Those Merciful Hands

Our sins are also in God's hands,
those merciful hands
with their "wounds" of love.
It is not by chance
that Jesus wanted
to preserve the wounds on his hands
to make us feel his mercy.
This is our strength and our hope!

 - Pope Francis

Remembering November 2005 (cont.): From Car Crash to Baby?

I prayed for a baby in 2005. So how did we get to HERE?

Here is the continuation and conclusion of the previous post from All Souls Day. It was originally posted on November 6, 2011, and it appears here with some revisions and updating.

I hope its not presumptuous of me to see the mysterious workings of God's providence in all of this muddle. Picking up where we left off, I had just been in a major car accident (which was totally. my. fault.), where my vehicle went off the road because I was rushing to get back from the monastery where I had gone to pray that morning. My heart was full of sorrow as I prayed for the soul of a very close friend who had just killed himself after a long struggle with major depression. I had prayed (hastily) nine Divine Mercy chaplets for his soul, his family, and that we (the Janaros) would have another baby. How did that last one get on the list of intentions? I was barely on top of my heath at this time, but I had a hope in my heart. I didn't know when; I was just hoping I might be well enough..., we were following the Catholic Church's teaching, of course, in these matters. I was hoping I might get well and stay well. Instead, I was about to get sicker. I had a major concussion, but didn't know it... yet.  

------------------

“I’m fine,” I told myself.

I had "walked away" from it all with nothing but a traffic ticket (which I fully deserved). The car was totaled. I felt shaken up, a little overwhelmed, a little out of joint.

It was a Friday afternoon by the time things settled down and I had my rental car. I decided it would be a good idea to see my chiropractor on Monday, so I made an appointment. Then I tried to push my way through the many activities of a busy weekend.

Something wasn’t quite right.

Indeed it wasn’t. I should have been in bed. Complete rest will slow the progress of neurological damage after a concussion. Running around like crazy can make it worse.

I ran around like crazy through the rest of Friday and Saturday. Crazy in more ways than one. I became increasingly confused. But not enough to stop me from getting through my business.

Then on Sunday I started losing my balance.

Oh no, I thought. Here goes Lyme disease again! There are so many diverse symptoms that can accompany a Lyme flare-up that you tend to thing the buggers are stirring whenever things don't feel right. (Who knows? Maybe they are....) I was also fatigued, but that was nothing new. And confused.

Monday morning I made the short drive to the chiropractor. By then it had been 72 hours. I was slow-minded, confused, and had balance problems. I wasn’t feeling very well, but I was used to not feeling well. Neither my wife or I realized that I shouldn’t have been driving anywhere at that point.

The doctor looked at me for a few seconds, and then asked, “is your wife at home?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Call her, and if she can’t get you we’ll call an ambulance. You need to go to the emergency room right away. You’ve got a concussion.”

“A what?”

That’s what it was, all right. I couldn’t even take a few steps with my eyes closed without falling over. The ER doctors explained the basics to me, and my own doctor and a neurologist followed up. I had a major concussion. I was ordered off my feet for a week. I was told it might take a couple of months to recover normal brain functioning. Meanwhile I was supposed to take it easy and avoid stress as much as possible....

“Ah...heh, heh...I’m a teacher...ha...y’know, taking care of students, grueling lectures, papers, finals, senior theses coming up....” Stress? That’s the job description.

What could I do? We were two thirds of the way through the semester. I couldn’t just bail out on my “kids” (as I always used to call my students). So I worked six brutal weeks, laying down with splitting headaches between lectures, wearing sunglasses to cut light sensitivity, seeing students in my home as much as possible, and even having a few read their papers to me aloud. I needed pain medication to get my grades done, which contributed further to wearing down my immune system. This was just like asking for a relapse.

I finished the grades. But my overall health was a wreck. And the concussion wasn’t healing. I had headaches. I had increasing difficulty following a conversation. And although I could still lecture, I was finding it harder to put words together in ordinary circumstances. I was still losing my balance.

By the middle of January, instead of being at opening weekend for the Spring semester, I was in the hospital. I seemed like I was back to square one. Sick as a dog. The college gave me a medical leave of absence. My entire Spring semester of 2006 was cancelled. BAM!

Needless to say, I was demoralized and depressed.

Why had this happened?

When I got out of the hospital, I did nothing but rest for two months. I played games with my children. My limitations forced a certain simplicity upon me. The anger faded, and I began to heal. I also began to see a Catholic psychotherapist. This too was the beginning of a whole new dimension in living with my illness.

I was forced to rest, and I began to heal.

On the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, the college chaplain came to visit me and gave me Holy Communion. Something began on that day, something that has slowly grown in me even in the midst of many subsequent setbacks in physical and mental health. Something deep in me began to heal. I was being prepared for a new task in my life.

As I began to feel better, I started working out. My strength returned, and with it a measure of energy that I had not felt in years. I started working on papers for publication (ended up publishing two papers that spring), and by March I was doing everything but classroom lecturing. The previous year, I had patched myself together to return to my work. But now, I was beginning to feel well.

Healing, as it turned out, has proven to be a much more complicated task than it appeared in those months. Still this temporary health was a blessing, and though I’ve had many setbacks and struggles since then, God has brought us through them all in a way that has made it possible for me to give attention to what was closest to my heart.

Indeed, it was this window of health that made possible the great gift that I had prayed for on that November morning.

Eileen and I prayed in those months, about a possibility. We talked about it. We knew there were risks. But we judged in faith that God wanted us to take them. We prayed for another child.

And God blessed us. Thus also -- in an unexpected way -- God granted my prayer from that November morning.

If we had seen the road ahead, with all its trials, would we have had the courage?

It is good that life is in the hands of God. Because looking back at that difficult road, we see even the darkest places lit up by the face of our beloved Josefina, and we have never had the slightest regret.

God’s ways are mysterious, and I still do not know how His answer to my prayers for sufficient health and strength will unfold. But I do know that in November of 2005 I was struggling with work and keeping my head above water. This was an absorbing focus of my energies, and there was no thought of another child and no intent to actively seek one. We were always intent on adhering to Christ present in the teaching of the Church, and we had many friends to encourage us and share this adherence with us. Thus we did not (nor have we ever) use artificial contraception. Still, we were not actively seeking to have another child.

At our age, we were almost resigned to the idea that Teresa would be the "baby" of our family. Back in November of 2005, there was only a desire and a prayer, reaching out to some wild unknown future.

We were a family of four children and a father who struggled with his health and the burdens of a difficult job. Then the burden and the struggle were taken off my shoulders. I was forced to rest, in body and in mind. From this rest I found energy and health (even though, as it turned out, only for a time, and as a preparation for new trials that I have already described on this blog). This time engendered in us the hope and the willingness to risk asking for an unlikely gift, and a space was opened in the history of our family for another child.

Without that accident that God permitted to happen as a consequence of my foolishness, there probably never would have been a Josefina Janaro.

Can anyone imagine this family without her?

Thus what seemed miserable at the time became the beginning of an immeasurable good. And it was not my plan that produced this but God, who works everything for the good.

I think perhaps He allows us to perceive His wisdom at work, or at least to glimpse it a little, enough to muster the courage to take risks.

Remembering All Souls Day 2005

The beautiful morning of November 2, 2005. I took this picture to remember the
peace I found that morning. I had no idea what would happen a hour later.

[Since I can't tell the story any better, here is a revised version of my post from November 2, 2011. Mysterious and traumatic memories....]

I woke up very early on a crisp, clear morning, and a thought immediately took shape in my mind.

It was All Souls Day, November 2, 2005.

For the past several weeks, I had been carrying around the awful burden and the anguish of my friend’s suicide (see posts from October 2011: The Middle of October and I Cannot Leave Them Alone).

My plan was as clear as it was sudden: I decided to drive up to the monastery that morning. It was not yet dawn. I could get there in time for Mass, make a holy hour for my friend’s soul and his family, confess and speak with my spiritual director, and drive back just in time for my 10:30 class.

I was in my first semester back to teaching after my first struggle with Lyme disease. During the past year I had undergone extensive treatment. I appeared to be in remission, but I still found that I had to pace myself. My health still seemed precarious. This too weighed on me.

And yet on this morning, the world felt light. Anything seemed possible.

I drove up to Holy Cross Cistercian Monastery in Berryville, Virginia on old familiar country roads as the sun came up. And I had another idea. I decided to pray a novena of chaplets to the Divine Mercy: in the next hour I said nine chaplets in a row–this precious novena that we pray on the days between Good Friday and Mercy Sunday, this novena that I prayed in 1995 that God might send me the woman he wanted me to marry and send her “soon” (Eileen called a couple of weeks later and said she wanted to move to Virginia), the chaplet of Divine Mercy that I say every day, that played such an important role in my mature conversion to the Church and has been a continual source of sustenance and consolation and nourishment in building up my life.

I prayed this novena of chaplets as part of my devotions that morning and I had three intentions: (1) for the soul of my friend, and the consolation of his family; (2) for the restoration of my health; (3) that we might have another child.

Teresa was about to turn three. We had our four beautiful children–for a couple that got started in their thirties, we felt blessed. We were grateful. And I was still sick. I was taking a lot of medications. Yet, on that morning, something in me was moved to pray for this, to desire it ardently. Another child. Every child is a miracle and a gift from God. It was a little bold on my part to ask for another, especially since I hadn’t even talked to Eileen. But it was a secret desire in my fatherly heart, and I brought it to God that morning, along with my prayer for the soul of my friend.

I got to the monastery in time for the end of Mass, made my hour of prayer, and then was able to see Fr. Edward, the beloved old Trappist monk who guided me for nine years of my life, whose advice on prayer, silence, the presence of God and the living of human relationships still remains rooted in me. (He helped me for two more years, but he had to go to a nursing home finally, when his mind had become as simple as his prayer; for him perhaps a blessing, but a loss–in one way, at least–for me. He died in July of 2012. May God grant him eternal glory.)

The day seemed kissed by God. The silence of the monastery was a great balm for my aching soul, the words of Fr. Edward were wise, the fall air was fresh and the colors majestic. I took a few pictures with my camera. It had been a beautiful morning, like a taste of heaven.

I looked at my watch and realized that I had to leave in order to get back in time for class. Any former student of mine reading this remembers my Mediterranean sense of time, always “a little late.” I was trying to correct this bad habit. I was determined to be on time for class.

Oh, but first I had to stop in quickly to the gift shop to get a prayer card for the family. That took just a little too much time....

Well, I would just have to make up the time by driving faster on the way back.

God’s grace meets my stupidity. Again. How does He put up with me?

*Dear people, listen to me. DON’T DO THIS! Drive safely. Don’t speed. Don’t think, “I can handle it. I know the road.” A car, when it loses control, can become an instrument of death – for you, or for other innocent people. I don’t care how good you may think you are, or how many times you’ve driven over that road, there are speed limits for a reason. It only takes one mistake, one mechanical failure, one queer obstacle on the road, one slip of the mind, one misjudgment. Yes, life is full of risks, but this is an unnecessary risk. Slow down, pay attention, stop worrying, drive your car safely. Do it for the sake of your family, of other drivers, of yourself.*

. . .

Speeding along and worrying about being on time. The old car’s got a pretty bouncy suspension. Country roads. Watch the curves. Here’s a nice straight stretch. No cars coming the other way.

Oh, railroad tracks. THUNK. What was...?

Airborne.

Heading toward the side. There’s a tree. A tree. Me, the air, and a tree in autumn bloom...in a split second of high speed.

The tree whizzed passed just to the left of the car.

Grass wheels hit spin around I’m bouncing everywhere STOP.

Alone.

Thank God there was no one else coming the other way. Thank God. God forgive me.

. . .

“Are you sure you’re alright sir?” the policeman asked. “Do you want us to take you to the hospital?”

“Oh, I’m fine.” I was sitting on the ground. I was staring. He asked more than once.

“I’m fine. I’m fine.”

A concussion only begins at the time of impact. The brain hits the inside of the skull, and there is a cascade of neurological damage that takes place over the course of the next 72 hours.

*You've just been in a serious car accident? YOU ARE NOT “OKAY”! Get yourself checked out.*

I got into the tow truck with the driver.

The car was totaled. It was an old car, and only had liability insurance. This accident was a solo job. “I’m okay, though” I said to myself, feeling only a little dazed in the head as the reverberation of the concussion continued to shred neuropathways in my brain.

“What happened to this beautiful day?” I wondered. “What about my prayers? My novena? And the sense that God was taking care of me? How does this fit in?”

How indeed? It was the beginning of a mysterious and dramatic period in my life. November 2, 2005. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace.


to be continued....

Josefina's Birthday: Our Miracle Girl Turns Seven!

Right out in our yard!

So we bid October goodbye again. Autumn has finally come to the Valley and the trees are "blooming." This one in our front yard has never looked better. There are glorious colors all around the neighborhood.

So much color

Of course, the daylight is shrinking. And for me, this stretch of time remains full of memories: mysterious and traumatic memories. I've written about these events before (see posts from Oct.& Nov. in 2011 and 2012).

One of them, of course, was the unexpected premature birth of Josefina on October 26, 2006. It was the beginning of her seven month stay in NICU and PICU, with the surgeries and the ups and downs and the waiting....

A few days ago, Josefina celebrated her seventh birthday. No, that's not a mistake: she is seven years old, as in "7". S-E-V-E-N. I'm talking about this child right here:

You still have to watch where you sit, or you might mistake her for a pillow!

She weighs 34 pounds and is barely three feet tall. She's a little tweety bird! If her voice were any higher pitched, only dogs would be able to hear it. She wears size 4T, and there are four year olds who are taller and heaver than she is. She climbs around like a monkey, and is quick to perch on my shoulders at every opportunity. My shoulders don't always feel up to it, but I try to bear up if I can... after all, she weighs almost nothing.

Don't worry, she was totally latched on, arms and legs. I was choking to death, but.... (just kidding!)

Its true that she got a very pretty haircut recently, which makes her look more mature. But gosh, she still fits into the Lamby costume that Eileen made for the kids when they were toddlers. Somewhere there's a picture of Lucia at age three practically bursting out this thing. Nobody has ever come close to wearing it at the age of seven.

Okay, I'll admit its bit tight, but still... she's a little lamby!

I'm beginning to suspect that Jojo might actually be a hobbit!

Seriously, she looks like a five year old who is on the small side. But she eats and digests normally. The doctor is not worried; all of this is still not unusual for a pre-mee with her circumstances. She is healthy and certainly has lots of energy (whew!). Mentally she ranges from preschooler to first grader. But she's coming along well. I pay a lot of attention to her, and I can tell she is going through a lot of development, even though its hard to believe since the "package" looks the same.

How old? I don't know. I'm pretty sure she still wears that outfit though!

Of course, she's bigger than her NICU days. Here is such a tiny little being, surrounded by what
Paul Hewson calls "science and the human heart." I often see her today and want to cry with
gratitude, to God and also to many people. Human beings can do so much good, if they choose.

Because I've been home so much in these years, I've spent a lot more time with her than I did with the other four during these early years of their development. I haven't replaced her mother (and, thank God, she's with her mother very much, even if sometimes its in the classroom). No one can "replace" a mother, who is so very different, in an essential way, from a father. Even when the father is the parent who is the "anchor" in the house (i.e. he's there every day, except when everyone goes out), he remains the father.

And he needs to come through and be the father, even in unusual circumstances and with disabilities. He doesn't have to be afraid of these limits; in fact, the children will learn some special things by being with him -- things that they may not have otherwise learned: things about flexibility, about their own important and active place in the family, about compassion.

But still, aren't fathers wrapped around the little fingers of their cute little daughters?

Somewhat, yes. But I don't pamper her all the time. Really, honestly, I don't! I can only be hoodwinked so far. I have three other daughters, so I have a little experience here. And I've learned a thing or two from Montessori about encouraging the child to grow without artificial praise, and disciplining her (whenever possible) by breaking down the problem and offering her possibilities to choose.

Of course, there's plenty of the old fashioned hollering. If we're leaving for Mass in two minutes: "put those socks on NOW!" Stuff like that. You all know how it is.

On the other hand, we sat for a couple of hours the other day with a globe and just talked about different countries and continents, and the North Pole and South Pole and the arc-a-tic kir-kul (Wait, wait, what kinds of sounds are made by "c"? You have a "c" and an "i" there...).

She's fascinated by geography and finding places, as she pipes away in her "helium-balloon" voice.

And so we celebrated here birthday and had lots of fun:

When it comes to opening her own presents, Jojo doesn't need any help.

But she's still thrilled by something like a pink ball (because its her ball).

But she also loves her new paint project set.

And then came Halloween. Here's Lucia, Teresa and Josefina in what I call "minimalist" Halloween costumes.

Josefina is a "Native American" girl. Most people thought she was Pocahontas. Even though
she fits into the "Lamby" costume, she didn't want to be a Lamby. So Mommy got creative
at the last minute, with the help of some feathers, a headband, and a dress she wears a lot.

Teresa, who turns 11 next month, is a "Cow Person" (LOL!) Hat, vest, and rope: all in stock; no purchase necessary.

Lucia (age 13) is taking French this year. So she put on a knitted beret, e voila! -- La Femme Francaise!
(Lucia is becoming a beautiful young lady. I'd love to write a blog about her, but she's shy...  )

Well, that's a pretty good update as we enter the month of November. Don't tell me that the year has gone by "fast," because it has done no such thing. It has been some kind of wild and wacky year. A lot of things have happened, and we still have two months to go.

May the Lord show us the beauty of every moment.

Blessed Chiara Badano: My "Spiritual Kid Sister"

I probably talk to Chiara Luce Badano more than any other saint (except for Mary). I ask her to pray for a lot of things. I don't think I've asked for a miracle; I pray for many concerns (my own and those of others) where her intercession remains hidden, although I believe that she does intercede and that she is great and deeply inserted within the heart of Jesus.

There are some saints that I listen to, primarily -- which is not to say that I "hear voices," but rather that I learn from their teachings and the counsel they gave during their lives. Augustine, Benedict, and Bernard; Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure; Ignatius, Francis De Sales, Therese, Padre Pio, Edith Stein, Mother Teresa, John Paul II (although I talk to him a lot too).

Chiara Luce is like a kid sister (she would be 42 years old if she were alive today).

It seems easy to talk to Chiara Luce from within myself. She's a simple heart. She left no treatises and not many words, although the few we have are precious. But I want to ask her to pray for me and my children and our family; to pray for "young people," certainly (that's her special assignment), but also for all the suffering people I know -- especially people who have cancer with all of their grueling struggles. She's been through all that, and not long ago. She's also close to shut-ins and people with chronic pain; people whose lives are derailed by illness (young, middle aged or old).

I think she has a special understanding and a special compassion for those (like me) who suffer from mental illness. When she was in the hospital, she gave her time and her companionship to another woman suffering from depression (even though Chiara herself was in great pain and in need of rest). When she was younger, she once told her mother not to speak harshly about the drug addicts. "They are the lepers of our time," she said.

There's another reason why I am moved to open my soul to her. She was known in life to be an exceptionally good listener. She gave time to her friends, listened to their problems and doubts, and took things into her heart. She once said that she didn't speak much to people about Jesus, but just tried to be a living witness and instrument of His love.

Chiara Luce never condemns me. She is never harsh.

Yet the witness of her life scares me out of my wits. (And she knows that too.) Her life makes it so clear that this "Jesus" thing is really real; its not a mind game. It means tossing it all up and following Him wherever He leads me. Scared? I don't think I even understand what it means to surrender everything, to become His Love, with no regard for my own interest. I feel overwhelmed. I can't get it inside my head.

Not to mention the fact that I'm just so plain old fashioned selfish.

The Lord is teaching me through life and suffering, mercifully and with great patience. And Chiara Luce will stay with me and listen to me and be my friend along the way. I don't deserve the attention of so great a heart.

And I bring her the needs and intentions that people ask me to pray for. O yeah. Because she's the real deal. You should ask her to intercede for you, in bearing pain and suffering, and to grow in the love of God.

Ask her to pray for you. And expect miracles.

This is an unofficial (i.e. non-liturgical) English translation of the Collect for her feast day. My hope is that God's grace will indeed "transform deeply my soul" -- beginning with an attraction to this light of love, a desire to live with this serene trust.

Father of infinite goodness,

who through the merits of your Son

and the gift of the Spirit

have set alight with love Blessed Chiara Badano,

transform deeply our soul

so that, following her example,

we too become capable

of always doing Your holy will

with serene trust.

Through Our Lord Jesus Christ your Son,

who lives and reigns with you

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God forever and ever,

Amen.

Dear Eileen: What a Glorious Life

The engaged couple, Christmas 1995

Eighteen years ago today

I got engaged to my beautiful lady.

And now, looking at all the time,

filled with love and patience

and five precious, mysterious children,

with arduous work and failure and success,

with not much richer and mostly poorer,

and even with illness and pain,

there is only one thing I can say:

"What a glorious life we've had!"

I am so grateful to God and to you, Eileen Janaro.

I love you!

May we always be together,

and continue to share with tenderness and courage

whatever God asks of us.

The Ancient Blog: Why Were All Things Bitter on the Tongue?

Paging through the Ancient Blog from the month of October in the year One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety (yes, that's 1990) I came across some scattered entries for the month, such as this page:

Hmmm. Edith Stein quotations have lost none of their vividness.

Television was "raising the kids" in 1990. The Box was indeed at its height. Cable was booming with new networks, and everyone had VCRs and at least one membership card to a video rental store. Of course, by 1990 we also had personal computers in our homes. They were planted on desks, and looked like bulky microwave ovens. They were useful for documents and data, but they weren't much fun. In those days, the television and the computer occupied two entirely separate worlds, and there was no reason to imagine that that would ever change. As for phones... well, they were your house, securely plugged into the wall.

TV was king. In a few months, Americans would get to watch their first "live war." Thanks to CNN, the bombing of Baghdad was brought into our living rooms like a football game. They even designed a eye-catching logo for "the Gulf War." TV was shaping all of us. It was defining the stories with its images. Upstart cable stations and poor quality homemade video tapes hinted at the possibility of "alternative media," but not much....

What about John Janaro in 1990? I was doing well in graduate school. "But I am not happy. I am not content. I am not satisfied." I was 27 and I thought that "all things [were] bitter on the tongue."

For all that has happened in recent years -- all the struggles and breakdowns and failures -- I would not describe my life today as "bitter on the tongue." No. It is a great life. Things are not bitter. Arduous and difficult, yes. But not bitter. It is a great thing to be alive, and to have hope for each day.

Perhaps in some ways I've grown younger with the passing of years.

Can God Really Turn Our Sorrows Into Joy?

"With weeping they shall come,
    and with consolations I will lead them back,
I will let them walk by brooks of water,
    in a straight path in which they shall not stumble.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
    I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow."
(Jeremiah 31:9, 13)

The promise of the Lord is to lead us, to transform our mourning and our sorrow, to bring us joy and gladness in Him. "I will turn their mourning into joy." But how can this possibly happen?

Sorrow is like a wound forever opened, and we mourn over what is lost beyond all recovery. Can this really change? The really deep sorrows, like the tragic loss of someone we love... how can these sorrows be turned into joy?

We really don't understand what this means. These are the sorrows that we make a certain kind of "peace" with, after awhile. The world tells us to "move on with life" and to forget, and in sense we have to do this, we have to "carry on" just to survive. But no one really forgets the deep sorrows. We learn to carry them with us. We find a way to "come to terms" with them. We live with open wounds.

But if we really have faith in the promise of the Lord, then we also have something more. We have hope. In faith and in hope, we know that God has made our sorrows His own. He has borne them all the way to the end.

God has revealed His love for us. God is Love.

God has revealed His infinite glory, His infinite mystery. But after 20 centuries of Christianity, the words "God is Love" can sound sentimental. We want "love" to be trivial, and so we make God trivial. We consign Him to the superficial places, to the margins of life. We keep His love at a distance, as though it were some vague comforting story.

We do not want to think about real love, because it is so fundamental and mysterious, because it encompasses sacrifice, and because our human experience of love is so often one of failure, limitations, and disappointment. And love is so often for us the road to sorrow.

We love someone, and then they die.

How can we bear this? We envision a hazy "afterlife," strange and inaccessible, or else we allow them to disappear into a supercosmic nirvana. But in life we knew a human person, someone we could walk with, by brooks of water. Here is our great sorrow: we want to walk again with the person we love. We want to see two pairs of feet, and instead we only see one. We walk alone.

And then, a stranger appears.

He walks with us. We don't know who the stranger is, but hope is awakened within our hearts. Are we willing to follow that hope, and take the stranger into the home of our hearts? Or will we let him pass by?

Only if we let the stranger in will he open our eyes. He will show us that he has all the deep wounds of our sorrows. He has them.

But there is no easy way to learn this. We have to let the stranger in. We have to see His humanity and let the fire of hope burn in us.

Then we will begin to discover that the promise has been fulfilled, that love is not a lie or a trick, that our sorrow is even now being turned to joy. 

Why Are We Always So Frustrated?

Everything is grace,

Everything is the direct effect of our Father's love. 

Everything is grace, because everything is God's gift....

--St. Therese of Lisieux

Everything? Really??

Okay, I can do the theology here, but when it comes to actual stuff that happens ... its very hard to see everything as a gift. Sometimes "everything" is a train wreck. Where is the "gift"?

At such times, it seems easier to understand that proverb of contemporary worldly wisdom, which might be paraphrased as: "Life stinks and then you die!"

But no. Those are always words of profound dissatisfaction. The human person knows they are wrong. If there is any "resignation" in them, its only in the attempt to make a cynical peace with the idea that the universe is one big scam.

But I can't say "I've been cheated by life" except from the expectation that life is supposed to give me something, that at the heart of life there is a promise.

Thus, people go on hoping for something, and if they say things like this its because they are trying to cope with a sense of frustration that seems to renew itself over and over again.

I usually don't go so far as to say that "life stinks..." (well, not lately anyway). But I do feel that "life is often frustrating."

How can my frustration be a gift? Why do I have to live with frustration, day after day; dull, throbbing frustration aching through the day; frustration like a prison that seems to build walls in every direction? What's the "gift" in that?

Well, frustration provokes me; it challenges my freedom, and my sense of who I am.

In the face of frustration, I can choose to give up. I can say "life stinks" and wallow in pity for my isolated self.

Or I can remember that my very self is a gift, and that this moment of frustration (with all of its bitterness, pain, and incomprehensibility) is a gift because it deepens my awareness of who I really am. It reminds me in a concrete way that I am made for something greater, something beyond my control, something I don't make or measure or manage, something that I can't find anywhere in this world.

Nevertheless, this "something" is real. It is at the root of me, it sustains me, and it carves itself into my heart in the form of a promise.

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

What does my six year old daughter do when she's frustrated by something?

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Help! Please help!" She asks for help. She asks Daddy to come.

What do I do if I see Josefina crying, helpless, frustrated by something because she's just too small to understand it?

I go to her and pick her up and hold her. She still cries. Sometimes she cries even more. It seems like she doesn't even notice I'm there.

But I am there, and I keep holding on to her.

John Paul II: Opening Wide the Doors For Christ

Pope John Paul II at his installation,
October 22, 1978

It has begun to seem like a long time ago. The world was different in many ways. It was the world of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall; the world of unimaginable stockpiles of nuclear weapons, the world of "mutually assured destruction." It was the world that had risen from the ashes of two horrible wars, the vast explosion of technological power, and the emergence of peoples and nations struggling to affirm their own identity.

It was the world of my youth. The Communist Empire of the Soviet Union seemed indestructible, an awful reality that appeared to be one of the permanent fixtures of the wild and scary new epoch that was emerging. There were no great ideals looming on the horizon (at least none that I was aware of). There was (it seemed) only the exponential growth of human power over the external world. But human hearts were full of strange dreams and empty of God. He was ignored or had been forgotten by the "free" world, and He was banned by communism.

On October 22, 1978, the sun rose on a dark and terrible world. Who could imagine that something new might happen? Who would have guessed that this day would inaugurate the beginning of a great energy, an expression of intelligence, and above all a witness that was destined to leave an ineradicable stamp on the emerging epoch? No one had predicted that the greatest man of the 20th century was about to take the stage of history. A man was about to appear who would help us begin to understand what had happened in these tumultuous decades of colossal growth and vast destruction. He would help us understand the continuing changes at the end of the second millennium. He would point the way forward, open new vistas of understanding and affectivity, and above all he would remind us of the love of God.

The greatness of John Paul II, of course, was his witness to Christ. It was a singularly powerful witness. He entered into so many realms of human experience and endeavor only to efface himself so that Christ might shine through him. We learned that Christ had never left us, and that at the beginning of the third millennium it was Christ who alone was sufficient to subordinate the new power of human beings to a new and deeper awareness of their dignity as children of God.

The feast day of the man who will soon be St. John Paul II commemorates a moment in his own life and in the life of the Church, but also a decisive moment for the history of the world. There were some who heard his words that day and recognized that something great had begun. There were some who, on that day, began to discover a new courage in their lives.

"Do not be afraid.

Open, I say open wide the doors for Christ.

To His saving power

open the boundaries of states,

economic and political systems,

the vast fields of culture,

civilization and development.

Do not be afraid.

Christ knows 'that which is in man.'

He alone knows it.

"So often today,

man does not know that which is in him,

in the depths of his mind and heart.

So often he is uncertain

about the meaning of his life on this earth.

He is assailed by doubt,

a doubt which turns into despair.

We ask you, therefore,

we beg you with humility and with trust,

let Christ speak to man.

He alone has words of life,

yes, of life eternal."

Blessed John Paul II

October 22, 1978

Mental Illness Happens to "Good Priests" Too

A week and a half ago, I received some terrible news. It saddened and shocked many people. It saddened me, very deeply. But it didn't shock me.

"Father X, a local priest, died unexpectedly yesterday...." So begins an obituary. Some people don't need to read any further to realize the awful thing that has happened. But in a few days, it becomes common knowledge.

Another priest has died by suicide.

This was not a priest who abused anyone, or was under any accusation, or who had ever even dreamed of committing a crime. This was a priest who suffered from depression.

Lord Jesus, grant him eternal rest, and console his family, his friends, his parish, his brother priests. Jesus, have mercy on him, and on the souls of other priests who have disappeared in this darkness, and all other people driven to such an end. Have mercy on those who are afflicted by this terrible disease, and by every oppressive suffering. Jesus, have mercy on us and on the whole world. Jesus.

I don't know what to say about this on a blog. I've prayed to God; I've asked Him, "What can I say?" Does God want me to say anything at all? Maybe it would be better to remain silent.

This is a time to mourn.

But it is also a time for vigilance. A time to pray for the dead and the living. And also a time to do whatever we can to fight against the stigma that remains attached to mental illness, and to build up adequate, Catholic, Christian, human ways to reach out to people who suffer from mental illness. Let us face the fact: we do not yet have enough of these resources. We're not even close. This must change! 

Priests are also human beings. They have brains. They have emotions. They have human problems, human suffering, human loneliness, human illnesses. There are plenty of good priests who suffer from mental illnesses. They struggle with them, they find ways to get through the day with them, they limp with them. They are good men -- some of the best men I've ever known, men who have been instruments of Christ's grace for many, men who have never been a threat or a danger to anyone. Except themselves.

Mental illnesses are diseases. For some reason, we still tend to assume that the sacrament of Holy Orders makes men immune from these diseases. It doesn't.

But what can any of us do? How do we help with a problem like this? Its too enormous. We feel powerless. What can we do?

We can pray for our priests, living and dead. We can have greater compassion toward them (and toward one another). We can recognize that these mental illnesses are real, and try to understand them. We can support efforts to build up adequate mental health services for priests and for everyone in our dioceses.

We can encourage and support Catholic men and women who feel called to be psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, mental health care practitioners, researchers, neuroscientists, and health journalists. We can stop mocking these professions and stop showing contempt for the real problems they are grappling with. Yes, there is a lot of error and confusion here, but also a lot of positive accomplishments and a lot of real medical and therapeutic treatments that exist and that continue to be developed. We must recognize these things; it is a matter of justice and mercy, of life and death.

We can think more carefully, make the appropriate distinctions, listen to people whose judgment we trust, and build up what is good here. Let us help our priests, other people, and ourselves to find the genuine healing that is available. Let us work to erase the stigma and the shame that cause so many people to live in denial or hide the reality of their pain.

We can try to remember that every human being is a person--and that means my neighbor, my spouse, my child, my colleague, and also my priest and my bishop. Every human being is a person who needs to be loved and appreciated, who is vulnerable and weak, afflicted and wounded by sickness and sin and the inexhaustible thirst for God.

We can learn to look at the person. Love the person, first, always....