we first met), we both lived in the Washington D.C. area, but then she went to Texas to pursue graduate studies at the University of Dallas (where she eventually earned her first Masters Degree in English Literature). I lived for a year in Italy. We continued to be friends even as we pursued (what appeared to be) diverse paths thousands of miles away. During the whole time we corresponded, by that ancient form of technology known as "the letter."

The New Media are great, and I know many long term relationships that have been sustained by email, and now even Skype, but this was 1990-1995, at the very end of the Age of the Handwritten Letter. And I must say that I am very glad. Eileen and I have a stack of handwritten letters from each other, which we can still read and laugh over, and the very ink and paper and handwriting bring back the times of our youth, and the words are written with a personal care that reveals a closeness that we shared but did not as yet understand.

I was a young man studying theology, with no money and no idea even of what continent I was going to live on. She was dedicated to literature and then teaching, at a school in Texas to which she seemed very committed. Then in 1995, after my first year as a professor at Christendom, Eileen's situation in Texas changed, and she decided to move to Virginia. I had a job and she was here and it took only a week for us to realize that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

Eileen and I have been specially blessed, in that we love many things in common besides each other. We love to share things together, to look at things together, and to discuss the significance of things. We love art and literature and good food and the task of education, to which we are both devoted, and which we feel responsible to carry out in some way together. Obviously, this entails first the education of our own children, but also the profession we share leads us to look outward toward the work of forming other young minds and hearts.

Marriage is a beautiful thing, because it is more than just the grand romance of loving each other, but also the vocation of loving and building up the world together. The family is the immediate experience of this; the amazing realization that God has brought you together not just for each other, but also for the sake of these other persons who he has willed and loved for all eternity. The life of children! What a miracle!

To share an educational mission that encompasses our children and also reaches out into the community and society is a special grace and a particular path; thus, as Eileen pursues tasks in Baltimore necessary to our journey on that path, I feel--in spite of the physical distance--especially close to her.

Verbal Warfare

Sometimes I am frightened by words. We have more words today than ever before in history, and more ways of saying them. So many of our words boil down to people saying things to people about other people. We call it conversation or (bless us) "concern" for one another, or--depending on our media platform--opinion, journalism, scholarship, analysis, information, exchange of views, etc., etc., etc.

What so much of it really is, in the end, is one form or another of self-affirmation, gossip, unnecessary curiosity, detraction, calumny, or cynicism. We use words to assert ourselves, or to make war on one another. And our words express what is inside our hearts. We have hearts full of violence.

I have asked myself, "How often, when I speak or write, am I truly seeking to edify reality, to affirm what is good? How often are my words aimed at distraction, or at drawing attention to myself?" How many wasted words! And yet I have a desire to speak the truth. I have the desire and the prayer that my words might be works of mercy and instruments of peace. And yet I am always running into myself.

I think perhaps we speak foolishly because we are insecure. We seek attention with our words, even at the expense of others. Why? Because we are afraid that we are not loved. Or, rather, we have forgotten that we are loved. We are not nourished by a vital connection with the One who loves us.

We need prayer. And not just more words of prayer. We need silence.

We need to let Him love us.

O Lord, grant that we may speak from hearts full of Your love and mercy and peace.

The Heart of Christ Emerges

"In this Love, the Heart of Christ emerges...and thus changes things, people and the world." The words below from Benedict XVI in his sermon for Corpus Christi go to the heart of the matter. Christianity is God's gift of Himself in love, truly present through Jesus Christ. It is this self-gift, this beauty, this presence that not only shows us the purpose of life, but also draws us and enables us to live that true life in Him. My heart longs for life beyond the limits of my failure, the limits of things, the limits of death. The Eucharist is God's gift, from the Heart of Christ to my heart. It is possible to live this way.


Everything starts, you might say, from the heart of Christ, who at the Last Supper on the eve of his passion, thanked and praised God and, in doing so, with the power of his love transformed the meaning of death which he was about to encounter. The fact that the Sacrament of the altar has taken on the name "Eucharist" - "thanksgiving" - expresses this: that the change in the substance of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is the fruit of the gift that Christ made of himself, a gift of a love stronger than death, love of God which made him rise from the dead. That is why the Eucharist is the food of eternal life, the Bread of life. From the heart of Christ, from his "Eucharistic Prayer" on the eve of his passion, flows the dynamism that transforms reality in its cosmic, human and historical dimensions. All proceeds from God, from the omnipotence of his love One and Triune, incarnate in Jesus. In this Love the heart of Christ emerges, so He knows how to thank and praise God even in the face of betrayal and violence, and thus changes things, people and the world.

--Benedict XVI, Sermon for the Feast of Corpus Christi, June 23, 2011

Me and the Kids, After Two Weeks!

Mommy is coming home for the weekend again tomorrow. She'll bring a box of homework with her, but I hope that she and I will be able to sneak out at least for a nice dessert to belatedly celebrate our anniversary. Meanwhile, "me and the kids" have made it through another week of "Daddy Time," and no one seems too sad. We've had our share of fun, I would say.

The fact is, we have the easy part. Eileen has three courses condensed into four weeks, with assignments, and exams at the end, and then a paper that she will have to write by October 1. It's quite difficult. We even discussed last weekend whether it was worth doing. But we both have the feeling that it is important to take on this opportunity, even with the sacrifices it entails. It is an additional credential that the university offers, and it is included in the tuition already paid.

Eileen is fully qualified as a Montessori teacher, and does not need this additional Master's degree. Yet it could conceivably be useful at some point in the future, in some way. After all, we don't know where the Lord will take us in the next two, five, ten or twenty years. We do not know what other kinds of educational work may engage us, and it's always helpful to have qualifications.

Where will our lives go, in the next fifteen years? We've been through too much to project into the future. We try to take hold, in the present, of the opportunities that God gives to us to prepare for the future. And then we live and address the problems that confront us.

Still, I am frustrated by my own slow and uncertain progress. What does God have in mind for me?

I know that I am a husband and a father, and that I must fight to stay alive in these relationships. I must support my wife. She needs my presence as a person who stands with her and helps her to be secure in what she is doing. That is what it means, right now, for me to be a man. And the children need me; they need the person who is their father. They need my example, my conversation, my instruction, my affection, the environment of my personality as a big tree under which they grow.

There have been times in my life when I have felt very worthless to my children, because I was so unproductive. I was just here like a lump. My livelihood was taken away from me by illness. I think any father who is unemployed can probably relate to how this feels. You are tempted to feel that you are useless as a father. But our circumstances enter into the personal dynamics of family life and can be lived in a meaningful way. My Dad--whose father died when he was 9 years old--has constantly encouraged me to be with my children. "You have no idea," he says, "how much that means to them."

What matters is that these are the circumstances that I am called to live. I struggle with them, I have failure and frustration, and I continue to struggle. This is my work. This is what I give to my family as a father. This is what my children see.

And I hope they see that Eileen and I trust in God. I hope they see how much we rely on His mercy and how aware we are of our own weakness. I hope they experience mercy from us, and learn how to give it to us. The future, finally, is not an unknown. Whatever its circumstances, we know that the presence of Christ and His merciful love will be there.

Our Wedding Anniversary

Fifteen years ago today, Eileen and I got married. I won't say that it "feels like yesterday" because, well, it doesn't. So much has happened since that day. So many things I could never have imagined.

That our lives would be filled with children was something for which we hoped, but that they would be these children was something beyond any imagining. Each has come bringing his or her own unique face and character and possibilities, which continue to unfold before our eyes.

I knew marriage would not be easy and that it would require sacrifice. Eileen and I had our faith, a good relationship, and many married friends in our community for examples and support. We did not imagine the kinds of trials we would have to face. We never realized how much we would grow by facing difficult circumstances together.

We were a little older than many couples, and both had a facility for making friendships, which meant that our wedding was going to be big. Between friends and family, we probably invited close to 700 people, of which about 300 came. But I was teaching at Christendom College, so we were able to rent the large Commons and get catering from the kitchen staff for a huge discount. That's what made the big fat Janaro wedding possible. That, and the church.

Our parish at that time was still the old St. John's in Front Royal, which only seats something like 150 people (a new church was built several years later). Thank God, there was the large, beautiful church of the Sacred Heart in Winchester, where there was plenty of room both in the pews and in the sanctuary. This latter detail turned out to be more important for our wedding than for most others.

We had invited about two dozen priests and one bishop (most of them friends, colleagues, or former teachers of mine). And we extended to them the invitation to "concelebrate" along with our friend Fr. Michael Carvill, F.S.C.B., who was to witness the vows. It was a great delight to have nine priests around the altar at our Wedding Mass (the bishop, an Italian who is now Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, obviously could not make it but he promised to say Mass for us that day).

The Mass, moreover, was in Latin (according to what is today known as the "ordinary form"), with chants and hymns provided by our friends' choir. I remember how we labored in those days of primitive word processing software to make a detailed and useful wedding program (double columned in places, for Latin text and English translation). It was worth all the effort. It was a remarkable, sacred, and joyful wedding ceremony.

I should have realized then what an extraordinary lady I was marrying. In the midst of all these dizzying preparations for all these people, Eileen was making her own wedding dress. It is the dress she is wearing in the picture, which one day--God willing--will be worn by those of our daughters whom God calls to marriage, and become a family heirloom.

After the wedding came the reception and time with family and friends who had come from all around the country. In many ways this day was a symbol of our whole life together, blessed by God, lived in the Church, in the company of family and friends. At its center was the Sacrament, which has carried us through so much. And many of the companions who shared our joy that day continue to be close to us now, and continue to support and assist us on our journey.

Happy Anniversary dear Eileen! Thank God for you! God bless you and our family, and make of us gifts of love and service to one another and to the world in which we live.

"Daddy, Why Don't Some People Love God?"

Before praying the Rosary tonight, Josefina looked at me and asked me in a very earnest way, "Daddy, why don't some people love God?"

Pause.

How do I answer that question? She looked at me with eyes that seemed to say that there was simply no possible reason why anyone would not love God. I stammered, "well...I think some people are afraid of God...and...um...some people don't know that God loves them...and...."

I believe in answering a child's question even if I don't think they are going to be able to really "get" the answer. I thank God that my four year old child has no experience from which to draw even the most rudimentary concepts of this; I said to her: "Some people don't love God because they are bad...."

Josefina didn't understand, and, like four year olds do, she changed the subject.

And I was struck by something. This lack of comprehension was not simply ignorance; it was a ray of the splendor of innocence and simplicity, shining from the pre-dawn light of an intelligence--the image of God--just as it begins to appear on the horizon of a human life, reason in its original openness. Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

I cannot find a way to explain evil to a four year old, because evil makes no sense. There is no real "reason" why some people don't love God; there is only a lack of reason, a failure of freedom, a turning away from truth and goodness.

Lord, nurture the innocence of children, that it might mature into wisdom. And grant us wisdom, that we might be renewed in the innocence you won for us.

Mental Illness Happens to "Normal People"

Tonight I am reflecting upon mental illness, but this time not my own.

It is so hard to get people to see that mental illness is real, by which I mean that it is real illness, and that it happens to people who are "regular human beings;" not just people who are in mental institutions or who have pieces of shrapnel sticking out of their skulls.

I understand the difficulty. Some good and patient people had to work on me for a long time to convince me that I was sick, and that I would only do further harm to myself and others if I didn't submit to the kind of healing processes that this illness requires. I can see why it's such a difficulty to introduce the topic in other circumstances, when people show signs that this kind of pain may be afflicting them. This is especially a problem for Christians. We Christians, I believe, are still very uncomfortable with approaching the widespread problem of mental illness in our society and among ourselves.

One reason is because Christians believe in free will and personal responsibility, and we think that pop psychology is an attempt to rationalize bad human behavior. Sadly, there are modes of psychology and even psychiatric medicine that give us reason to think this way. Lacking a proper foundation in human nature and a recognition of the human religious sense, they invent illnesses that don't really exist, overdiagnose, misdiagnose, and give poor treatment for genuine conditions so that the person is worse off than before. This fact doesn't help Christians deal squarely with the issue. Admitting mental illness appears to be an abdication of personal responsibility, an attempt to evade the effort to overcome personal weakness by moral effort. And since we are all sinners and we all do this to some extent, it makes it hard to clarify where the line is between sinfulness and affliction.

And yet afflictions and disorders of the "mind" are physiologically based, scientifically documented, and clinically verified beyond any reasonable doubt. Patterns of illness, treatment, and response/recovery are established. What is necessary is for more Christians to get involved in psychiatric medicine, psychology, and psychotherapy. Medical treatments and clinical analysis must be brought together more and more with a Christian understanding of treating and caring for the whole human person. Meanwhile, psychiatry needs to become more integrated with other medical specialties (indeed this is beginning to happen; I have found that psychiatrists often have a broader understanding of various illnesses in general than other specialists). This is important because there are so many physical factors that impact upon the emotional and psychological sphere. An integral approach to the health of the whole person is increasingly necessary in this stressful, fragmented world. The human person is so fragile on every level of his or her being.

We Christians (and, for that matter, all of us "normal" people) need to recognize that mental illness does not place a person in some strange category of rare freaks. Mental illness happens to normal people. It happens among us, in our communities, in our circles of friends, in our families. It happens to talented people and articulate people and even people who have the gift of helping others.

We must not be shocked, disoriented, amazed, or at a loss for what to do when it does happen. We must be ready to help the person in need. I encourage everyone to learn more about these things, for their own sakes and for those they love.

If you or someone you know needs help, you might try this website: http://www.catholictherapists.com/

Priests are Human Beings

I have been thinking today about those particular men in the Church we call priests. As a "lay theologian" since the days when it was not so common, I have known many priests. I wrote a book about priests in 1986. I studied as a layman in an ecclesiastical faculty, where most of my classmates were seminarians and priests, and my professors were priests. A number of my friends from various periods of my life became priests. I've stayed in rectories and religious houses. I've seen priests in their pajamas (which they put on one leg at a time like everybody else). When Eileen and I got married, nine priests concelebrated the wedding. They were friends, colleagues, former professors. I know Catholic priests. They are diverse in temperament and habits. They are beautifully and sometimes exasperatingly human. Catholic priests are men.

They are also men specially set aside by Jesus as instruments of His Priesthood. Jesus has willed to continue His Presence in the world in this hidden, mysterious, but nonetheless real and concrete way that we call "sacramental." The Priesthood of Jesus flows from His once-for-all sacrifice of Himself on the Cross, which He extends out through space and time, to every corner of the world and every age of history through the sacramental mystery of His Body and Blood, made present and offered by His ordained ministers through whom He acts.

Through their ministry of the Word, it is Jesus Christ who instructs, encourages, and guides us. Through their sacramental ministry it is Jesus Christ who baptizes, who forgives sins, who administers healing. The man who is ordained to Holy Orders gives his humanity and his personality over to Jesus, so that Jesus can continue to give Himself concretely to the world. This is what matters.

The priest need not be a man of extraordinary talent or charisma. The very nature of his vocation indicates that he should strive for holiness, but he does not need to be holy in order to be an instrument of Christ's sacramental grace. Perhaps he is a sinner or even a wicked man; even in this case, as long as he performs the rituals of the Church with the intention to do what the Church does, he confers the sacraments--Christ uses him to communicate Himself and His grace.

This mystery has nothing to do with any magical power or glittering, superstitious aura surrounding these particular men. It is part of Jesus's great guarantee to remain always with His Church. Catholic priests are truly men set apart by a special sacrament that configures them to Christ's priesthood. But they remain men. They remain vulnerable, insecure, troubled, struggling human beings. We know that there have been priests who have done terrible things, and for these things they must be held accountable like any other men, and even more, because of their betrayal of their vocation and the sacred trust that it should entail.

Then sometimes we are surprised to discover that priests of great intelligence, eloquence, energy, and compassion--inspiring and courageous priests--turn out to be flawed and complex men, imperfect men with limited energy, limited patience, or men who give in to the temptations of human weakness. Perhaps we should not be so surprised by this.

Priests are human beings. We know that. And we know what human beings are. They are weak.

The priesthood is a great and awesome vocation, and it brings with it abundant grace. It also brings challenges and trials and responsibility, and the graces that make priests holy in the midst of these circumstances are linked to our prayers and sacrifices.

So let us pray for our priests.

And then let us recognize a positive need of their humanity. They need friendship. No priest should be alone. Priests, be friends with one another. Support one another. Take care of one another. Leave no one alone. Put aside envy. Put aside ecclesiastical politics. Priestly and human solidarity and friendship: essential.

And we too should extend Christian and human friendship toward the priests who serve us and who we know. There is much we can do to express love and compassion and companionship for them, as individuals, families, and communities. We are meant to be part of that experience of the "hundredfold" of sons and daughters and brothers and sisters that Jesus has promised them even in this life, because they have followed Him in this very special way, in the service of the Church. Let us look at our priest and see the person, not just the administrator or the "boss" or even the hero who must always embody our ideals. Let us see this person, this special person consecrated by Christ. And let us be a strength to him, a support in the communion of the Church, and a source of joy.