Today I have been reading Psalm 102. The Bible shows us the whole range of the human condition, and the depths of suffering, sorrow, loneliness, and pain.
The vivid images of the Psalmist express the personal and communal experience of the cry that pours forth from the human heart at the recognition of its own poverty. The heart discovers its inadequacy--and the insufficiency of all things to meet its needs--most powerfully in "the day of my distress."
Still, the heart cries out because the human expectation for fulfillment is more fundamental. The heart cannot help but search, and the heart that knows the goodness and the glory of God keeps hope alive even in the most incomprehensibly desperate circumstances.
But it is not enough for the Lord to hear our cries from a distance. His glory is in His mercy, and so he answers our prayer by coming to share our poverty, our lowliness, our distress, our groaning, our death--to transform suffering through His love.
By the light of this love, we must never give up seeking Him; we must always keep hope alive.
"Lord, hear my prayer;
let my cry come to you.
Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress.
Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly.
For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn away as in a furnace.
My heart is withered, dried up like grass, too wasted to eat my food.
From my loud groaning I become just skin and bones.
I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins.
I lie awake and moan, like a lone sparrow on the roof.
My days are like a lengthening shadow; I wither like the grass.
But you, Lord, are enthroned forever; your renown is for all generations.
You will again show mercy...[,]
heeding the plea of the lowly, not scorning their prayer."
God gives us everything. Right now, we exist because He is giving us the reality of ourselves.
His love gives me each breath that I take. Even if all I have is that breath, it is a wondrous thing. I want to be grateful for every breath, even the laborious ones, even the breaths that I feel like I'd rather not take.
Lord, even when I don't feel grateful, even when I feel angry or frustrated or humiliated or empty, or when I think I don't want to live anymore, give me gratitude for the wonder of you, in whose image I am made, you who alone know the secret of who I am. Enable me, whatever the awful darkness, to be grateful, to hold on to your mercy and goodness and love, or when I can't find you, to allow you to hold onto me and carry me in this black night. I'm blind and torn and fighting and I feel like running away because it's all so strange.
Don't let go, Lord. Don't let me be alone.
You love me even when I don't remember you, can't see you, can't feel you, can't imagine how hope could be possible in life, how there could be anything other than the pain and more pain and more pain...
Even when I am far from you and losing myself, you are near. With my every breath, with every stirring of my frame and movement of my soul, you are near.
Today is an especially fine day to read the OTHER great theologian at the University of Paris in the 13th century: Saint Bonaventure.
We are approaching the 800th anniversary of Bonaventure's birth (1221-1274) which is a remarkable thing in itself. The influence of the greatest of the Franciscan doctors is more pervasive than it might first appear. So much of Western spirituality has drawn upon his synthetic approach to philosophy, theology, spirituality, and mysticism.
Bonaventure brings all of his reason and all of his desire to the feet of Jesus Christ crucified. He uses the whole complex apparatus of the scholastic method to focus on the mystery of God who reveals and gives Himself in Jesus.
And he is not disappointed.
Nor will we be, if we learn from Bonaventure's teaching and follow his example.
Our humanity is healed and fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In Him we find all goodness. All beauty is His reflection. All glory shines in the Love revealed on the Cross.
"The Cross is the summit of all glory,
the expression of all joy,
the treasury of all wealth;
for God, desiring to restore [us to His likeness]...
became man, humble, pitiful, and poor.
Thus Supremacy accepted misery,
Justice was put to trial,
Wealth assumed necessity;
for the highest Ruler became a lowly slave
that we might rise into glory;
the most equitable Judge received
the basest condemnation
that we might be acquitted of sin;
the richest Lord suffered the deepest need
that we might abound in plenty."
~St Bonaventure, De Triplici Via 4
Saint Bonaventure with the "Tree of Life," 15th century woodcut.
It is a long trail of memory that this 22 year old young woman left behind. A year and a month have passed since the night Christina Grimmie was killed after a concert on June 10, 2016. A man she had never met fired five shots at point blank range as she opened her arms to welcome him with a hug at her meet-and-greet.
She was welcoming a stranger, a person, as she had welcomed countless others in her short yet remarkable career. She wanted to touch people's hearts, inspire them, and help them to know they are loved. That was why she gave herself through her music. That was the way she lived, and the way she died.
The music "industry" and the celebrity world have (for the most part) pretty much forgotten Christina Grimmie. They never gave her the attention she merited while she lived.
They had no real excuse: her amazing talent was widely acknowledged. And her most recent posthumous musical releases only solidify further the judgment that she was already one of the most rich, versatile, and powerful voices of her generation. I will write more about her musical legacy another time.
In any case, fame in this world is a fleeting thing, just another vanity blown away by the wind. Human beings are made for something more.
The multitudes of young people all over the earth who continue to remember Christina have not ceased to find encouragement even in their sorrows. Her greatest legacy is her enduring testimony to the real value of life. She continues to help people to discover and focus upon the dignity and the joy of being human.
On the occasion of this Fourth of July celebration, I would like to reflect briefly on those fundamental rights presented in America's Declaration of Independence, the rights that every human being possesses by virtue of the fact that he or she is created by God. I am not going to interpret what Jefferson or the other founders were thinking, or what their historical intentions and motivations were in making these general claims in a highly complex and controversial political context. That is another very interesting topic in its own right, but I will not pursue it here. In this post I am more interested in unpacking the real implications of the "truths" that are identified by that most famous statement in the document: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Leaving aside the epistemological and ethical methods that philosophers are concerned with, let us simply say that these truths are "evident" to the common sense of adult human beings who live a real engagement with the world and with one another. They are some of (not all of) the basic features of being human. If these rights do not resonate with our human experience, then something is fundamentally skewed in our perspective, our relationships, and the environment and condition in which we live. The merit of the Declaration is its explicit articulation -- in political terms, in terms of the structure and government of society -- of these basic realities that ought to be grasped at least implicitly by common sense and that apply to every human being simply because they are human. These words have inspired people for the past 241 years because they correspond to people's more or less implicit sense of human dignity, justice, equity, and communal life. Many other considerations enter into how these rights (and others) are understood concretely. It is so easy to lose the focus of common sense, to reduce a moment of insight into a construction of words and ideas that can be manipulated and distorted to serve the agenda of dehumanizing power and violence. The history of the past 241 years is proof enough of that. However, insofar as "we hold these truths" in a way that remains faithful to the human and personal existence that has been given to us and to the promise for life that reality evokes in our hearts, we will be much enriched. We will draw out many important implications for personal and social life, and see that there is much yet to discover about being human together. Here I would just like to reflect on some aspects of these rights in the light of the fundamental value of the human person (which is the profound and essential point of the statement that "all are created 'equal'"). First we affirm the "right to life," because every human being is a person created in the image of God, whatever their condition, social or economic status, abilities, or state of dependence, however they may be perceived by others, however "useful" they may or may not be regarded, whatever their shape, form, hue, or disposition. The right to life, the right of every human person to be protected and loved -- poor or rich, young or old, weak or strong-- exists from the miraculous moment of conception, when the person comes into existence through the unique creative act of God and is first entrusted to the immediate, intimate care of another person, to the woman who will forever be their mother. It extends all through life with its challenges and struggles and suffering, all the way to the moment of natural death when God calls the person to Himself. We recognize the "right to liberty," because the human person stands in an original relationship to God, and therefore "belongs" alone to that Mystery who transcends the whole universe. The human person lives in communion with other persons, in relationships, in marriage and the family, in communities and civil society, and is called to work for the common good. The original relationship with God entails the capacity and responsibility for relationship with other persons, and such is the realization of freedom. But the human person must never be reduced to something less, to a mere "thing" to be used and discarded. The human person cannot therefore be owned by any other person, cannot be defined by human power or expedience, cannot be forced or manipulated to act against their conscience -- where they stand before the "measure" of God -- nor prevented from seeking and serving the One who alone corresponds to them, who makes them to be who they truly are and leads them to their destiny. This leads to the third of these basic rights that are proper to being a human person: the right to the "pursuit of happiness."It really is hard to deny such a right, because we have been created to be happy. Human life is a search for fulfillment. As persons, we live by exercising our freedom in this search, and in establishing a relationship with this fulfillment, this "happiness" which is ultimately personal, communal, and mysterious. Happiness. We all know that we are made for it, and that we must "pursue" it because we do not yet have the fullness of it. But what is happiness? The American founders have expressed something important here: governments cannot impose or define what ultimately fulfills us, what makes us finally happy as human persons. When governments try to impose a happiness defined by the limits of their own power, they become monstrosities. Whatever might be the good intentions of those who try to construct a utopia, they inevitably become warped and destructive. A political order that tries to erase the drama and the pain and the beauty of the great questions and desires that underlie the pursuit of happiness cannot help crushing the human spirit in the end. And, as the history of the past 100 years has taught us only too well, they also crush human bodies; they sacrifice the lives of human beings on a gigantic, horrific scale. We must stress, of course, that "happiness" is not an empty term, or a vague reference to the anarchy of "everybody-just-do-what-you-feel-like-doing." The latter view, advocated by some today, only leads to other monstrous, inhuman arrangements. The feelings and interests of the isolated human being are too easily manipulated, diverted, and enslaved by those who are clever and devious enough to build their own fiefdoms of power and profit. There is a delicate and prudent but also very necessary place for various levels of government in protecting human freedom from those who would steal its potential or bend it to their own corrupt purposes. Overall, politics fosters the common good of human beings living together in this world, using the resources of this world to build an environment that gives context and makes space for the human search for happiness, the human response to the total and mysterious vocation of life. Government should protect and
cultivate the human places where happiness blossoms and reveals itself. This is its essential and modestresponsibility and the scope of its authority among human persons as they journey together through this life to a transcendent destiny. That goal of ultimate happiness is a mystery that the experience of life never ceases to promise, that it whispers even in the most desperate circumstances. Governmental authority, on various levels, indeed has a role in addressing those "desperate circumstances" that afflict people's lives in this world, especially those that are the consequences of injustice. And there are no shortage of these problems. But the promise of happiness is written in the human heart by One who is infinitely greater than anything in this world. All human authorities must give way to the One who reveals this "happiness," who makes it possible to encounter this destiny and taste its fulfillment, the One who convinces the human heart of the sure path to destiny. The human person must be free to follow that encounter that promises and communicates the fullness of life. This is the reality that underlies the "right to the pursuit of happiness" that the American founders indicated, however partial or incomplete their particular conceptions of this pursuit may have been. Above all, we want to be free to pursue happiness where the beauty of happiness is revealed and given to us, where this convincing beauty shines and draws us onward, calling us and corresponding to the depths of our freedom.
July 1st is the feast day celebration of Saint Junipero Serra, the "Apostle of California." We made many journeys in his footsteps to the California Missions in our younger days, up and down that beautiful State.
It's been five years since the last time our whole family was in California. I miss it! To all you Californians, I say, "don't take all that beauty for granted."😎
And pray to Fr. Serra, who no doubt continues to have a special solicitude for the people who live in California today: so many people and everyone in need of the Gospel and the experience of a new encounter with the love of God in Jesus Christ.
One way or another, suffering is inescapable. And the question that suffering grinds out from our guts, and that sooner or later reaches our (outer or inner) throats, is "WHY?"
The agony of this "why? question" is at the heart of human suffering.
It is a mystery, of course, a great mystery. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that we who are mere creatures (a creature is a nothing-in-itself) are being transfigured, divinized, given participation in God's infinite life. The endurance of suffering-in-trust is an inescapable element of this destiny as it is realized in a world of sin and death. At its heart is this radical, transformative love that we are called to accept and respond to, that breaks us open so that we can go beyond ourselves and realize the "likeness-to-God" for which we have been created.
We must endure ("he who loses himself...") with trust ("for my sake," says Jesus).
Still, it makes us gasp. It feels like leaping into an abyss. It's unimaginable. How can we possibly "do" this losing of ourselves, this passage through suffering and, ultimately, dying?
What makes it possible for us is the fact that God Himself has already "done it" in history, in a moment that embraces all moments and all human beings and all suffering. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus cries out, taking all the suffering of all of us sinners as His own. But in the same breath, He says, "Father into your hands I commend my spirit."
The "distance" of "forsakenness" is filled by absolute, self-emptying love. Thus all suffering is transformed into His suffering which is an expression of His love for the Father in the Spirit, and the revelation and communication of the glory of the God who is infinite Gift.
We can grow, therefore, through suffering in union with Him and His suffering.
It isn't even so much that we (by some autonomous act) "offer" or "unite" our sufferings to His. They already are His sufferings, and through them He draws us into union with Himself. We begin by giving ourselves over, surrendering, trusting in Him, begging Him to accomplish the plan of His love in us. The Lord, in accordance with His wisdom, will generate and sustain within us the very freedom by which we cooperate with Him. He will empower us to say the profound "yes" by which our freedom grows into a communion with Him and a sharing in His freedom and love.
This is indeed a great mystery. We should not be surprised that we feel so poor in front of it, that it can seem so strange, so difficult, so psychologically dislocating sometimes. God sees the depths of human hearts, beyond anything we can understand, even with regard to our own.
Let us never be discouraged. The mystery of His mercy is always at work. Trust in Him!
My regular column ("Great Conversion Stories") in MAGNIFICAT this month features the story of a famous composer named Bach.
No, not that Bach (the immortal Johann Sebastian), but his youngest son, Johann Christian Bach, sometimes called "the London Bach" for his many years in England. Obviously, since he made it into my column, there is good reason to call him "the Catholic Bach."
I had to shorten the published version of the story, but I thought it would be worthwhile to present the "uncut" version here, where I could include a few more biographical details. I also want to add a few words about (and give a sample of) the music.
I am rather fond of the music of "the Catholic Bach." If it sounds somewhat conventional for its time (1760s-1770s), that may be because he was one of the architects of the "conventions" as well as one of the innovators who paved the way for the famous composers who came after him.
Thus I can take the opportunity here to share once again my passion for music, which follows a variety of paths ("from Bach to rock" would be a concise but rather corny and inadequate way of putting it). Beauty is a transcendental, with a scope as wide as being itself. In the craftsmanship of sound, beauty is analogously predicated of a vast array of musical "artifacts" in various ways, on various levels... but this subject requires a blog post for another day.
Here below is the extended, deluxe version of the conversion story of Johann Christian Bach:
This is a story about faith, conversion, and 18th century music in Europe. But let’s make clear right from the start that this is not some secret story (or speculation) about the man most people associate with the name “Bach,” i.e. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), who is ranked among the greatest composers of all time. Certainly all of Christianity has been greatly enriched by Johann Sebastian’s prolific output of sacred music, in which his musical genius and his own deep commitment to Christ (as a Lutheran) are both expressed. It must remain a mystery, however, why Protestantism’s most outstanding sacred artist (he has been called “the Fifth Evangelist”) dedicated the final three years of his life and all the energies of his declining health to composing the epic, sublime Mass in B Minor.
The Great Bach integrated faith and art in such a way that enabled him to discover the "ecumenism of beauty." He also passed on his devotion to Christ and some measure of his musical genius to his large family. Four of Bach’s sons became musicians and composers in their own right, and their works are still performed today. His youngest son, Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782), was the most prolific and important of the four. Johann Christian Bach branched out beyond his father’s accomplishments to stand out as a significant 18th century personage in his own right. He moved from the churches and courts of Saxony to the theaters and concert halls of Italy, France, and above all England, where he lived the final 20 years of his life. He also took another step “beyond” his father and the rest of the Bach family by converting to the fullness of Catholic faith.
The young Johann Christian learned keyboard performance and composition from his father and older brothers, first in Leipzig and then in Berlin at the Prussian court. But in 1754, as Prussia became preoccupied with the buildup to the “Seven Years War,” he made an important decision to travel to Italy to continue his education and begin his career. This would allow him to blend his German mastery of harmony and technique with the more popular Italian melodic style. More importantly, in Italy he met the man who would become both his musical and his spiritual “father”: Padre Giovanni Battista Martini, one of the eminent musical scholars of the time and a Franciscan priest. Johann Christian spent several years under the tutelage of Padre Martini in Bolognia and Milan, and devoted this period of his life to the composition of sacred music. These early works, including two Masses, a Requiem, and hymns, are particularly rich in musical inspiration.
Johann Christian entered into full communion with the Catholic Church around 1760. Most music historians consider his conversion to be merely a matter of professional convenience, and it is true that young Bach’s benefactors had secured a position for him in the Milan cathedral.
But this does not rule out the likelihood that Bach's conversion was sincere. Padre Martini had become a mentor and true friend to Johann Christian. And the young composer encountered something new in his venerable teacher: a man whose faith was integrated into the whole of the artistic life. In Padre Martini, Bach saw that Christian life could be incarnate in a music profession that was in a lively and expansive phase of artistic development, and that was entering the broad sphere of secular entertainment.
With the encouragement of Padre Martini, Johann Christian’s path followed that development as it shaped the “popular music" of the time: Opera. His early operas were a sensation in Milan and Naples, and he soon became the maestro of the 18th century’s greatest multimedia entertainment business. Both Italian Opera and concert music brought Johann Christian Bach to England where he worked under the patronage of King George III and Queen Charlotte.
From then until his death after a brief illness in 1782, Johann Christian remained in contact with his mentor Padre Martino and, though not a candidate for sainthood, he kept his Catholic faith. His overall behavior was honorable, and the financial problems toward the end of his life were not the result of dissolute living but the consequence of failed business ventures and embezzlement by his financial manager. He was not only appreciated for his outstanding music, but was also loved by all who knew him. He was known for his cheerfulness and his willingness to mentor the younger generation of musicians, the most famous of whom—of course—was Mozart. Bach met Mozart when the latter came to London with his family as an eight year old “child prodigy” on an extensive European tour. They became great friends, and Bach—who didn’t have an envious bone in his body—gave greatly of himself and his musical expertise to help Mozart develop and mature his amazing gifts.
Today Johann Christian Bach has a familiar place in the canon of classical composers. One of the reasons why he may seem “underrated” is that history places him between two incomparable giants: His great father and first teacher, Johann Sebastian Bach, and his greatest “student,” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In many ways J. C. Bach is a kind of bridge between the two very different composers, just as he is a bridge from northern to southern European music styles, and a bridge from Lutheran Christianity to the Catholic Church. His own life and music have their value too, as a witness to the unity-in-diversity that shines through in all that is beautiful. Watch and listen to a brief clip of J. C. Bach's music below. This is the third movement from his G minor symphony. It shows one of his forays into a more dramatic sound from a small ensemble in a musical form that was just beginning to take shape.
People in this world need to experience the love of God. This is not just an analytical statement of religious discourse. This matters to me, personally; as a Christian this concern has been entrusted to me as a responsibility (see e.g. Matthew 28:19-20). So what can I do? If I really want people to know God--not just as a theory but as a Presence who changes their lives, who loves them-- then I must love them. The God who is Love, and who became man, wants to use my humanity to show Himself to others first and above all by loving them, unconditionally, as they are, for who they are. He wants me to love them the way He loves them...which is to say, the way He loves me.
This is entirely different from the pretense to a kind of "tolerance" that in fact evades the other person and distances itself from the person. This is not a "relativism" that uses a superficial affirmation of the other as a pretext for remaining closed within myself, thus escaping the challenge of loving and being loved. This is not any kind of activism that tries to impose a utopian ideology on people or that exhausts itself in a self-affirming display.
Loving means loving. It means giving what I have received. It means not dreaming about how wonderful love is, but actually giving myself, being a gift in this moment, to the person or persons who have been entrusted to me on the path of daily life. And if I'm "busy" with things--if I am speaking or writing or communicating on the internet--I must ask myself, "Why am I here? Am I here to give myself, or to build up and enrich my capacity to give? Am I here for love?" My writing is worthless unless it is an act of giving myself to those I hope will read it.
I realize that most of my readers are already Christians. But those who already know Jesus need to be reminded and sustained by His love. "Love one another as I have loved you" - this is the heart of the enduring grace that is "the Church." And I must resist the temptation to allow "the Church in the abstract" (however glorious and beautiful and wise I may conceive it) to replace my responsibility to give myself right now. Christians are called to share this love in the Holy Spirit, and to be His loving presence in the world. However great our faults and failures may be, His love is greater, and it urges us onward to all the places where human beings live.
The whole world is starving for love. And too many people are fooled by counterfeits; they "spends their wages for what is not bread." Therefore, real love entails a communication of the truth. But love addresses itself to the person, and its witness is always a gift, a humbling of one's self, a sacrifice. This is what opens the possibility for the truth to be embraced by the other person. Still, we find ourselves afflicted with so many obstacles: we have our own daily struggles, we are sick, we are tired, we are stressed out. We must bring all of it to the One who has loved us; entrust the whole mess of ourselves to Him again and again; keep trying, relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, not being discouraged by our own weakness.
Perhaps we feel that our love is only a poor imitation of the love we have received, that our love is all mixed up with self-promotion and vanity. And indeed it is. Let's love anyway. Let's do what we can, and also nourish ourselves continually at the places where we find Him who has loved us.
Indeed, we must let Him love us, through the Church, through the sacraments, through prayer, through our brothers and sisters, through the very truth and goodness of the joys and the sufferings of life. It all belongs to Him, and it is all the work of His great and mysterious love for us and our destiny. In His love we will find the strength to give ourselves, and to give Him to others.
After five months, a great experience of linguistic and cultural immersion, lots of new friends, fabulous food, adventurous travel, unforgettable experiences, some chic accessories, and a good tan, Lucia is finally coming home from France!💗
WE CAN'T WAIT TO SEE HER!!!😊😊
A candid moment during her visit to Paris a few weeks ago.
I am a sinful man. Lord have mercy on me. I am a sick man with a mind full of insight but weighed down by affliction.
To bear this long, tedious, unremarkable suffering--not worthy of pity or warranting complaint, dull, not heroic, incomprehensible to myself and everyone else--is probably the most essential task of my life, and will bear more fruit than anything that I aspire to accomplish.
Here are some excerpts from Psalm 38 that I pondered today.
I am bowed and brought to my knees; every day I go about mourning. All my frame burns with fever; all my body is sick. I am numb and utterly crushed; I wail with anguish of heart. My Lord, my deepest yearning is before you; my groaning is not hidden from you. My heart shudders, my strength is spent; the very light of my eyes has failed....
Do not forsake me, O Lord; my God, be not far from me! Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my salvation!
So many sorrows wash over us with the passage of time. Still we endure through all the desperation. We search for meaning, in the expectation that it might be found.
We search in times of sorrow and also in times of prosperity and success.
In this life, even our most sublime moments are merely "anticipations." The seeking, the hunger, the desire, and the need of our hearts remain, crying out for the fullness of love.
We remain beggars, but with a promise of fulfillment that grows through what life gives us, deepening in us both the longing and the hope for Love's ultimate embrace.
Christina Grimmie continues to reach people and inspire them with her great heart, her great music, and her spectacular voice, as well as the legacy of all her videos, her image, her smile, the "Grimmie green," and the love of the Team Grimmie people all over the world who continue to work with her family and close friends to make her remaining recorded music available and better known.
Her posthumously released full length album, All is Vanity, is now available. (Click HERE)
This graphic is my small contribution to a very large memorial marking this first anniversary of the night of June 10, 2016, when violence and love looked at one another, face to face. Violence brought murder and sorrow and grief, but love did not cease to be love!
"Love never ends."
Love is sublime. Love blazes back to life. Love shines on.
