“Saint John Paul II” — So AWESOME!

HAPPY JPII DAY! Today is the memorial of Saint John Paul II (Pope from 1978-2005) who was a “witness to hope” for our generation, and for today and the future:

“Do not be afraid. 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 ‘what is in man’. He alone knows it.

“So often today man does not know what is within 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 trust, let Christ speak to man. He alone has words of life, yes, of eternal life.”

~Saint John Paul II (Papal Installation, October 22, 1978)

Ukraine’s Suffering and the Life-Giving Cross of Christ

War remains a horrible reality for some and a threat to us all in the Fall of 2025. There is relief and hope, for the moment, in Gaza and Israel with the recent cease-fire. The process for anything resembling a more permanent peace, however, involves unknown contingencies and obscure demands of powerful groups who are not known for being reliable.

Meanwhile, Russia’s unconscionable invasion of Ukraine goes on. Russia has made small gains in the Donbas region at great cost while continuing attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure and consistently refusing any cease-fire proposals that won’t hand over to them all the territory in Eastern Ukraine that they seek. The Putin kleptocracy has no interest in genuine dialogue, much less any intention of admitting its war crimes. If the Russian regime’s savagery is rewarded, it will mean the fall of the current framework of international law, and ongoing danger for the rest of Ukraine and Europe. The aggressor is relentless. What can be done?

Ukrainians suffer and pray for peace even as they continue to defend themselves. Their nation is enduring a long and mysterious trial, with the hope that their humiliation will bear fruit through faith and love.

Here are some excerpts (in bold type) from the homily given by His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Primate of the Ukrainian Greek (Byzantine) Catholic Church, on October 20 in Oslo at the “Ecumenical Prayer for Peace” with religious leaders of Ukraine and Norway:

To these Philippians, the Apostle Paul proclaims Christ, who “though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8). To those striving to ascend, Paul preaches the One who chose to descend….

The goal of this descent of the Son of God is death on the cross—the most shameful and humiliating of deaths, reserved as punishment for slaves and known as servile supplicium.

To the Philippians, Paul proclaims “Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:23–24). The Apostle reveals a divine paradox: the crucifixion on the cross—the lowest point of humiliation in Christ’s descent—becomes the very moment of glorification and ascent. What appears to human eyes as shame becomes the hour when the Father glorifies His Son, bestowing on Him “the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil 2:9-11).

Dearly beloved in Christ! Today Ukraine—our people and our Churches—are walking the path of kenosis proclaimed to us in this Word of God. Every loss of a loved one, every destroyed city and village, leaves in our hearts an irreparable emptiness that nothing can fill. The whole world witnesses Ukraine’s tragedy: some with awe, others with indifference; still others raise their hands in helplessness and turn our pain and suffering into material for media battles and manipulations, using it to polarize their own societies and gain political advantage.

Today our nation endures its own crucifixion before the eyes of the world community, and it seems to us that the Apostle Paul speaks precisely about us when he says: “We have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals” (cf. 1 Cor 4:9). Yet the power and glory of the Lord’s Cross are revealed in our sufferings—and in our word of hope, both for Ukraine and from Ukraine, to contemporary humanity.

We are bleeding, and once again we ask ourselves: God, why? Perhaps this question—Why must we, Ukrainians, be crucified before the eyes of the whole world today? — stands at the very center of reflection for all people of goodwill, both believers and non-believers alike. God, why do other nations live, develop, rejoice, and flourish, while we must die night after night? Why does the blood of infants flow on Ukrainian soil? God, why?

Perhaps the final answer to this question will be revealed only at the Last Judgment, when all that is hidden will come to light. Yet even now, the key to understanding this tragedy lies in the holy and life-giving Cross of Christ.…

In us today, this divine paradox is being fulfilled once again: the crucifixion on the cross—the lowest point of humiliation in the descent—has become the moment of glorification and ascent.

Today, together with representatives of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, we wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to all Christians of Norway and to all people of goodwill for their solidarity with Ukraine. Thank you for showing in your compassion toward us “the same mind that was in Christ Jesus” (cf. Phil 2:5)... [O]ur shared mission of Christian mercy [is] to end the war and to save Europe from yet another catastrophe.

May our suffering, and our common witness to the Gospel of Christ, serve the purpose that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Amen.

In Memory of a Friend

“He didn't seem like he was depressed and was always smiling. This is shocking” (Anon).

A bright autumn day

colors

crisp

sunlight flashing on the windows.

A clear day, blue with painted hues of leaf.

I stood strong and tall

in the breezy wind

and felt life once again

like great power

from my head flowing down through me.

With large strides

I passed over the fields

drinking fountains of expansive air.

And with the red sun playing on my head,

I burst through the door

but her face was bloodless white.

I stopped, and suddenly

the October air froze on my skin.

She searched my face

with a gaze of shiny wet cheeks

and spoke your name,

and this single word

had a weight

that said everything.

Fire arose in my bones

and spread all over me

until it found my eyes.

And the sun flickered in the shadows.

              --in memoriam, jp, +october 17, 2005

.

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

Friday marked the twentieth anniversary of the death of a dear friend, a close friend of our family — in fact, my parents’ godson. I remember when he was born, and I remember standing next to my parents in front of the baptismal font (I was only a little taller than the font at the time).

This poem was written some years ago, but I am presenting it again here. My friend, whom I loved like a brother, suffered from crippling depression for several years before his tragic death by suicide. My wife answered the call the next morning, and broke the news to me after I returned from a brisk Autumn outing.

Twenty years is a long time. Much has changed. His godparents have joined him in death — in that final passage through the purifying mercy of the Heart of Jesus into eternal beatifying communion with the Trinity.

There is some consolation in the expectation and hope that my parents are with him. I pray for them all, and I grieve for them, begging God to heal all our wounds.

Lord, embrace us all in the unfathomable abyss of your mercy.

Ignatius of Antioch: “In the Face of Their Fury, Be Gentle”

Saint Ignatius of Antioch was arrested by the Romans, taken in chains from his episcopal seat in Asia Minor, and ultimately executed in the Colosseum by being fed to “wild beasts” as part of a popular entertainment event in the year 110.

Violence and destruction were regular features of “show-business” in Rome in late antiquity. People developed a “taste” for the spectacle of watching other people being hunted down and subjected to a gruesome death in the arena. Somehow, they were able to forget their own humanity.

Dear people of our own time: how are we “entertained”? This question deserves some reflection on the part of all of us living 1900 years later. In front of the enormous technologically driven, hypersexualized, artificially violent “spectacles” of today, do we forget our own humanity?

In any case, Ignatius embraced this suffering for an entirely different reason. He longed to share in the Passion of Jesus Christ. And he met delegations and sent letters to the churches in Asia Minor that he passed through on his way to martyrdom. He exhorted the churches to be united in faith and charity under the leadership of their bishops. Thus they will begin to experience the participation in God’s life that is their destiny, and will be witnesses to the world of the mercy and love of God given through Jesus Christ in His Church.

Here are some selections from Ignatius of Antioch’s letter to the church in Ephesus:

“When you heard that I was come from Syria in bonds for the Name and hope common to us all, and that I was hoping by your prayer to attain my purpose of fighting with wild beasts at Rome, that through my attaining I may be enabled to be a disciple, you were anxious to visit me. I received therefore your numerous body in the name of God in the person of Onesimus, whose love surpasses words, who is, besides, in the flesh your bishop. I pray that you may love him with a love according to Jesus Christ, and that you may all be like him. For blessed is He Who granted unto you, worthy as you are, to possess such a bishop….

“Hence it is fitting for you to set yourselves in harmony with the mind of the bishop, as indeed you do. For your noble presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted to the bishop, as the strings to a harp. And thus by means of your accord and harmonious love Jesus Christ is sung. Form yourselves one and all into a choir, that blending in concord, taking the key-note of God, you may sing in unison with one voice through Jesus Christ to the Father, that He may hear you and recognize by means of your well-doing that you are members of His Son. Therefore it is profitable for you to live in unblameable unity, that you may be also partakers of God continually. For if I in a short space of time had such intercourse with your bishop, not after the common way of men, but after the spirit, how much more do I congratulate you, who are knit to him as closely as is the Church to Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ to the Father, that all things may accord in unity.

“And for the rest of men pray unceasingly — for there is in them hope of repentance — that they may attain unto God. Suffer them therefore to learn discipleship at least from your works. In face of their outbursts of wrath be meek; in face of their boastful words be humble; meet their revilings with prayers; where they are in error, be steadfast in the faith; in face of their fury be gentle. Be not eager to retaliate upon them. Let our forbearance prove us their brethren. Let us endeavour to be imitators of the Lord, striving who can suffer the greater wrong… But in all purity and sobriety abide in Christ Jesus in flesh and in spirit.”

~Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Ephesians 1, 4-5, 10

God’s Mercy and Our Suffering

I spend many hard days sick and in pain, staring at the walls in this empty house. Even God seems absent and I feel abandoned and alone. In this solitude I can only cry out to God and long for Him in the firm conviction that He hears me, He wants me, and that the darkness and emptiness are the vast spaces of the mystery of His inexhaustible Heart that holds me. He knows who I am, and He carries me in my suffering and accompanies me through all its depths. He has made those depths His own. His mercy is His brokenness on the Cross which He invites me to share. 

But it’s very hard! It’s easy to forget God, to forget myself, to seek distractions that always end in frustration, cynicism, and discouragement. Jesus, have mercy on me!

We are all so much in need of mercy and compassion. We are all suffering. Our lives are full of struggles and afflictions we don’t even understand.

A particularly valuable way we can show mercy to one another is to help bear one another's burdens, to open our hearts to the mystery of the other person's suffering. This is what we need from one another. It is the way that we can discover the presence of Jesus in every person's life, not with condescension but with a great reverence for the person.

I must welcome the person I encounter, because this person is loved by Jesus. It is the great Heart of Jesus that gives value and dignity to every person and to all our relationships. Whenever I speak to a person, my words should be shaped by the desire that Jesus come more fully to us both — to heal us in His mercy and draw us together along the paths of His mercy.

As our late beloved Pope Francis often said, "We cannot trust in our own strength, but only in Jesus and in His mercy." Indeed, our strength is much too small to fathom the mercy of God. Our strength is too frail to bear His weakness on the cross.

Jesus, teach me to be merciful.
Have mercy on me.
Give me a merciful and compassionate heart.
Make me an instrument of Your mercy.
Jesus, I trust in You.

Teresa of Avila: "Patience Gains Everything"

“Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you; all things are passing; God never changes. Patience gains everything. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.”

— Saint Teresa of Ávila

A Church that Sets No Limits to Love

“Christian love breaks down every barrier, brings close those who were distant, unites strangers, and reconciles enemies. It spans chasms that are humanly impossible to bridge, and it penetrates to the most hidden crevices of society. By its very nature, Christian love is prophetic: it works miracles and knows no limits. It makes what was apparently impossible happen. Love is above all a way of looking at life and a way of living it. A Church that sets no limits to love, that knows no enemies to fight but only men and women to love, is the Church that the world needs today.”

This quotation is from Pope Leo XIV’s first published magisterial text, the Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi Te, 120.

Catherine’s Baptism and a Fuzzy Family Picture

Catherine Elise Janaro received the Sacrament of Baptism on Saturday, October 4, 2025. Thanks be to God! Here she is wearing the same baptismal garment as her sisters, her father, and her aunts (hand made by Nana, 28+ years ago). Aunt Lucia and Uncle Mike are the godparents.

We also have the most recent Janaro Family Picture here, but for some reason it’s quite “low resolution.” In any case, the only copy I received was fuzzy like this. I know people took pictures, so maybe there’s a clearer version out there on someone’s phone. I didn’t get involved in picture-taking. I tried to keep it simple and concentrate on staying on my feet.

Look how big Maria and Anna have grown! 

History goes on, and the Kingdom of God grows mysteriously on the path of that history, through Jesus Christ living in His Church, giving Himself through the sacraments, giving Himself through the love that gathers His People, generation after generation.

We have seen lots of Catie, but we haven’t taken many pictures yet. As she grows, I’m sure her picture folder will grow, along with the “Janaro Sisters/Grandchildren” folder.

Someone got a picture of the moment of Catie’s baptism:

"Human Dignity Must Always Come First!"

Pope Leo continues to challenge us to search for new ways to approach the needs of migrants and refugees throughout the world — new ways that will place the dignity of the human person at the center of individual and social commitment.

We are called to follow Jesus here, even if He leads us on unfamiliar and difficult paths. He will enable us to encounter our brothers and sisters and walk with them, while we work together to find solutions to the strange and sometimes unprecedented problems of this emerging new epoch in human history. 

One of the realities of our times is the enormous and rapid movement of peoples all over the world. It is hard to imagine how we can engage all the challenges we face, but we must face them together, with reverence for the dignity of human persons, human relationships, human communion - with confidence in the mysterious variety-in-unity that is destined to enrich the human family because we are all children of God.

“Never Again War, Never Again War!”

October 4th marked the 60th anniversary of a historic event: Pope Paul VI addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. It’s often forgotten that Paul VI was the first Pope to travel to various places around the world: the first Pope to visit Asia, Africa, North and South America. He made ten pastoral visits outside Italy in his 15-year pontificate. (Pope John Paul II would make 104 trips, but Paul VI was the pioneer of global papal travel.)

Sixty years ago, the Pope came to the United Nations to proclaim to leaders of the world the desperate need for peace. As Vatican Media’s post indicates, “these words are more urgent than ever.”

The Mission of Hospitality and Welcome

In Pope Leo XIV’s Homily today, he continued to preach the truth of the Gospel regarding our responsibility — rooted in our vocation as Christians — to make space in our hearts, concerns, and gestures for the needs of our immigrant brothers and sisters. Our response to their needs must be shaped not only by political and economic criteria or worldly humanistic ideals, but also and above all by our calling to participate in the missionary character of the Church. 

We cannot turn our backs on people fleeing violence, abysmal poverty, and hopeless circumstances who come to our shores and our borders “with anguish and hope.” We are called to be living witnesses of the Gospel to them, instruments of the mercy of God who “proclaim Christ through hospitality and welcome, compassion and solidarity.” 

The Apostolic Exhortation that the Pope signed yesterday and that will be released on October 9 will, no doubt, exhort us in similar ways and in greater depth:

“Brothers and sisters, today a new missionary age opens up in the history of the Church.

“If for a long time we have associated with mission the word ‘depart,’ the going out to distant lands that did not know the Gospel or were experiencing poverty, today the frontiers of the missions are no longer geographical, because poverty, suffering and the desire for a greater hope have made their way to us. The story of so many of our migrant brothers and sisters bears witnesses to this: the tragedy of their flight from violence, the suffering which accompanies it, the fear of not succeeding, the perilous risk of traveling along the coastline, their cry of sorrow and desperation. Brothers and sisters, those boats which hope to catch sight of a safe port, and those eyes filled with anguish and hope seeking to reach the shore, cannot and must not find the coldness of indifference or the stigma of discrimination!

“Mission is not so much about ‘departing,’ but instead ‘remaining’ in order to proclaim Christ through hospitality and welcome, compassion and solidarity. We are to remain without fleeing to the comforts of our individualism; to remain so as to look upon those who arrive from lands that are distant and violent; to remain and open our arms and hearts to them, welcoming them as brothers and sisters, and being for them a presence of consolation and hope.”

The Vocation of Saint Francis of Assisi

The outlines of Saint Francis’s conversion from a rich young man and would-be knight to a great saint are well known. We recall his lavish and frivolous youth, his military misadventures, and his return to Assisi in 1205 after imprisonment, illness, and a mysterious experience that drew him to a greater service.

In these days, at the dawn of one of the greatest vocations in all history, God’s grace worked powerfully but mysteriously to lead the searching young Francis to the awakening of religious devotion. Francis went on a pilgrimage to Rome, and then returned not to his former life of comfort and pleasure, but to a time of solitude in the forests and the mountains outside the city, which led him in the end to the chapel and the now famous cross of San Damiano, where he heard the words of Jesus, to “rebuild My church.”

Christian and non-Christian interpretations of Saint Francis often depict him as a man who left worldly life and its distractions so as to commune in a kind of isolation with God (or “nature”). Historians sometimes portray Francis as a spiritual maverick who transcended all institutions including the Church and her human ministers. But the life of Saint Francis was not like the wandering of medieval heretical sectarians or today’s uncommitted spiritualists.

Rather, Saint Francis was always entirely attached to the Catholic faith and obedience to the Church. In the year 1205, when Francis returned from Rome searching for God’s will, he found a person, a friend, who remained a crucial figure in the development of his vocation, a figure whose significance is seldom given its due weight: the Bishop of Assisi. Bishop Guido is known to history as the man who covered the naked Francis with his episcopal cloak after the young man publicly renounced his inheritance and all his property by returning even his clothes to his outraged father. But Francis and the bishop already knew one another by that time.

It was Bishop Guido who probably first advised Francis to seek solitude, not to wander but to pray, following the tradition of the desert fathers. After Francis heard Jesus in a vision from the cross of San Damiano, he probably met again with the bishop. By the time his father came with his lawsuit, Francis appealed to the Church’s protection and the bishop’s judgment. Guido knew well already the young man who shocked so many others by embracing total poverty, and who would later draw them to follow his sanctity.

Some accounts say that Francis, after giving back his clothes to his father, said that henceforth he would call only God his Father. But Francis also knew that God had become man, and that God’s fatherhood would draw close to him through the Church, concretely, through Bishop Guido. The bishop became Francis’s “spiritual father,” advisor, and sponsor as he embraced poverty and gathered his first followers. Guido did not try to manipulate Francis. He supported him as the grace of this new way of life unfolded. He was the ecclesiastical authority, but also a true friend. And it was bishop Guido, in Rome, who first sponsored the ragtag “lesser brothers” to a cardinal of the papal court, where Innocent III met the man sent by God “to rebuild My Church.”

In Christ, We are Able to “Bear Fruit That Will Last”

"I chose you... to go and bear fruit." Jesus chooses us and sends us on the path of our vocation. The Holy Spirit gives us the strength to be faithful and to "bear fruit" — to accomplish the will of the Father, to be instruments of His mercy. 

So we don't need to be afraid to risk our hearts every day, to give and receive love, even if we are awkward or clumsy in our gestures, even if our "plans" seem to fail or mess up in ways we don't understand. Christ sends us and accompanies us, and He knows the fruition that He will bring forth from our poor efforts that we entrust to Him. 

Hope, patience, perseverance, living in God's love, knowing by faith that He sustains us even when we don't "feel" His mysterious presence, letting ourselves be loved and forgiven, and finding therein the grace to respond with love and gratitude, and to serve one another and forgive one another again and again and again. This is our life: a gift and a vocation destined to bear fruit that will last forever.

Saint Therese, as Presented by Pope Francis

Pope Francis had a special devotion to Saint Therese, whose feast we celebrate today. Here I present a few excerpts from the Apostolic Exhortation he gave us just two years ago, in honor of the 150th anniversary of her birth.

“It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love.” These striking words of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face say it all. They sum up the genius of her spirituality and would suffice to justify the fact that she has been named a Doctor of the Church. Confidence, “nothing but confidence,” is the sole path that leads us to the Love that grants everything. With confidence, the wellspring of grace overflows into our lives, the Gospel takes flesh within us and makes us channels of mercy for our brothers and sisters.

It is confidence that sustains us daily and will enable us to stand before the Lord on the day when he calls us to himself: “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is stained in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own Justice and to receive from your Love the eternal possession of yourself.” ….

The confidence that Therese proposes has to do with more than our individual sanctification and salvation. It has an integral meaning that embraces the totality of concrete existence and finds application in our daily lives, where we are often assailed by fears, the desire for human security, the need to have everything under control. Here we see the importance of her invitation to a holy “abandonment”.

The complete confidence that becomes an abandonment in Love sets us free from obsessive calculations, constant worry about the future and fears that take away our peace. In her final days, Therese insisted on this: “We who run in the way of love shouldn’t be thinking of suffering that can take place in the future; it’s a lack of confidence.” If we are in the hands of a Father who loves us without limits, this will be the case come what may; we will be able to move beyond whatever may happen to us and, in one way or another, his plan of love and fullness will come to fulfillment in our lives. ….

For Therese, the one God is revealed above all else in his mercy, which is the key to understanding everything else that can be said of him: “To me he has granted his infinite mercy and through it I contemplate and adore the other divine perfections! All of these perfections appear to be resplendent with love, even his Justice (and perhaps this even more so than the others) seems to me clothed in love.” This is one of the loftiest insights of Therese, one of her major contributions to the entire People of God. In an extraordinary way, she probed the depths of divine mercy, and drew from them the light of her limitless hope.

~Excerpts from Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation on Saint Therese and Confidence in the Merciful Love of God, October 15, 2023. Sections 1-3, 23-24, 27.

Saint Jerome: Attentive to the Word with Joy

Happy Feast of Saint Jerome!

Introducing Catie Janaro (with Her Older Sisters)

Catherine Elise Janaro was born around 7 PM on Saturday, September 27, 2025.

Here she is with her two older sisters, Anna (left) and Maria (right). A new adventure begins, for John Paul and Emily (who are now outnumbered!), for the girls, for the extended family, and for grandparents too. I do love being their grandfather (or “Papa,” as they call me). 

We’ll have some more pictures from the Baptism, and — maybe — a new updated “Janaro family picture” by then, if we can manage it.☺️

Welcome, Catie!

It's Avril Lavigne's Birthday, and SOMEBODY ELSE'S

Happy Belated Birthday to Avril Lavigne, who turned 41 years old on September 27th. I had some digital portraits and stuff to share, but Saturday was co-opted by... another birthday, by which I mean, literally, a day of birth! More on that soon...

I do want to muse a bit on Avril, who remains (in my mind) the iconic Millennial. This doesn’t imply that she’s a “good example” for others to follow (multimedia performance artists are too wacky for that). Rather, she’s a kind of “mirror” that reflects in some ways where this generation is going. (Gosh, where ARE you all going??😳)

The fact that I'm someone who appreciates Avril is surprising; I wouldn't ordinarily be much interested in a performer who is known as "the pop-punk princess." Avril does have this pop-punk, cussing, mischievous, “bad girl” image that is, at least in part, a spoof on the whole genre. She plays the “rebel” who doesn’t take her rebellion too seriously, who has a sense of humor about this role. But there are so many more facets of Avril’s talent and charisma that her fans already love and that will never go out of style. She doesn’t need to be afraid of “growing up.”

As you know if you read this blog, music of all kinds is a significant part of my life. I was classically trained on the cello. As a teenager in the 1970s, I used my musical training to teach myself to play guitar. That included electric guitar. LOUD electric guitar. I played long enough (and well enough) to know "from-the-inside" that playing rock 'n roll is a genuine and difficult craft, an aesthetic effort to "make something beautiful" (remember, beauty is analogical).

In other words, rock 'n roll is more than an excuse to make noise. It's more than a rowdy electronic pillow fight. It's more than just "fun." If you consider the technologically enhanced, light-and-noise-saturated infrastructure that surrounds us day and night, that constantly puts stress on our senses in so many ways that humans never had to deal with before, it's not surprising that some people take up these new sources of sound, stress, and strain in order to craft them into something that has sonic coherence — music. That's just one approach in my effort to develop an aesthetics of rock music.

Back to Avril Lavigne. I've told this story too many times: I became interested in her when she announced in 2015 that she had Lyme disease. She disappeared for five years (from 2013-2018). During the "aughts," she had one of the most widely recognized faces on the planet. I'm not exaggerating here: You could go to China and see big advertisement posters of Avril on a skateboard drinking some brand of iced tea. She was the biggest Western artist in Japan. Her five world tours included lots of East Asian venues, because they loved her. Everyone loved this Canadian small town girl.

Then, BOOM, nothing. She got hammered by Lyme disease. I understood that. I knew what that was like. With sympathy and genuine interest, I started listening to her music. A lot of her songs I didn't like at all. Some songs grew on me slowly. Some songs were GOLD. Then, on September 29, 2018 (that's seven years ago) she released a new song, "Head Above Water." That was a very special song.

Avril did a lot for Lyme disease awareness from 2018-2021. Meanwhile, she was getting back on her feet and onto the stage. In 2022, she stopped talking about it entirely. I don’t blame her. She’s in remission, she has it under control. She has her energy back. She wants to use it. So she did two summers of a “Greatest Hits” tour, sold out Madison Square Garden, brought out thousands of nostalgic middle-aged Millennials and their teenage kids. She did the “punk-pop” stuff and wore her weird outfits. She also played some “deep cuts” from the old albums, which is where the GOLD is often buried.

Avril’s unique face, her variety of facial expressions, and her abundance of ever-changing hair make her a great “subject” for my digital portrait practice work (see some examples above). Photographs and videos are all over the internet, so it’s not hard to find images to start with. But Avril is “complicated.” She has a sweet smile, but there is always that smokey black eyeliner. It’s a trademark. (Then she flips the bird on you. Sheesh!) She changes her hairstyles, colors, and all that stuff. Sometimes there are mountains of hair.

Her Instagram post for her birthday was so “signature Avril.” It says “41…. Let’s go” but it was the photo, the deadpan expression, and the chic glasses worn “granny style” that made this a great image. The seemingly ageless “iconic” Millennial teenager may start moving in the direction of the gracefully “maturing” middle-aged Millennial “cool Auntie.” I think she’ll be able to engage the possibilities of these new “roles” as they emerge in the coming years.

The real woman beneath the various dramatic personae has already been around for some time, and she’s had a lot of suffering — more than we’ll ever know. Going forward and stepping into the “forty-somethings” will be a challenge for her and the rest of her generation. Perhaps they’ll be led on roads their elders never knew.

Happy Birthday, Avril! Be well. I don’t know whether or not you remember much the God who “kept your head above water,” but He has not forgotten you and He continues to hold you up. You are one of the celebrities I have “spiritually adopted” and I am praying for you.

This blog post, however, indicates SOMEBODY ELSE also has a September 27th birthday, as of yesterday. My GRANDDAUGHTER Catherine was born on Saturday evening. This event filled up our attention and anticipation for the day, and only later did I realize that “Hey, Catie has the same birthday as Avril.” That’s a “fun fact.” Avril should still be around as Catie grows older, singing and making music, or doing something else creative. Avril still has this natural intuitive genius for creativity, and a powerful, versatile voice that has expressed her talent in a wide variety of styles (not just “punk pop” — whatever that term means🧐). 

Meanwhile, my granddaughters are introducing me to contemporary creative expressions that are already significant for their own budding generation. For example, I would not have otherwise experienced the brilliant and very funny cartoon Bluey if it weren’t for their insistence on watching it, and their unflagging enthusiasm for it (at least for now).😉 The “classics,” of course, are also proving their quality yet again; we read Goodnight Moon and Charlie Needs A Cloak, Beatrix Potter and Mother Goose to the girls just as we did to their father and his sisters 25 years ago. I love to re-encounter these simple children’s stories “through the eyes of” yet another generation of kids.

But I need to get some pictures to welcome Catie properly into the Janaro Clan. It might have to wait until the Baptism this coming weekend.

Stay tuned for that….

Saint Vincent de Paul, Apostle of Mercy

Happy Feast of Saint Vincent de Paul, the Great "Apostle of the Works of Mercy," not only external but also internal. The mercy of God's love encountered in Jesus Christ changes the way we see the sufferings of others, and engenders within our hearts a new kind of compassion toward others and toward ourselves. When we allow Christ to embrace us with His mercy, we begin to be instruments of His mercy.

The quotation from Saint Vincent in the picture says: "Consider God's generosity toward you rather than your own unworthiness in His sight, and live in His strength rather than in the thoughts of your own weakness." He also said, "We should strive to keep our hearts open to the sufferings and wretchedness of other people, and pray continually that God may grant us that spirit of compassion which is truly the spirit of God."

These words resonate in the midst of all the conflicts and turbulence of our present day. They indicate our own profound human "need" — which we all have — the personal loneliness, brokenness, and suffering that we all endure, which is the "place" where Jesus comes to meet us and where He wants to stay with us. He comes to stir up hope within us, a firm adherence to the God who is LOVE, and who loves each one of us. From this, we can be consoled and converted, and we are empowered to say "yes" to God, to grow in love by participating in the gift of Divine life, and to learn to live in a fully human way in all the circumstances of our times.

Tears: The Language of a Wounded Heart

"There are times in our lives when tears are the glasses through which we see Jesus. There is a moment in our lives when only tears prepare us to see Jesus.... Tears are a language that express the deep feelings of a wounded heart. Tears are a silent cry for compassion and comfort. Moreover, they cleanse and purify our eyes, our feelings, and our thoughts. We should not be ashamed to cry; it is a way of expressing our sadness and our desire for a new world. Crying tells of our humanity, which is weak and tested, but destined for joy" (Pope Leo XIV).

Words and Words That Make Things Worse

What are we trying to build in this new world of hyper-technology, action-worship, propaganda from every side, rootlessness, sensory and emotional saturation, and the overarching determination to reconstruct human values by the hammers of power?

What are we building? Towers of Babel, everywhere, and words and words that make no sense except as rage by which we tear one another apart and spread wreckage everywhere… “words and dialectics only make it worse.”

Without God, the dignity of the human person has no foundation. The human face becomes opaque, obscure, stirring up mistrust, hatred, distancing, and isolation. The “physical and mental comfort” that is the obsession of the Western world has made us forget God. Do we still think we can bring forth works of enduring beauty?

Here is our hope: we may have forgotten God, but He hasn’t forgotten us. His mercy anticipates us and draws us even in the darkest places in the depths of our hearts — places deeper than we know, where our hearts still cry out to Him.

84 years ago — as he searched for truth amidst the bleakness and brutality of the Nazi dystopia that surrounded his whole life — young Christoph Probst wrestled with similar questions while exploring the ancient churches in Bavaria. Here is an excerpt from one of his letters:

"There stands the cathedral, again and again it appears so beautiful, so great, uplifting and ingenious! The feeling of joy and admiration that I have when I look at it, is always mixed with that of a profound admonition: people were once able to build this – what can you still do today? How poor you feel then, with all the physical and mental comfort of modern times! There would be a lot to say, but words and dialectics only make it worse."

~ Christoph Probst, Strasbourg 1941

The Road Ahead

This piece of digital artwork from JJStudios is called “The Road Ahead.”

The Story of One of Today’s 103 Korean Martyrs

Saint Mareuko Jeong Eui-Bae is one of the 103 Korean martyrs whose feast we celebrate on September 20. He is among some 10,000 Koreans who gave their lives for Christ during multiple fierce persecutions in the mid-19th century. Most were ordinary lay men and women, but some were also from the educated classes and the nobility. We know enough about the high-ranking nobleman/scholar Mareuko Jeong to appreciate the particular drama of his conversion.

Korean cultural life flourished for many centuries, creatively appropriating ancient Chinese literary and religious traditions into its own independent society. But by the end of the 18th century, the 500-year-old Joseon dynasty was in deep decline, and dependent on Qing-dynasty China. Meanwhile, the Joseon Neo-Confucian State had become a religious/political structure of rigid social hierarchy, with the monarch at the center, followed by the noble and scholarly classes, and with many of the common people reduced to a status of virtual slavery.

It was the scholar-officials who began searching for ways to reform this ossified society. In frequent diplomatic trips to Beijing, they met “Westeners” (including Catholic priests) and obtained books on developments in Western science, technology, philosophy, and religion translated into Chinese. Thus arose the “Sohak” movement—groups of scholars who studied “Western learning” and discussed its possible value for reforming Korean society. For most, it was mainly an intellectual examination of various Western ideas, but a few were drawn specifically to the Catholic faith. Yi Sung-hun was baptized in Beijing in 1784, returned to Korea, and baptized a few of his compatriots. By the time the first priest arrived in 1795 there were 4000 baptized lay Catholics waiting for him.

There was also aggressive opposition to the new teaching. The Joseon royal house and their Neo-Confucian supporters viewed Christianity as a threat to the Korean social order. Worship of One God in Jesus Christ undermined the religious/superstitious system of rites offered for the monarch and the hierarchical continuity of clan and family. Christianity preached that God was the Father of all people, who were brothers and sisters with a common destiny in Christ regardless of their origins and social status. Among the scholars who abhorred the new Christian teaching was (Mareuko) Jeong Eui-Bae. Born in 1794, Jeong was an established professor of Chinese literature and defender of the status quo when persecution broke out in 1839. By that time the French Foreign Mission Society had sent a bishop and two priests to Korea. In 1839, Jeong Eui-Bae witnessed the brutal mutilation and execution of Bishop Laurentius Imbert, Father Peter Maubant, and Father Jakob Chastan. (They are also among the 103 martyred saints.)

The 47-year-old scholar had seen death many times. But in these three men Jeong saw something completely new: an astonishing joy in the face of torture and death. Jeong was growing old in a society where death was covered with shadows. His studies gave no hint as to how to face death, much less to embrace it with the joy he saw on the faces of those missionaries that day.

Disregarding his honorable station, Jeong obtained and read forbidden Christian books and met the people who believed in the One written about in those books. Glimpsing there the Source of hitherto unknown joy and hope, the long-cynical old professor was totally converted. He was baptized Mareuko (Mark) and devoted his newfound zeal and intellectual skills to working as a catechist and caring for the sick. The poor humble people whom the former aristocrat had once scorned he now served with love until his own martyrdom in 1866, at age 72.

Buona Festa di San Gennaro

Buona Festa! Another year for the “Janaro Family Feast.” We had pizza.

Any day now, the newest Janaro will be born.☺️

“Dark Shadows Fall Over An Era”

"The darker the shadows fall over an era, the greater the longing for the light of individuals whose bourgeois equanimity has been robbed by the shadowy nature and sacrilege of their present. The longing for light and enlightenment has led us to the only bright spot that remains for us: Christ. And that will remain for us. He is our entire background, our guide, and our goal."

~ Hans Scholl (of The White Rose anti-Nazi student protest group, Munich, 1942)

In these weeks I have taken up again the study of the group that emerged briefly in opposition to Adolf Hitler at the University of Munich in Germany during World War II, The White Rose. A more intensive look at these students opens up a unique perspective on one of the most violent, suffocating, dehumanizing social orders that has ever existed in human history: Hitler's National Socialist totalitarian Party-State. Here is a story of a group of ordinary German young people in the wider context of a whole generation that grew up under Nazi rule and experienced its systematic invasiveness of every aspect of human life. Even internal dissent was extraordinarily difficult, especially after Germany went to war in 1939. The lies of Nazi propaganda fed a misconceived national patriotism and people's genuine fears of being overrun by Stalin's Communist totalitarian system from the Soviet Union. All of this combined with the natural human desire for economic security and a comfortable life, the pressure to conform, and the fear of expressing any criticism or opposition to Hitler or his regime. 

So many German people remained bound to the Nazis — whether through hollow enthusiasm or crushed silence — in a kind of psychological and spiritual paralysis of various and complex origins. There were numerous factors, including a combination of escalating terror, lingering wishful thinking about economic success and “social order,” and the desperate hope of escaping Soviet Communism through a neopagan revival of mythical Teutonic strength. It was difficult to avoid the trap of active collaboration (or at least the passive complicity of being dragged along) with Hitler’s “triumphant” war, even as it was carrying out a racist program of genocide and ethnic cleansing out of hatred for the Jews and in pursuit of a "Greater Germany" expanding into Eastern Europe and Ukraine.

The leaflet campaign of The White Rose was a brave and energetic effort to “do something,” and — even though it never stood much chance of political success — it did show Germany and the world that there was still a narrow space where the human conscience could shine. It was a witness to the transcendent human vocation for which these students were willing to give their lives. Above all, it was an experience through which they encountered Jesus Christ and grew in love for Him even in the midst of so many other activities and concerns. Ultimately the protagonists were able to embrace Christ through sharing in His death, which they faced with a serenity — even a joy — that shocked their executioners. Their joy promised something new even as their nation was falling apart all around them.

I will continue to research and learn more about Hans and Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst (whose beautiful “conversion story” I have just written about for my monthly article series, and which will appear in April 2026), Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, Kurt Huber, and others in The White Rose circle who mentored and supported them in the resistance work that they took up at great risk and with considerable hesitation, but ultimately standing before God with clarity of conscience. They were real people with flaws and doubts. They were full of immature passions and youthful ideals and they argued amongst themselves. They were not fine-tuned for success, but they tried their best. And, of course, they failed. But history remembers them (even if it doesn’t understand them), because they acted out of love for the truth and genuine love for their country and the world. It was a love that grew within them and reached maturity in the face of their own deaths in 1943. Ultimately they acted for love and persevered in love to the end because they surrendered themselves to the One whose love is greater than death.

Looking at these people and these events as a citizen of the USA in the “Bloody Summer of 2025” has rekindled hope in my own heart regarding our nation even though it too seems to be falling apart all around us in these days. The United States is fundamentally different from Germany in the Nazi era and faces different dangers. I don’t believe that the current regime is “just like Hitler,” no matter how much agitation is bound up with this comparison. Nevertheless, in my opinion, this regime remains reckless, callous, disoriented, and dangerous for our nation and the world for many other reasons. However, the current regime is too often hounded by an “opposition” that is poisoned by its own compromises and delusions. The opposition denounces this regime’s failure to respect human rights, but it also participates in manufacturing and lobbying for new so-called human rights drawn forth from ideologies that aim at the very foundations of human dignity and seek to undermine the basic principles of moral law written by God in the depths of every human heart.

The United States has a whole different context of problems in 2025 than Nazi Germany 85 years ago. We may be able to learn something, however, from the history of the people of those days, from what Hans Scholl called the “bourgeois equanimity” that dominated the mentality of so many ordinary Germans and drove them to sell their intelligence and freedom for the false promises of a demagogue. Just like us, their daily lives were controlled by the desperate desire to hold on at all costs to the material comforts of their technologically advanced society. They were compelled to blind themselves to the enormous evils perpetrated for their comforts and alleged “greatness,” and then to distract themselves as their own society began to fall apart due to the “shadowy nature and sacrilege of their present.” 

How well do we perceive the “shadowy nature” (not to mention the sacrilege) of our own present? The United States has long existed as a “two-party system,” with multiple levels of deeply rooted institutions that have a long history of preventing any faction from seizing total power. Externally, we are nothing like the Weimar Republic. We have different problems, and our future is subject to many forces that are beyond our control. But both political parties have become ugly and intolerable in our current society (in different ways and for different reasons). We don’t seem very competent at “voting for the lesser evil” without losing our heads and running after the distorted, polarized, and foolish propaganda of whichever party we end up choosing. How quickly we adopt its proposals, adapt ourselves to its changes of content and/or strategy, and join in demonizing members of the other party. Are we motivated by something more than our grasping to preserve and increase our unprecedented material comforts, our pride, and our lust for success — for “winning” at all costs? Is this our 2025 version of bourgeois equanimity? Whatever it is, it cannot satisfy us. It’s falling apart all around us, falling into the shadows, evaporating into the superficial self-indulgence that increasingly dominates our every day.

Why are we compelled to heap contempt on other people who pop up on our screens and seem to be repeating slogans from the opposing group? We don’t know these people, the stories of their real lives, the motivations of their conflicted hearts. Do we even try to consider them as human persons? Although we can’t see them as God sees them, can we not aspire to love them? Not that we should have soft minds, but can we open a space for them in our minds and hearts, open paths to dialogue, endure them with hope in the working of the unfathomable grace of God in their hearts? If we are convinced we must oppose someone else’s ideas or projects, can we not do so with honor, reason, and compassion? This entails not rhetorical tricks, but being present with love: the love for the human person that is vulnerable to the point of suffering. This is difficult: in fact, it’s impossible unless we ourselves have experienced this love and allow ourselves to be carried by this love and grow through this love. We must not be afraid, but rather be patient with one another and with ourselves.

Perhaps we are struggling to grow in truth and love.

Hans Scholl, as a teenager, became a leader in Hitler Youth! He carried a Nazi flag past the Fuhrer’s grandstand at the Nuremberg rally of 1935. Who would have known back then where God was leading him? It was the presence of people who loved him with patience and perseverance that led him on a journey to the truth that was not without difficulty. The light shined in the darkness of his heart and he longed for it.

What do we know about the hearts of our brothers and sisters who are encompassed in the infinitely compassionate Heart of Jesus? What do we know of the longing He awakens within them, or the inner conflicts and struggles and sufferings that they endure, the suffering that He endures with them and in them and for them? How dare we have contempt for any human person?!

It’s not surprising that violence continued to rage among us in the Summer of 2025, that shootings have taken place in homes, shopping malls, and even churches. Most recently, there has been the assassination of political and social activist Charlie Kirk. May his soul rest in peace and may God console his poor family. This was a heinous act of violence that must not be viewed a single iota “less horrible” by those who have disagreements with the substance and/or style of his expressed views. Yet there were some people who are so engulfed in the hyper-partisan rage of their own shallow faction that they “celebrated” or otherwise commented flippantly about his death. It’s a sad thing that the internet has trained people to put forth in unjust words their most cruel and most vulgar impulses. This was a terrible murder! How can we turn to anything other than the infinite goodness and love and mercy of God?

What we all really need to do is to repent from out of the depths of our own souls, acknowledging the sins (yes, sins) by which we all participate in the spiral of violence in our country. And if we face the darkness — the shadows that we invite among us so as to hide ourselves from our own shrinking hearts — if we face the darkness, we might glimpse the light of Christ who remains with us and shows His merciful love. 

Jesus Christ is the meaning and purpose of our lives, of nations, of the whole universe. This is what matters, and we must hold fast to Him with greater firmness in these dark days as the shadows fall on us. His light is greater and burns more brightly in the growing darkness, and His grace works to awaken us and stir up within us that “longing for light.”