Good Friday 2022

William Congdon, “Crucifixion” n. 41 (1966).

Jesus Entered Into Solidarity With Us All

Here is a selection from the homilies of Saint John Paul II that I am reading, that marks the foundation of the events we remember and celebrate in the nights and days ahead:

“Jesus worked in the spirit of a great love for every human person, on the basis of the profound solidarity which he had for those created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen 1:27; 5:1).

“What is this solidarity? It is the manifestation of the love which has its source in God himself. The Son of God came into the world to reveal this love. He already revealed it by the fact that he himself became man, one of us. This union with us on the part of Jesus Christ, true man, is the fundamental expression of his solidarity with every human person. It speaks eloquently of the love with which God himself has loved each and every person. Love is confirmed here in an entirely special way: one who loves seeks to share everything with the beloved. It is precisely for this reason that the Son of God became man. Isaiah had prophesied of him, ‘Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured’ (cf. Mi 8:17; Is 53:4). Jesus thus shared the same existential condition with every son and daughter of the human race. In this he also revealed the existential dignity of each and every human person. The Incarnation is an ineffable ‘re-evaluation’ of the human person and of humanity!

“This ‘love-solidarity’ stands out in the entire earthly life and mission of the Son of Man, especially in regard to those who suffer under the weight of misery, whether physical or moral. At the end of his journey there will be the ‘giving of m life as a ransom for many’ (cf. Mk 10:45), the redemptive sacrifice of the cross. However, on the way leading to this supreme sacrifice, Jesus' entire earthly life manifested his solidarity with mankind. He summed this up in his own words: ‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mk 10:45).  

“He was a child like every human child.  He worked with his hands by him alongside Joseph of Nazareth, just as all people work. He was a son of Israel; he shared in the culture, tradition, hope and suffering of his people. He, too, experienced what often happens in the life of those called to some mission: misunderstanding and betrayal by one of those whom he himself had chosen as his apostles to continue his work. For this he experienced a profound sorrow (cf. Jn 13:21).

“When the moment drew near in which he was ‘to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mt 20:28), Jesus voluntarily offered himself (cf. Jn 10:18), thus consummating the mystery of his solidarity in the sacrifice.  The Roman governor found no other words to describe him before his assembled accusers except ‘Behold the man!’ (Jn 19:5).

“Pilate was unaware of the mystery but not insensitive to the attraction which issued from Jesus even in that moment. His words tell us everything about Christ's human reality. Jesus is the man; a true man who, like us in all things but sin, became a victim for sin and entered into solidarity with all, even to death on a cross.”

~Pope John Paul II (General audience of February 10, 1988)

“Even Then Will I Trust”

I’m just sharing some texts here from the Psalms of Holy Week.

War is raging brutally, not only in the world, but above all in each of our hearts. We are afflicted, assailed relentlessly, wounded beyond our own capacities for healing. We cry out to the Lord to deliver us.

“…Though in Our Weakness We Fail…”

Prayer for Monday of Holy Week:

God Greatly Exalted Him

Palm Sunday 2022. Holy Week begins.

“Those Who Plead Before You…”

Here is another powerful “Collect Prayer” from this Fifth Week of Lent, as we approach the celebration of Christ’s Paschal Mystery. Our plea is raised to a God who is near to us, who is kind, who transforms our hearts, whose mercy sustains our hope.

Three YEAR Anniversary of My Father’s Death

Dad passed away three years ago today. And what strange, arduous years they have been (though also years of maturing, change, and new life). In some ways, it seems long ago, yet I still miss him so much. 

May the Lord bring us all together again, forever in the glory of His Eternal Love.✝️❤️

Dreaming of a Shenandoah Spring

Welcome to April 2022! Real Spring colors have been a bit slow to develop this year, perhaps due in part to the cool(er) and blustery weather we’ve had.

So I decided to use my imagination, and the tools of “JJ’s (virtual) Studios” to create my own dream of Spring warmth and shimmering colors of tree and field - with the Blue Ridge Mountains standing in their ancient vigilance on the horizon - in this piece titled “Dreaming of a Shenandoah Spring”:

As I have noted elsewhere, graphics tools simulate painting techniques in many ways that make it “easier” to project desired visual effects (or even to discover - sometimes accidentally - new kinds of effects). Still, this assistance engenders new artistic efforts along with the flexibility it brings. The digital artist is still inspired and challenged to bring forth a synthetic reality, an expression of beauty, from the elements of light and color that are the material of his or her work. As a serious creative effort, digital art entails its own kind of intensity, concentration, difficulty, and frequent experimentation, rough drafts, and half-finished “failures.” Even the apparent advantage of the “easy” availability of so many materials and stylistic elements can complicate the process of judging the combinations and subtleties that best realize the artist’s own creative intuition.

Nature, by contrast, has a wonder-filled givenness and simplicity that have an inexhaustible capacity to inspire and amaze the heart. And Spring is stirring and emerging in nature too, and I’m happen to waken from my dreams to its freshness:

Jesus Christ is the Center of Life

Christians affirm Jesus Christ as the center of our lives.

This is not a “pious statement.” It is, simply, a fact. It is the truth. It is the truth about our lives and about the life of every human being. Christianity does not mean simply "looking at our lives from a Christian point of view." It is not defined by our "cultural outlook" or our supposedly “traditional ideas” or our “theology.”

It is a statement of faith. But faith is an affirmation of reality. It is a way of adhering to the truth.

My life is not meant to be an exercise in trying to apply my theories about Jesus to my problems and circumstances. My life is living with Jesus, really. That is the truth about my actual life, whatever my “theories” or expectations may be from one moment to the next.

Obviously, I’m far from being a saint. I’m a sinner, always in need of mercy. For me, “living with Jesus” means ignoring Him most of the time, trying to manipulate Him sometimes, trying to use Him to my own advantage, but also continually rediscovering again and again that He is really here, that He loves me, and that He is the One who is in charge... of everything.

A living faith means “bumping into Him” again and again, finding Him in reality, finding Him shedding light on things and bringing joy and strength. It means remembering that I have been made for Him, remembering that I need Him, that I have to open my heart to Him in prayer.

It means holding fast to Him in desperation and misery and pain, knowing that He is offering me a share in His sufferings. It means sometimes feeling that I can't find Him, but still knowing that He is with me in the darkness.

“Daffodil Time”

Well, it appears to be “Daffodil Time,” so we will soon be seeing more flowers.

Alone, We Cannot Be Ourselves

The meditation for March 29th in Magnificat is a quotation from Luigi Giussani’s The Origin of the Christian Claim. The perspective elucidated herein is one we must return to again and again: I cannot realize myself unless I accept the love of Another.

“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24). This cry is the only starting point which enables a man to take the proposal of Christ into serious consideration. If a man cares nothing for this question, how can he understand the answer? To be myself, I need someone else: Without me you can do nothing (John 15:5). Jesus taught us that whoever accepts his message of salvation cannot avoid facing himself with sincerity, cannot avoid being realistic in his consideration of man. Alone, we cannot be ourselves. No one comes to the Father but by me (John 14:6). This is the same as saying, one more time, that man cannot realize himself unless he accepts the love of Another—Another who has a precise name, who independently of your will died for you: Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). He said this of himself: I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).”

The “Weapons” of the Spirit

This is a challenge for Christian life, not only during Lent but in all circumstances in this world in which we must overcome evil. “Whoever is in Christ is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Prayer, fasting, and works of mercy are not pietism, spiritual athleticism, or philanthropy. They are the expressions of a new way of existing, the belonging-to-Christ that begins in baptism and becomes vital in our own moments of history in the measure that we live as instruments of Christ’s transforming love in our world.

We are called to “make room” for Him to live in us and manifest His glory through us within our own aspirations, concerns and struggles, with our talents and gifts and also through our poverty, pain, and powerlessness. Every moment of our lives is a gift from the Father to us as we grow in the Spirit as adopted sons and daughters in Jesus Christ. And not only a gift to us, but also - through us - to the world.

These days provide for us a pedagogy of offering everything, so as to remember that the value of our actions consists in Christ consecrating the world through us as we recognize that His glory is the meaning of everything, the meaning of our days, the meaning of all human history. We remember too that this extends beyond all imaginable hopes of this life, to the extremities of our apparent insignificance, failure, “uselessness,” and suffering… for His “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

The Significance of Today’s “Act of Consecration”

We have participated today in a decisive historical event, as Pope Francis and the Bishops in communion with him, along with priests and faithful throughout the world, solemnly entrusted and consecrated ourselves, all humanity, the world, and especially Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

On this March 25, 2022 - which marks the annual celebration of the Annunciation, of Mary's "fiat" to the angel's message and the beginning of God the Word taking flesh in her womb - the Pope and with him the whole Church once again cried out to the Theotokos, the Mother of God and our Mother, appealing to her all holy Immaculate Heart to obtain from her Son the grace of conversion and peace for ourselves, all humanity, and especially Russia and Ukraine. 

In these days, Russia's armed forces continue to carry out the brutal invasion of Ukraine ordered by Russian political power, while other political powers seem to give little thought to God even as they puzzle over how to stop Russian military aggression without setting the world on fire. Meanwhile Ukrainians suffer (once again) from the scourge of their neighbor, with those who can doing their best to defend their homeland, while the vulnerable who are not trapped in the wreckage flee by the millions into exile in Poland and other nations offering them refuge.

And this is just one of the many wars that rage throughout the world. We are all complicit in some measure in the global cycle of violence, because of our sins, because of our hypocrisy, because of the smallness of our love. Therefore, this prayer is rightly penitential and offered in the first person plural to Jesus our Redeemer through His Mother whom He redeemed in a preeminent manner by preserving her from all stain of sin, with the love of His Cross transcending the “limits of linear chronology” and making her holy from the first moment of her own conception. Mary was thus enabled by His grace to cooperate wholly and uniquely with her Son's love for us, and become His gift to each of us: "Behold your mother" (John 19:27).

In this prayer we commit ourselves anew to trust in God's mercy, to conversion of heart, to penance and forgiveness. In this tumultuous epoch, the world must turn frequently to the tender maternal love of Mary's Heart so that she can teach us to live as brothers and sisters in peace with one another and with Jesus. How today's consecration will "unfold" in events to come cannot be predicted. Things "may get worse before they get better," but something irrevocable has happened that will bring about much good in God's time. This is a reason to be encouraged.

My memory is long, and today it harkens back to a similar act of Pope Saint John Paul II and the world's bishops on March 25, 1984. I was 21 years old that year, living in a very tense, strange, and dangerous world with a political geography profoundly different from the one most of you have grown up with and taken for granted. In 1984, the Cold War was like solid ice, and there were no signs on the horizon of any melting. If anything, our hopes for some kind of “thaw” had (as far as we could tell) recently been chilled.

The previous year, the Communist government of Poland had declared marshal law and outlawed the independent Solidarity trade union. Lech Walesa and other Solidarity activists were arrested, and later driven underground and constantly harassed by Communist authorities. The intellectual leaders of “Charter 77” had been silenced and Czech dissident Vaclav Havel was in prison. The few glimmers of hope from behind the Iron Curtain were at their lowest point. But countless people, unknown to the world, prayed, did penance, performed works of mercy, and suffered in union with Jesus. The Mother of God sustained them secretly in the darkness of the imposed atheism of Communist states. Ukraine was a “captive nation,” a “Soviet Republic” brutally suppressed, millions of whose people had been murdered by starvation (the Holodomor) in a famine engineered by Stalin in 1929-32, while others were exiled, displaced, or else forced to conform to the Russian language and Russian ways and suppress their own Ukrainian culture.

In 1984, the Russian-dominated Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its Eastern European satellite nations seemed to have become a permanent fixture on the global map. Moreover, Marxist-Leninist forces had either triumphed or were contending for power in many “hot wars” all over the globe, sustained by Soviet weapons and support, while the USA supported often-repressive dictatorships or violent counter-insurgency groups that covered their own dysfunctions under the cloak of “anti-communism.” 

But we who lived in the wealthy “free world” were not much bothered in our daily lives. We used our freedom not to love and serve God, but rather to plunge into a materialist consumer lifestyle and an individualistic moral anarchy the likes of which had never been seen in all of history. Nevertheless, something of our human sensibility endured, and we accomplished many good things too in those days. But we gave little thought to the fact that the “security” of our ideals and our hedonistic lifestyle - their defense against Communist aggression and nuclear war - came at the price of a “deal with the devil” called Mutually Assured Destruction. Both blocs stockpiled and held in readiness staggeringly enormous quantities of nuclear weapons specifically designed to kill innocent civilians indiscriminately and on a massive scale.

After the consecration of March 25, 1984, there was no immediate dramatic change in this perilous world order. People still had to pray and fast, convert, build up the good, care for the poor, forgive those who had injured them, and love God and trust in the mercy of Jesus Christ. We won’t know all the hidden fruits of Mary’s intercession at that time until the end of history. But no one imagined that before the end of the decade, the Iron Curtain would fall, Eastern Europe would be freed, and - two years later - the seemingly impregnable Soviet Union would cease to exist entirely. New nations appeared on the world stage, and old ones re-emerged from darkness - among the most spirited being a newly independent Ukraine.

It was like a miracle. But it was an incomplete miracle (if that makes any sense). Soviet Atheistic Communism vanished by 1991, but “the conversion of Russia” remains a work-in-progress, and new sources of violence, new wars, and old greed continue to afflict the global village. More recent generations in the secularist liberal West are now so rootless and confused about everything that their ignorance manifests itself as a terrible vulnerability, the damaged half-innocence of wounded children, easily manipulated but also perhaps more disposed (however unconsciously) to encounter God. Beneath the noise, the excess, the unprecedented access to technological power, there is immense suffering. They have much to suffer in the years to come. But Jesus and Mary remember them and look upon them with compassion.

The same compassion encompasses the suffering Ukrainian people. It also encompasses the Russian conscripts who have been thrown into this war of aggression without knowing what they were meant to do, as well as those who should know better: those who are prosecuting this offensive war from fear, insecurity, or their own delusions of national greatness. It reaches out to the victims and refugees of wars everywhere, and calls perpetrators of violence to repentance.

May we all be converted from our delusions and arrogance, to the reality of God who loves us and who wants us to live together in freedom, in fraternal love, interpersonal communion, solidarity, and forgiveness. In following Jesus through Mary, we must not be discouraged. Our hope is eternal life, the gift of fellowship forever with the Trinitarian God who is Love, and also the transfigured fruition of all our efforts to do good in this world, all our hopes to make society better, to be peacemakers, to undertake works of mercy so that life on this earth (even if it will never be perfect and always imperiled by evil) will become more worthy of the dignity of human persons created in God’s image, created and called to be brothers and sisters of Jesus. 

We must not be discouraged, we must keep our hearts centered on Jesus who calls us in this moment of history and promises that our humanity in its desire and struggles and suffering is destined to be fulfilled. Today, we have the special assurance of the Immaculate Heart of Mary that no effort is in vain that endeavors to respond to the redeeming love of her Son, that we must seek His glory every day, in the time that has been given to us to live our lives and offer ourselves even in the smallest gestures of compassion.

May the Lord bring peace to Russia and Ukraine, and to all places of war and oppression. May He accomplish His will in the world, and give us the grace to recognize in faith His merciful wisdom, to obey Him, to follow Him, and to be His instruments…in union with Mary.

Romero: "Stop the Repression!"

Today we commemorate Saint Oscar Romero, Archbishop of the capital city of El Salvador in the years leading up to that Central American nation's bloody civil war. Romero was a prophetic voice for evangelical justice and equity in a country where those in power crushed relentlessly the efforts of desperately poor people to affirm their human dignity, and persecuted Catholic priests and faithful who accompanied the poor and helped them to discern Christ's love for them and His grace leading them to cry out, together, in the face of monstrous oppression. Romero and the Church were also emphatic in preaching that people must not place their hope in a merely "horizontal," worldly, God-denying revolution inspired by Marxist-Leninist ideology and fueled by vindictiveness, which would only perpetuate the cycle of violence and engender more oppression.

Saint Oscar Romero's teaching and his courageous actions as bishop were true to the gospel of an incarnate, crucified, resurrected, eucharistic Jesus who is Lord of history. Jesus calls us to eternal life, to a transcendent vocation of unending communion with God's ineffable love. This call is not, however, a pretext to escape from created reality, or to ignore the concrete circumstances we face here and now. On the contrary, He who created and who sustains all things upholds all that is true and good in this world, in this moment of history. And in Christ (and always faithful to Him) we find the promise of the fulfillment of all our efforts to build up a society that is more just, more equitable, more united in truth and love, more adequate to the dignity of every human person who is created in the image of God.

Today is the 42nd anniversary of Romero’s martyrdom. He was shot by a “Death Squad” gunman during the offertory of the Mass in the chapel of the Divina Providencia hospital, the chapel where Romero prayed daily to Jesus in the Eucharist and the hospital where—in a simple room—he resided as Archbishop, so he could be close to and minister daily to the sick and the dying.

He was prepared for death and had already offered his life for all the poor and suffering people of El Salvador. He knew the risks he was taking for the truth of God, for the Church, and for the dignity of the human person.

He knew he was placing himself in great danger when, in his nationally broadcast homily the previous Sunday, he admonished—directly and personally—the men of the Guardia Nacional, the police, and the army with this final appeal:

“Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, 'Thou shalt not kill.' No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order. The Church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be carried out at the cost of so much blood. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.”

Oscar Romero knew that "the Church" must always be "the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person" and that these rights and realities are inseparable because God became man in order to save every human being and to transfigure human existence according to the measure of God's love. The Church must be for the dignity of every human person in this life and in eternity. Jesus has transformed the meaning of "justice" in this world because He has identified every human person with Himself, especially the least, the poor, the forgotten, the oppressed, and all those who suffer.

Spring is Starting to “Show Up”…Finally!

Spring is starting to show up, at the end of the crazy week of March 13-20. As you can see, [1] forsythia bushes are blooming late this year, and with some hesitation. [2] A couple of weeks ago, perky buds were stirring, but then [3] WAMMO!🌨💨❄️ The snowstorm of March 12 caught them off their guard. But now they, along with other early buds [4 and 5], have begun opening up after several days of 70+ weather last week. [6] The big trees still remain mostly bare, however, against the light of longer and brighter evenings.☀️

Just a typical Virginia March, I guess.😙

La Cucina di San Giuseppe

We celebrated the feast of San Giuseppe on Saturday with simple deliciousness from Elena’s cucina (Eileen’s kitchen). The bolognese sauce has fresh mushrooms and onion as well as beef and tomato, with rotini pasta. And salad.

The picture doesn’t do justice… 😋

The “Silence” of Saint Joseph

“The Gospels report none of his spoken words, yet they present Saint Joseph as a model of attentive hearing of God’s word and acting upon it. Indeed, Joseph’s silence was the sign of a contemplative heart, confirming Saint Augustine’s observation that, ‘when the word of God increases, human words fail’ (Sermon 288:5). Joseph’s quiet humility teaches us to make room in our hearts for Christ, and thus to discern the Father’s will for our lives. 

“Jesus learned the importance of silence from the example of Joseph and Mary, and in turn taught his disciples to cultivate it. We too are called to exercise interior silence and attentive listening to God’s word, lest our daily worries, temptations and fears lead our spoken words astray and cause hurt to others. Though not easy, fostering contemplative silence is a sure path to authentic self-knowledge and spiritual growth. May we learn from Saint Joseph’s example of silence to let the Lord fill our hearts and guide our words in the service of his truth and in charity towards all our brothers and sisters.”

~Pope Francis (from “English Summary” of Catechesis of December 15, 2021)

The Conversion of Saint Patrick

Not many people have read my monthly column in Magnificat for the nearly nine years that it has been appearing. So it can only be useful to re-present some of the older “conversion stories” on this blog, and even make revisions here and there (as I contemplate what form of book – or series of books – might serve as a worthwhile vehicle for gathering together, rendering accessible in one place, and perhaps even expanding this considerable body of writing and the mountain of research it represents). 

And, since it’s “that-time-of-year-again,” I shall take advantage of the circumstances to tell the story of the conversion of Saint Patrick, based on the article that was published in Magnificat back in 2015:

Saint Patrick, the great Apostle of Ireland in the fifth century, was himself a “convert.” In his youth he ignored God, but in his days of slavery, Patrick cried out to God in his loneliness and found him in Christ. Then it was Christ again who called out to him through the searching hearts of the unknown people who lived west of Britain, at the edge of the world.

In his brief Confessions, St. Patrick says that he grew up as an “unbeliever.” He was from a wealthy family in Roman Britain and his forebears were Christians. But although the priests of the Church tried to “remind us of our salvation” (Confessions, 1) Patrick and his companions paid no attention to God and lived according to their own wishes.

These circumstances changed, however, when he was captured by pirates and sold as a slave to an Irish chief. Patrick’s comfortable and dissolute life was suddenly over, and instead he found himself impoverished and alone, shepherding his master’s flock in a wild and strange land. But for Patrick this isolation was a time of grace.

Although he called himself an unbeliever in his early days, something of the Gospel must have gotten through to him; the words of the priests who preached and exhorted the people of his homeland remained in his memory. There must have been something in the original testimony he had received, even though he had scoffed at it – something must have impressed itself upon him with a vitality of its own, sufficient to awaken in his days of tribulation. His own baptism and the ministry of the Church planted seeds of grace and awareness of God that were destined to sprout and grow in the hardy soil of his captivity. 

In his years as a slave, Patrick turned to God in ardent prayer. He turned to Jesus who had “watched over me before I knew him” (2). In the silence of the fields and forests he prayed, and “more and more did the love of God, and my fear of him and faith increase” for “the Spirit was burning in me at that time” (16). He also found himself in the company of the local people and learned the Gaelic language fluently. The same Christ who drew him in prayer impressed the faces of the pagan people of Ireland upon his soul.

When he finally escaped and returned to Britain, Patrick was determined to dedicate his life to Christ. It was then that he had a mystical experience in which he heard the Irish people calling him back: “We beg you, holy youth, that you shall come and shall walk again among us” (23). Patrick was drawn by this calling, but also hindered by fear and love of his own homeland and family. He had reason to fear, because his subsequent mission was full of tribulations and opposition in spite of its overwhelming success.

Saint Patrick ultimately became the great heroic missionary we venerate today because God’s grace empowered him to carry out many decades of hard work as a minister of the Gospel, and to overcome constant and various obstacles with ardent charity and patient persistence and endurance. There were times when he was tempted to return home and escape these struggles, but he knew that Christ was present for him in the Irish people to whom he had been sent; they were “the people to whom the love of Christ brought me and gave me in my lifetime, if I should be worthy, to serve them truly and with humility” (13).

The “Living Prayer” That Begs For Peace

Pope Francis invites us open our hearts in prayer before the Lord, in solidarity with those who are suffering (especially in the violence of this present war). 

So often we connive in our hearts with the arrogance and covetousness that breeds wars; yet we are called to the opposite, to be instruments of love who - even hidden from the world - can engage in this “living prayer,” this spiritual work of mercy which takes up “the plea of all those who suffer” and endeavors to “disarm the aggressor” by begging for healing for all of us, for the conversion of all our hearts to the peace of God.

“Snowpacalypse ‘22 - the Sequel”

Less than two weeks away from Spring, we got hit by a pretty respectable snowstorm (for this area) over the weekend. By today, sun and 60+ degree temperatures had melted almost all of the half-a-foot of snow as fast as it had come. But it was pretty while it lasted.

Some photographs and some digital artwork below.