“February Made Me Shiver” (2025).
Weather keeps changing, day by day. Brittle like glass bones. Cutting tendon and skin. Sharp.
An ordinary man engages the circumstances of daily life, seeking to draw closer to the Mystery who gives meaning to everything.
“February Made Me Shiver” (2025).
Weather keeps changing, day by day. Brittle like glass bones. Cutting tendon and skin. Sharp.
Pope Francis has published a letter dated February 10 and addressed to the Bishops of the United States of America. It is clearly intended for a general readership, addressing not only immediate pastoral concerns but also reaffirming recent teachings or the ordinary magisterium of the Church as well as indicating and clarifying perennial points of Catholic Social Doctrine.
This letter emphasizes that the inviolable dignity of every human person must be at the center of any just immigration policy. Its purpose is not only to strengthen the U.S. Bishops or Catholic Christians. It is to help form the consciences of all the people of the United States regarding human truths that everyone desperately needs to discover and remember.
I am reproducing the letter in full, as presented in English translation on the official Vatican website (see HERE), with minor adjustment of endnotes to in-text brackets). This is for the pedagogical purpose of encouraging people to read the text, and for my own reference in the record of this personal blog. Full endnotes and links are accessible on the Vatican website.
Of particular note is his invocation of Our Lady of Guadalupe as protector of those “who live in fear or pain due to migration and/or deportation,” and as the bringer of peace and reconciliation to peoples. We can entrust with confidence all our concerns regarding the problems of “America”—North, Central, and South—to our Merciful Mother and her singular presence and intervention (beginning in 1531) at Tepeyac Hill, near Mexico City, at the center of this pan-hemispheric continent, for the healing of all the peoples who dwell upon “this land.”
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LETTER OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS TO THE BISHOPS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [source here]
Dear Brothers in the Episcopate,
I am writing today to address a few words to you in these delicate moments that you are living as Pastors of the People of God who walk together in the United States of America.
1. The journey from slavery to freedom that the People of Israel traveled, as narrated in the Book of Exodus, invites us to look at the reality of our time, so clearly marked by the phenomenon of migration, as a decisive moment in history to reaffirm not only our faith in a God who is always close, incarnate, migrant and refugee, but also the infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person. [See DDF Declaration Dignitas Infinita (2024), 1]
2. These words with which I begin are not an artificial construct. Even a cursory examination of the Church’s social doctrine emphatically shows that Jesus Christ is the true Emmanuel (cf. Mt 1:23); he did not live apart from the difficult experience of being expelled from his own land because of an imminent risk to his life, and from the experience of having to take refuge in a society and a culture foreign to his own. The Son of God, in becoming man, also chose to live the drama of immigration. I like to recall, among other things, the words with which Pope Pius XII began his Apostolic Constitution on the Care of Migrants, which is considered the “Magna Carta” of the Church’s thinking on migration:
“The family of Nazareth in exile, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, emigrants in Egypt and refugees there to escape the wrath of an ungodly king, are the model, the example and the consolation of emigrants and pilgrims of every age and country, of all refugees of every condition who, beset by persecution or necessity, are forced to leave their homeland, beloved family and dear friends for foreign lands.” [Pius XII, Apostolic Constitution Exsul Familia (1952), 1]
3. Likewise, Jesus Christ, loving everyone with a universal love, educates us in the permanent recognition of the dignity of every human being, without exception. In fact, when we speak of “infinite and transcendent dignity,” we wish to emphasize that the most decisive value possessed by the human person surpasses and sustains every other juridical consideration that can be made to regulate life in society. Thus, all the Christian faithful and people of good will are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, not vice versa.
4. I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality. At the same time, one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival. That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.
5. This is not a minor issue: an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized. The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all — as I have affirmed on numerous occasions — welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable. This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.
6. Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity. Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation. The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf. Luke 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception. [See encyclical Fratelli Tutti (2020), 3]
7. But worrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth.
8. I recognize your valuable efforts, dear brother bishops of the United States, as you work closely with migrants and refugees, proclaiming Jesus Christ and promoting fundamental human rights. God will richly reward all that you do for the protection and defense of those who are considered less valuable, less important or less human!
9. I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters. With charity and clarity we are all called to live in solidarity and fraternity, to build bridges that bring us ever closer together, to avoid walls of ignominy and to learn to give our lives as Jesus Christ gave his for the salvation of all.
10. Let us ask Our Lady of Guadalupe to protect individuals and families who live in fear or pain due to migration and/or deportation. May the “Virgen morena”, who knew how to reconcile peoples when they were at enmity, grant us all to meet again as brothers and sisters, within her embrace, and thus take a step forward in the construction of a society that is more fraternal, inclusive and respectful of the dignity of all.
Fraternally,
Francis
From the Vatican, 10 February 2025
In conjunction with the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, February 11 is the “World Day of the Sick,” an observance that has meant much to me and countless other people through the years. This year’s message from the Pope was summarized and rendered in graphic form by the Roman Dicastery for Integral Human Development.
The formatting is interesting, if perhaps a bit “cluttered” (not that I could have done it any better). I appreciate it as a media technique for our more image-dominated (and perhaps less patient) digital world, and—or course—for the content of the message itself. Tap the image to enlarge it (the print is small).
These are a few words from the Servant of God Luigi Giussani during a pilgrimage to Lourdes with the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation in 1992:
"Mary is the answer created in history to the fact that our nature is desire for happiness, that our life is desire for truth. Mary conceived in her womb the mystery of God made flesh, made man to live the life of all people and end His life the way all human lives end: with death. Incarnating Himself in Mary, God says: 'I will bring to fulfillment your desire for happiness; your desire for truth, justice and completeness will come to completion. I will make Myself your companion so this may come to pass.'
"The Lord, becoming man in Our Lady’s womb, coming into the world to save the world, underlines that the original relationship of the Mystery with His creature, whatever the condition in which life must be lived, is tenderness. 'No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends' (John 15:13); there is no greater sacrifice than to lay down your life for the work of another, and the other, in this case, is each of us as realization of our own destiny.
"God’s tenderness brings with it the announcement of the positivity of all things: 'Even all the hairs of your head are counted'" (Matthew 10:30).
Eight years and eight months ago, Christina Grimmie passed away. Once again, this day, I remember her and honor her legacy.
We live in strange times. The particular and peculiar characteristics of our world in one sense don't appear so different now than they did on that awful summer night in June 2016. In other senses, however, the previous decade seems very long ago indeed. Many things appear to be changing rapidly, and we analyze and struggle and fight with one another over what these changes mean. We are overloaded with conflicting narratives, alleged information, and relentless images and sounds, but we don't seem to be growing in wisdom and understanding. Do we intend to push forward recklessly into every technological possibility, driven by our urge for ever-greater power (and ever-greater profits)? Do we think we won’t be held accountable for the oppression and suffering of all the human persons we push aside as we plow over the world pursuing our inflamed ambitions?
We will never be able to make by our own hands any thing that can love us in the way each one of us so desperately needs to be loved. We have been created as persons, to love and to be loved. We are given to ourselves and to one another, children of the Mystery who is Love, who has loved us, and who has made us brothers and sisters. Whatever we do, whatever we make from our own work and cleverness has value insofar as it expresses our free response of gratitude and love to the One who in this very moment gives us our existence and our ineradicable dignity. Now and always, to live is to remember, rejoice, and grow in this gift of love.
Such was (and remains) the vitality of the brief beautiful life of Christina Grimmie. So I have once again endeavored (with technological tools and much “work”) to craft a portrait of her unforgettable face. Having reached the limits of my own energy and weakness, I can only share my work (above) with love and gratitude to God for Christina and for all of you who see and read the poor fruits of my efforts.
Last month I wrote about the “new ways” of portraiture. There are many digital tricks that seem amazing, but they are mostly superficial. The capacities of AI keep multiplying, but I only find it more and more frustrating and complicated to work photographs into worthwhile artistic expressions. Media tools that are supposed to increase accessibility can just as easily lead to bewilderment. Maybe for me this is just part of growing old.
Still, my efforts are on a very basic scale. I can't imagine what implications the new technologies will have on the processes and organization of governments, though it appears that nations are plunging headlong into the vast experiment. We think we see where we are going, but are we blind to our own blindness? God have mercy on us all!
Christina Grimmie's risks in music and media took her in directions she never could have imagined, to earthly successes and to the unexpected circumstances that resulted in the tragic and violent end of her earthly life. But her efforts were shaped by the boldness of love for the One who created her, redeemed her, and called her to Himself.
She is a sign of what ultimately matters, what gives meaning to successes and failures, to strength and powerlessness, to hope for all of life that cries out for eternity.
She was abducted from her African village and native people of South Sudan in the latter half of the 19th century. She never remembered her birth name, but the Arab slave traders had called her "Bakhita," which means "lucky."
There was nothing that looked lucky about the horrible abuse and mutilation that she suffered for years as a slave in Northern Sudan, but then she was brought to Italy, found Christ, and was baptized Giuseppina Fortunata ("lucky"). She became a religious sister and for 40 years worked at the convent and among the people simply but with profound charity. She not only forgave her oppressors, but said she would kiss their hands if she saw them, because they brought her to Jesus.
Jesus overcame evil with good, hatred and violence with the love beyond all measure, the love of God poured out and given to free us from sin, to free us to share in eternal life - to attain the joy for which every human person was made.
Jesus gave Bakhita her true freedom, and formed within her a heart overflowing with mercy and compassion.
Saint Josephine Bakhita, you have a lot to pray for. We need you. Pray for an end to violence, human trafficking, and child abuse. Pray for South Sudan, for those suffering persecutions, hunger, the ravages of war in Africa and through the world, for an end to all forms of slavery, for respect for the dignity and beauty of every woman and every man, for the perseverance to never give up searching for God's will, and trusting in him when he shows us the way. Pray for us, that we might love and forgive our enemies out of the conviction that God loves us and them, and orders everything in his wisdom and mercy to the good.
These distinctive times of explosive technological expansion are ushering in a "new epoch" in human history in which humans have access to unprecedented levels of material power, and must grapple with the bewildering scope of possibilities and dangers entailed by that power. Among other things, the epoch of power poses dramatic challenges for politics — it gives humanity the "tools" to construct human (or inhuman) societies which immerse and involve their members on a larger scale than anything we have seen or imagined before.
Historically, we have seen the destructive nature of particular important-but-limited communities that take on an "absolute" definitive status for their members. The result resembles a kind of idolatry — a kind of "divinization" of an ideology or a system, or of a nation, race, ethnic group, or tribe. And we see now the rise of "new tribes" not connected by kinship, but defined by what (or whom) they exclude, and by the pseudo-identities they generate through the images of electronic media, simplistic slogans, superficial "rituals," and other propaganda techniques that are accessible to everyone in this new epoch.
A new kind of idolatry is casting a shadow over our times. It exists in full realization in some places in the world, while in others it lurks as a tendency, as the possible future of present unhealthy aspirations, as an inchoate or partial reality, as a danger, and — undoubtedly — as a temptation. This is not the old "hard" religiously-specified pagan idolatry of worshiping statues or personified forces of nature. It is the much more subtle new "soft idolatry" that marginalizes and effectively replaces God — the One who alone fulfills the transcendent destiny of the human person — with a merely human social or political project.
In recent years (and in recent weeks), government policies in the United States - and the unceasing barrage of words accompanying them on all the media platforms - illustrate the dangers that are spreading all over the world. The problem is not expanding or reducing the size of political institutions, but the role of political power in shaping the human person's understanding of his or herself. Sometimes power pushes against human dignity by promoting a vast social ideal that falsifies the genuine aspirations of human beings as persons (for example, the ideal of "Socialism-with-Chinese-Characteristics-in-a-'moderately-prosperous'-Society" as imposed on one-fifth of the world's population by Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party). Other times, different impositions of power aim to reduce human persons into partisans of a particular "tribe," a self-sufficient, self-exalting, selfish national or ethnolinguistic group with a "manifest destiny" to "greatness," which generally reduces itself to pretentions to become the greatest commercial empire obsessed with materialist consumerism and isolated by the fear of real or imagined "enemies" in the rest of the world.
Both of these extremes, and the various tendencies that borrow from them, are "idolatrous." They tether the human spirit to their paltry materialistic horizons (and they are not afraid to co-opt "God" in a reductionist sense, in service of their projects). Simply, one might categorize this whole phenomenon as "the idolatry of money." More broadly, it is the idolatry that emerges from covetousness and envy, with all the belligerency and chaos that these idols can unleash especially when they disguise themselves as political programs or social movements.
This new idolatry is subtle because its gradual but ultimately totalizing absorption of the human person spreads covertly within society like an incubating disease. It builds itself up through diverse inflammatory manifestations of social problems that often seem to contradict each other. It grows within societies when there is widespread insecurity about personal identity, weak interpersonal and communal bonds, rival ideologies, various artificially aggravated fears, rumors and confusion, negligent ignorance, cultivated superficiality, lack of civil discourse, lack of principles, reliance on pseudo-"authorities" and magnetic or manipulative personalities, pressure for cultural conformity, revenge, group-think, nostalgia, utopian dreams, excessive hopes for prosperity, for progress, for total safety from danger, for many other things (the list could go on and on) ... and — of course — the increasing (and always justified as "necessary") application of good old fashioned brute force.
It all conspires to eclipse the transcendence of human destiny, suffocate the heart of the human person, and preoccupy people with a multitude of distractions. It infects the politics of our time, which in various ways pretends in a practical sense (or sometimes pretends — which is already too much) to rule over all our thinking about the meaning of things, to fill our minds with its claim to be the highest measure of life.
The political ideal of the new epoch is idolatrous insofar as it aspires (even without the awareness of all who participate in it) to "deflect" the human search for transcendence and invade its space, or to use power to suppress it and take its place. It is accompanied (and "enabled") by the reduction of the scope of human desire to the empirical categories of objects-to-be-possessed, and the prevalence of practical materialism as the social norm.
In terms of depth and danger, these emerging forms of political idolatry are venturing into "uncharted territory." Politics now has at its disposal the continuing explosive growth of material power for everything from making things to processing and distributing information to bridging distances and gaining unprecedented dominance over space and time to enhanced forms of multi-sensory engagement through media technology and the (gigantically expansive) realm of so-called "artificial intelligence."
What are the monstrous political possibilities that might emerge in the future, perhaps even the near future? Will we have the awareness and attention necessary to recognize them and the courage to resist capitulating to them?
This text may sound prosaic, but there is much in these few words that we all need to ponder — especially those of us who live in the richest society (by far!) in the history of humanity: "Let your life be free from love of money" (Hebrews 13:5).
Here are some excerpts from Pope Saint John Paul II’s “Message for World Migration Day,” November 21, 1999. He made it clear (as did his predecessors) that the dignity of immigrants is entailed by the dignity of every human person, created in the image of God, redeemed by the love of Jesus Christ. We who have been so greatly blest with an abundance of the goods of this world cannot close our hearts to immigrants in need. Through them, Jesus is calling us to conversion, fraternity, solidarity, and hospitality today just as He was 25 years ago.
On the threshold of the new millennium, humanity is marked by phenomena of intense mobility, while the awareness of being members of one family continues to grow in people's minds. Voluntary or forced migration increases opportunities for exchange among people of different cultures, religions, races and nationalities. Modern means of transport are ever more rapidly connecting one part of the globe to another, and every day borders are crossed by thousands of migrants, refugees, nomads and tourists.
The immediate reasons for the complex reality of human migration differ widely; its ultimate source, however, is the longing for a transcendent horizon of justice, freedom and peace. In short, it testifies to an anxiety which, however indirectly, refers to God, in whom alone man can find the full satisfaction of all his expectations.
Many countries make a considerable effort to welcome immigrants, many of whom, after overcoming the difficulties of adjustment, are well integrated into the host community. However, the misunderstandings that foreigners sometimes experience show the urgent need for a transformation of structures and a change of mentality….
In many regions of the world today people live in tragic situations of instability and uncertainty. It does not come as a surprise that in such contexts the poor and the destitute make plans to escape, to seek a new land that can offer them bread, dignity and peace. This is the migration of the desperate: men and women, often young, who have no alternative than to leave their own country to venture into the unknown. Every day thousands of people take even critical risks in their attempts to escape from a life with no future. Unfortunately, the reality they find in host nations is frequently a source of further disappointment.
At the same time, States with a relative abundance tend to tighten their borders under pressure from a public opinion disturbed by the. inconveniences that accompany the phenomenon of immigration. Society finds itself having to deal with the "clandestine", men and women in illegal situations, without any rights in a country that refuses to welcome them, victims of organized crime or of unscrupulous entrepreneurs….
The Church, Mother and Teacher, works so that every person's dignity is respected, the immigrant is welcomed as a brother or sister, and all humanity forms a united family which knows how to appreciate with discernment the different cultures which comprise it. In Jesus, God came seeking human hospitality. This is why he makes the willingness to welcome others in love a characteristic virtue of believers. He chose to be born into a family that found no lodging in Bethlehem (cf. Lk 2:7) and experienced exile in Egypt (cf. Mt 2:14). Jesus, who "had nowhere to lay his head" (Mt 8:20), asked those he met for hospitality. To Zacchaeus he said: "I must stay at your house today" (Lk 19:5). He even compared himself to a foreigner in need of shelter: "I was a stranger and you welcomed me" (Mt 25:35). In sending his disciples out on mission, Jesus makes the hospitality they will enjoy an act that concerns him personally: "He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me" (Mt 10:40)….
In the context of a human mobility that has expanded everywhere, [Christ’s] invitation to hospitality becomes timely and urgent. How can the baptized claim to welcome Christ if they close the door to the foreigner who comes knocking? "If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" (1 Jn 3:17).
The Son of God became man to reach out to all, giving preference to the least ones, the outcast, the stranger…. The Church hears the suffering cry of all who are uprooted from their own land, of families forcefully separated, of those who, in the rapid changes of our day, are unable to find a stable home anywhere. She senses the anguish of those without rights, without any security, at the mercy of every kind of exploitation, and she supports them in their unhappiness.
In all the societies of the world the figure of the exile, the refugee, the deportee, the clandestine, the migrant and the "street people" … for believers becomes a call to change their mentality and their life, in accordance with Christ's appeal: "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" (Mk 1:15).
In its highest and most demanding motivation, this call to conversion certainly includes the effective recognition of the rights of migrants: "It is urgent in their regard that one know how to overcome a strictly nationalistic attitude to create a State which recognizes their right to emigration and encourages their integration.... It is the duty of all—and especially Christians—to work energetically to establish the universal brotherhood which is the indispensable basis of true justice and a condition for lasting peace" (Paul VI, Encyclical Octogesima Adveniens, n. 17).
Working for the unity of the human family means being committed to the rejection of all discrimination based on race, culture or religion as contrary to God's plan. It means bearing witness to a fraternal life based on the Gospel, which respects cultural differences and is open to sincere and trustful dialogue. It includes the advancement of everyone's right to be able to live peacefully in his own country, as well as attentive concern that in every State immigration laws be based on the recognition of fundamental human rights.
For the feast of St Thomas Aquinas, I am posting an excerpt from my book The Created Person and the Mystery of God, published a long long time ago (in 2003). This selection introduces Thomas's great insight into the real distinction between essence and existence. It is only a sketch of the argument within the context of a larger presentation, but it might serve as a reminder of why St Thomas is so important not only as a Doctor of the Church but also as a philosopher who makes a monumental contribution to human understanding.
What follows is the excerpt from my 2003 book (which is still available for purchase - open THIS LINK if you're interested). Happy Feast of St Thomas!
In a small early treatise entitled De Ente et Essentia, St Thomas proposes an argument for the existence of God which takes as its starting point not the various activities and characteristics of created things, but their most fundamental "activity" - their very act of existing. In chapter five of De Ente et Essentia, Thomas argues that, with regard to all of the things that we encounter, "what they are" cannot explain the fact that they actually do exist in reality. Therefore their existence must be explained in terms of Something Else; it must be caused by Something Else.
The main principle that St Thomas develops in this little treatise is that there is a real distinction between essence and existence, between the essentially integrated complexus of specifications that define what something is, and the actualization of that specificity, the "placing" of it into the real universe of existence.
The existing of something - its esse (to use the Latin infinitive for the verb "to be"), the act by which it "is" - is distinct from "what it is," its essence. Existing introduces another dimension beyond everything we can say about what a thing is. When I say "the horse exists," I take the whole richly envisioned description of "horse" that I an able to apprehend and examine with my mind, and I affirm "something else" with regard to the horse, something that is not part of the description of a horse; I judge an instance of this essence (the "whatness" of horse, "horseness") to be there in reality. The horse is. The horse is existing.
Notice something very important here: existing is an act. It is the most fundamental of all acts. To exist is dynamic, radically dynamic. The reason why we think of existing as static is because we are surrounded by it everywhere and therefore inclined to ignore it or regard it as commonplace. But things are not just plopped around us - just "there," with this fact worthy of nothing more than a "ho-hum" from our faculties of perception. On the contrary, things are bursting with being. "Is-ing" is a fascinating and powerful achievement - the achievement of really existing which should never be taken for granted, as something that does not provoke our minds to wonder (American philosopher Frederick Wilhelmsen was known for his vigorous presentation of this point in his famous "is-ing" lecture).
We have allowed ourselves to be lulled into metaphysical sleep by the apparently commonplace character of the existence of things. We must realize, instead, that the existing of any thing is a spectacular and awe-inspiring event.
This realization, achieved by means of a sufficiently intense attention to the reality of things, will lead us to recognize that existing is an actualization that comes to an essence "from outside." It is at one and the same time the fundamental act that any thing "does," and an act that does not emerge from a thing's own essential power, and which therefore must be brought about in it by Something Else. When we say "John runs," we recognize that "running" is an activity distinct from "John," something that John does; John "actualized" in a certain respect, John moving from one place to another. However, this act takes place as a result of John's own inherent capacities: he causes himself to run by means of the muscular energy he possesses by virtue of the organic and "animal" characteristics that are proper features of his essence.
When we say "John exists," however, we are talking about the fundamental actualization of John, Could John be the cause of his own existence? It's impossible. In order to bring about an effect, a cause has to "be there," but John without the act of existing is not "there," and therefore he cannot bring about any effect at all, much less his own existence.
So how is it, then, that John exercises the act of existing? He must receive the impetus of this act from some outside source. At this point in the argument, St. Thomas invokes the principle that there cannot be an infinite series of caused causes, and thus concludes that there must be a First Cause that gives to all other things their act of existing. As First Cause, it is the Origin of all existence, which means that it does not receive its act of existing from anywhere else. It possesses "existing" properly, as the very definition of what it is. Its essence is "to exist; it is Sheer Existence, the subsistent, pure act of "to be." This Being, indeed, is the Being we call God.
To summarize the argument in simple terms: Our existence does not come from ourselves; it is given to us. This means that there must be a Giver of existence who is the Source of this gift, who therefore possesses it essentially and fully. We have existence because we receive it from the One who is Existence - Pure and Absolute Existence.
A presentation from the “digital scriptorium” — it’s odd, perhaps, but I have been fiddling with it at different points throughout the day, and now it’s time to say okay, enough! It’s a great verse, in any case…
Saint Paul’s conversion from persecutor to Apostle is the radical instance of what constitutes every Christian conversion. His experience is fundamentally an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ who communicates himself in and through his Church. It reveals at this very early moment in Christian history an essential feature of the mystery of the Church: Jesus identifies himself with those who follow him, and extends his visible and missionary presence in time and space through them.
Of course, we are familiar with the story. After presiding over the stoning of Saint Stephen, Saul obtains letters from the high priest so that he can arrest Christians in Damascus. He is “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). Saul has met the followers of “the Way,” but there has been no real encounter; he doesn’t see that the God he longs for and seeks to please with a desperate zeal is communicating himself as a free gift in the midst of these people. “I had acted ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13), he explains later.
Saint Paul is converted by the famous “light from heaven” on the road to Damascus, in which Jesus reveals himself in his own voice, and at the same time indicates that he is the object of Saul’s persecution: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5). It is Jesus himself who opens Paul’s eyes and enables him to see that Christians are not an errant Jewish sect but the very presence of God’s redeeming love in the world.
The light from the glory of Jesus blinds Saul, and it is fitting that a disciple from Damascus, Ananias, is sent to him after three days to restore his sight and baptize him. After this, Saul is completely changed. Immediately we hear in very simple terms that he is “with the disciples at Damascus” and “in the synagogues immediately he proclaimed Jesus, saying, ‘He is the Son of God’” (Acts 9:19-20).
For Saul, conversion comes from the completely gratuitous gift of God, from an encounter that is pure mercy: “the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:14). The grace of this encounter with Jesus corresponds to a recognition of who the followers of Jesus really are, and an insertion of himself into this reality, the Church, and into its mission of witness.St. Paul’s miraculous conversion is one of the great events of the New Testament. Nevertheless, in it we can see the basic features that make up every conversion story. It was not just a change of convictions. Paul encountered a person, Jesus, who identified himself with persons that Paul knew or would come to know. He recognized Jesus in these persons, the disciples, and in his own transformed life (“it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” [Galatians 2:20]) as he also witnessed Jesus through the grace of faith and love.
Conversion is always a work of grace. It is always an encounter with Jesus in the communion of the Church. St. Paul’s story is reenacted, again and again, in less outwardly dramatic ways, in every place, in every time, to so many different kinds of people.Saint Francis de Sales preaches beautifully about how and why we are called to love our neighbors (and - by extension - our true selves). He summons us to meditate on the tremendous intimacy of God's presence and God's love here and now, for each of us and all of us. Do we remember the gift of this Love that sustains our being and calls us every day, within all our responsibilities and all our various concerns and preoccupations?When I ponder the words of the text below (in bold type), when I "pray these words" and others of this great 17th century Doctor of the Church, I am restored and renewed in my perspective on myself, those around me, the wider community, the responsibilities of our nation for the "common good" within and beyond our own boundaries, and the truth about all of us, about the whole world. The ultimate, definitive truth about the world - even this world today with all its divisions, covetousness, and violence - is that "God so loved the world that He gave His Only-begotten Son..." (John 3:16). We glimpse the fullness of reality in the measure in which we are given and shaped by the wisdom of "the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).
This means that in order to love others (with a love that grasps the existential foundation for the ineradicable dignity of every human person), we must 'see' each of them as they really are - each one personally and particularly loved by the Heart of Jesus, God the Son, the Word made flesh who dwells among us. We come to know the tenderness of God's redeeming, sustaining, and fulfilling presence when we encounter Jesus and experience, through faith, the immense personal love of His Heart for our own selves. As Francis de Sales emphasizes:
"Then we shall be all steeped, as it were, in sweetness and gentleness toward all our neighbors, for we shall look upon these souls as resting in our Savior’s Heart.
"Alas! They who regard their neighbor in any other way run the risk of not loving him with purity, constancy, and impartiality. But beholding him in that divine resting place, who would not love him, bear with him, and be patient with his imperfections?…
"Your neighbor is there, in the Heart of the Savior, there as so beloved and so lovable that the divine Lover dies of love for him!"
Agnes of Rome (c. year 304) chose Jesus as her only love. She put Jesus first in everything, and neither the allurements nor the violence of the powers of this world could take Him away from her.
Saint Agnes speaks in this ancient antiphon from today's Roman liturgy, which expresses the 1700 year old memory of this singular young girl, consecrated virgin, bride of Christ, martyr: "What I longed for, I now see; what I hoped for, I now possess; in heaven I am espoused to him whom on earth I loved with all my heart."
I too have blind spots. One of the reasons for dialogue is that we can enrich one another’s perspective regarding the common good and the ways we can serve the common good—which is the good of persons-in-communion. The work of politics engages and has an impact on human persons. It is an art, not a science. It’s guiding light is wisdom. Do the current artisans of USA politics possess wisdom or seek wisdom?
Perhaps the weight of events in the coming years will drive them to seek wisdom, to pray for wisdom. It is my prayer for our political leaders, for other world leaders, for the peoples of my country and the world, for myself. Most of us don’t hold political office. We elect representatives, which means we have a responsibility to hold them accountable to recognize and respect the dignity of every human person without exception. Political wisdom in today’s world will not emerge without a foundation in love for the person.
This is the particular challenge that today’s leaders must take up. Do they have any awareness of this responsibility or any capacity for it?
Now is not the time to shout “hurrah!” We must remain attentive, to hold these new leaders accountable for how they use their power. In particular, we cannot ignore the immense suffering that will come if they fulfill their plans for “mass deportations of millions of ‘illegal’ immigrants.” Dare we wash our hands of any concern for the poor and powerless of this hemisphere and inflict further sufferings on them? Is there no path to “documented permanent residency” (or some other equitable status) for those who have long lived and worked here and contributed to the wealth of this nation? Can we adequately secure our borders, protect ourselves from criminals and terrorists, and also have a generous and welcoming immigration policy?
Lord, convert our hearts to Your Wisdom, that we might adhere to Your Merciful Love and grow in love for our brothers and sisters, especially regarding the poor, the sick, the elderly, migrants and refugees, unborn children and their mothers, the homeless, the dispossessed, and all who bear heavy burdens. Lord have mercy on us all.
“In these days of prayer for Christian unity, let us not cease to invoke from God the precious gift of full communion between all the Lord’s disciples” (Pope Francis).
[Image from Vatican Website]
Los Angeles, California is burning.
Two major wildfires have swept through 40,000 acres of residential areas in Los Angeles County, mostly north of the city boundaries. Over two dozen people have died, and more than 30 are missing. Dry conditions and high winds were responsible for the rapid spread of these fires to the Palisades and Eaton regions.
The areas that are actually on fire may seem small in comparison to the enormous Los Angeles metropolitan area populated by 18 million residents. Most of them are not (yet) at risk from these particular fires that burn relentlessly in ares like Palisades and Eaton, where there are homes for superstars and rich people, ordinary people, and many poor people as well. In these densely populated areas, people feel that they have seen the apocalypse. Firefighters have been struggling night and day to contain the blaze, and have finally begun to have some success in containing the fire. For thousands of private homes in the area, however, it is too late.
There is the long and laborious work ahead to prevail over the fire and reconstruct the areas affected. We have to join with these suffering people in prayer, compassion, and whatever material support we might be able to provide. May the Lord pour out His superabundant graces and mercy on all those who have suffered loss at this time. Lord, have mercy on those who are afflicted, who have lost homes that they cherish. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for your children!
Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, pray for us!
“When Jesus receives baptism, the Spirit manifests Himself and the Epiphany of God occurs; He reveals His face in the Son and makes His voice heard, which says: ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased’ (v. 22). The face and the voice.
“First of all, the face. In revealing Himself to be the Father through the Son, God establishes a special space for entering into dialogue and communion with humanity. It is the face of the beloved Son.
“In second place, the voice. Face and voice. ‘You are my beloved Son’ (v. 22). This is another sign that accompanies the revelation of Jesus.
“Dear brothers and sisters, today’s feast makes us contemplate the face and the voice of God, which are manifested in Jesus’ humanity. And so, let us ask ourselves: do we feel loved? Do I feel loved and accompanied by God, or do I think that God is distant from me? Are we capable of recognizing His face in Jesus and in our brothers and sisters? And are we accustomed to listening to His voice?
“I will ask you a question: does every one of you remember the date of your Baptism? This is very important! Think: on what day was I baptized? And if we do not remember, when we arrive home, let us ask our parents or our godparents the date of our Baptism. And let us celebrate this date as if it were a new birthday: that of our birth in the Spirit of God. Do not forget! This is our homework: the date of our Baptism. Let us entrust ourselves to the Virgin Mary, invoking Her help. And do not forget the date of your Baptism!”
My own Baptism was on March 10, 1963. I don’t always remember or celebrate this day, but I shall during this Holy Year. I shall remember and celebrate it with gratitude as the beginning of my own journey in Christ toward the definitive embrace of the Triune God.
Above: a reflection from the late Pope Benedict XVI on the wonderful mystery we have celebrated in this season, and at the beginning of the Holy Year 2025.
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During this past week, I’ve been digitally “clipping” some of the beautiful and profound invocations, antiphons, and prayers of these days leading up to tomorrow’s great feast. Here are precious prayers encompassing the themes of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word—the Only-Begotten Son of the Father—and the centrality of this event for our destiny, for the whole world, for all of creation.
This date marks eight years and seven months since the tragic (and, in my opinion, heroic) death of Christina Grimmie. These four portraits are “works in progress,” I suppose. They have their origin in screenshots I took from Christina’s YouTube channel, but they have been imaginatively reconceived in many ways (using various tools of digital media).
Graphics media continue to explode with dizzying new possibilities (too many!). I have been working with crafting photographs into “digital art” since 2013. I don’t understand the technological manipulations that make this work possible (anymore than I understand the science behind photography). The introduction and increase of so-called “artificial intelligence” into graphics widens the scope of what can be done with existing images, but still in the manner of a blunt hammer that opens up paths to pursue but also creates new problems. I have little use for the currently trendy “word-to-image” gimmicks, which don’t work for my purposes except insofar as they facilitate some small corrections.
My experience remains that of an photographic artist, who works with new tools that expand the plasticity of photo images so that they can be “sculpted” in ways that correspond to the inspiration and “intuition” that guides what I’m trying to do. Digital tools offer powerful “preset physical alterations" than can contribute further material for this creative inspiration and suggest wider paths for the artist's work. But these same tools (so "easy" to apply) can often deflect the artist's attention away from the personal trajectory of his or her properly aesthetic inspiration, and “take over” the unfolding of the work—distracting the creative process and resulting in a sculpted image that is not only mediocre but also dissatisfying and frustrating to the artist.
The digital world is hyper-saturated with images, and with tools that promise to produce more images quickly and easily. Lots of this involves simple image-making for illustrative or functional purposes (and there's nothing wrong with that). Too many "creative images," however, are pretentious, strange, flippant, inconsiderately fantastic-for-its-own-sake, cheap and homogenized, ugly, or violent. I have made more than my share of cheap stuff. Nevertheless I'm betting that a new art form may be emerging from all this chaotic visual experimentation. In time it will find its own aesthetic measure. Perhaps this art form is a kind of extension of photography, which was struggling to find its own proper creative possibilities a century ago. Later on, cinema and television would develop and fight for recognition in analogous ways under the condescending and skeptical eyes of dramatic artists who used “traditional [stage] media.” Improvisational music also struggled—first as the misunderstood marvel of jazz, and then with the addition of electronic amplification and tonal manipulation, the “popular music” that is heard everywhere today, most of which is banal and forgettable, but which occasionally is borne up to astonishing heights of beauty (analogously) by extraordinary, gifted, and hard-working musical artists.
Christina Grimmie was one of those artists (and many other things too, which I have discussed at considerable length on this blog over the past eight years).
Critics raise legitimate and important points, but they must be not simply dismissive but also attentive. The realm of beauty is as extensive and analogous as the realm of being itself. Artistic creativity is a human activity, which requires more than just the happy accidents of algorithmic associations. It requires a person who uses these resources to craft an object that “incarnates” a real creative intuition of the luminosity of being (and digital bytes are material, for all their complexity, so they can ultimately be crafted into a material thing under the vision and intention of the artist).
I may never rise above the level of mediocrity, but I am trying. I have spent many hours, much laborious attention, and a decisive amount of “hands-on” work on my digital landscapes (from my own photographs) and—more recently—on portraiture that concentrates on a handful of frequently photographed and interesting faces of celebrities that I have some sort of connection with (because portraiture that arises from insight into the beauty of a person has a higher and more sustaining “aim” for the artist).
Sometimes, a portrait veers off the features of the original model and becomes a “different face” and I think that can be very interesting too. But I begin with a few familiar faces. I have worked on Lionel Messi’s odd-shaped, funny, generous face. He remains my favorite soccer player, and my second-favorite famous Argentinian person. (Ha, ha!) I was so glad that Messi finally won the World Cup. He has proven that great personal athletic talent and ardent teamwork are two sides of the same coin. He is intense and spontaneous, and also has huge ears that add “color” to his expressions of determination and joy. Then, of course, there’s the inimitable Avril Lavigne, with twenty three years of faces from ages 17-40 — Avril’s millennium generational “iconic” face, an exquisite face full of a multitude of often hilarious expressions, volumes of hair in various colors, and always the “overdone” black eyeliner. Efforts to do portraits of her are quite challenging (and rarely successful), but as I’ve expressed elsewhere on this blog, I have reason to care about her—her Lyme disease odyssey, her big (albeit wild) heart, and the touch of greatness in that magnificent first album and in some of her subsequent work. Avril can be crazy but she’s also shown lots of resilience in facing illness and other difficulties. I appreciate her and I pray for her. I also work on Ed Sheeran, who has the big, open, endearingly “ugly” face of an English pub bloke, topped off with various funky hairstyles. Nothing about his face suggests that he has been at or near the top of the charts for over a decade. He is super-talented, of course. I’m not particularly a fan of his music, but I know that—with all the fame—he’s had a hard road, and he’s very open about his struggles to develop his musical craft. I pray for him too. Another face is that of Norwegian singer-songwriter Sigrid Raabe (“Sigrid”), who makes great Scandipop music, has lots of informal pics and videos on her social media, usually wears very little makeup, and has a classic cheerful Norwegian face with fair skin and a big smile with an endearingly distinctive slightly-crooked front tooth. She’s has a natural bearing and seems like a lovely, unpretentious yet confident person. And, like most Scandinavian pop artists, Sigrid is classically trained on the piano and has serious musicals chops that undergird her well-crafted electronic pop songs.There are some others "models" too, as well as a few “original” faces that I have developed over the years, and—of course—my own goofy mug as the subject of the most outrageous experiments in self-portraiture and caricature. Anyway, you get the idea. My portrait efforts focus on human heads and faces, which are inexhaustibly fascinating if one pays attention to them. Usually they include shoulders and some of the upper body simply attired with something like a tee shirt, so that the emphasis remains on faces and facial expressions, ears and hair. I have literally thousands of "drafts" that I keep in my "digital notebooks," some of which I revisit from time to time. They represent my efforts to work up visual ideas within a wildly expanding medium. They are the fruit of experiments and repetitions that may eventually lead to something I regard as finished, but more often are practical exercises engaged in for learning purposes. Very occasionally, I share on this blog a portrait I consider to be "finished," if particular circumstances warrant it. But I post my "best effort" portraits of Christina more frequently as part of my endeavor to remember her unique history and ongoing legacy every month (I think Christina would encourage me to risk a limited viewing of the artistic process that she has inspired me to take up, especially with respect to her own face that is no longer seen alive in this world).
I realize the delicacy and particular responsibility this work entails (notwithstanding the fact that faces seem to mean nothing the more they are ubiquitously represented in the multimedia world). These faces I work with are the faces of persons, and their inner qualities—the more-than-meets-the-eye facets of personality revealed in their faces—stir up my vision and motivation to “present them” afresh, even if it's only a kind of "practice" for myself in this new emerging craft.
I’ve already written so much about why the late great Christina Grimmie is my chief inspiration and “muse” in this artistic adventure. She had a strength and beauty of soul, a light that shined from the inside outwards to generate a welcoming environment for others. In her art and in her life, she was courageous, willing to take risks not recklessly but boldly in the service of love. She shed light on the path of how to live in the world of today, how to surrender one’s self to the will of Christ in everything—including her presence in the Hollywood celebrity world—and how to die ...with arms wide open, in utter vulnerability, welcoming a stranger at an open meet-and-greet (because Christina wanted to meet everyone).
I have much to learn from her example. Meanwhile, I’m not afraid to risk pushing forward a little in the uncharted territory of digital art. That’s what she would want me to do. I may never get it “right,” but I will struggle to do my best.
From the “Virtual Art Gallery” of JJStudios, we present these visual meditations on the recent (relatively mild) snow as experienced by JJ in his part of the Shenandoah Valley. People north and south of us, or at higher altitudes, may have had a more dramatic and voluminous snow experience in these early days of January 2025.
The first image is entitled “Waiting for Snow,” while the others form a series of “Impressions of Snow” (1, 2, and 3). They have been posted elsewhere, but here we can gather them in one place: