Winter Beauty

Sky clear with intense brightness shining up from the snow. Cold, cutting air. My Blue Ridge mountains on this January day.

Autumn Sky

Clouds and the reflection of the sun on an early Autumn evening.

Asking for the Joy that Endures Forever

The sloping valley, the ancient hills, the blue sky streaked with clouds all speak to me of joy.

"Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit" (Psalm 51:12).

Joy is the fruit of that secure relationship of love with something or someone good. But as St. Augustine pointed out so many centuries ago, every good in this world whispers, "I did not make myself. I was made by Someone Else...." It is only in that Someone Else that lasting joy can be found, the joy that encompasses and fulfills the promise contained in created things.

O Lord, give me the joy of your salvation! What am I asking of God? I am asking for the joy that endures because it is the fruit of a relationship with the One who is worthy of all my love because He is Eternal Love. He is the only One who can exhaust and engage fully and finally the love that has been awakened in my heart by the mystery of life itself.

Janaro Music: The Next Generation?

John Janaro on acoustic guitar, around 1984

This young guitarist is recognizable to some of you, perhaps. Around 30 years ago, he had composed at least a dozen original songs, none of which he can remember a single note of today. We did record all of them once... on a cassette tape! I don't know where the tape is. Although I still love music in a variety of genres, I have been away from the guitar for a long time. Too long, perhaps?

I bought a lovely black Ibanez Les Paul copy when I was in high school. It lasted me through college, but then in graduate school I sold it. Graduate students would often sell anything that they couldn't read or eat, because they needed ... money, so that they could buy... books and food. Ah, but that's another story for another day.

Over the ensuing years I collected guitars of all kinds, and often had plans to "start playing seriously" again, but life would always take a different turn. I have a Telecaster copy that I bought right around the end of May in 1995. I got a practice amp too. I decided I was going to make a comeback that summer. What else was there to do for fun? I had no other plans. But then this young woman that I had always kinda liked decided to move to Virginia, and... well... there ended up being no time to play guitar. Then, of course, we got married and along came the kids and the stress and greater responsibilities of work and then I got sick, and....

New generation: Classy look

Actually, those kids may finally get me going again, since John Paul and the others are digging out my old equipment and messing around trying to play the guitars and invent music with a keyboard or even the electronic music composition applications like MuseScore that anyone can download onto their computer for free. John Paul can compose music on the computer and have the music actually play back according to tonal varieties that he chooses (which are supposed to be "instruments" like violin or flute, but don't really imitate those sounds). Programs like these have led to a lot of cheap music, but they also open up possibilities for the development of musical craftsmanship in new ways. They are their own kind of musical instruments, like the enormous Synthesizers of the 1970s that we used to gaze upon with such admiration and awe in magazines. They cost unimaginable sums of money and were the size of a wall. But John Paul has everything he needs right on his laptop.

Our family never did much for the kids with music lessons beyond choir (which has been a great thing for the girls). But John Paul, in particular, is a very creative kid who likes to experiment with whatever he has at hand, whether it's a ukulele or a dollar-store keyboard or computer programs that I don't have the patience to be bothered with (a good Montessori education helped foster the curiosity, capacity, and competence to explore all kinds of possibilities with ingenuity and perseverance).

For years, the kids wanted to play with the electric guitar from 1995 that had been sitting in dusty corners ever since it was bought. Sometimes I let them, and mostly they broke strings. John Paul has remained interested, and even though the electric guitar only has four strings right now, he still plunks on it. So I've decided to get a few new sets of strings. He can add some guitar sounds to the synthesized tracks that he's already "produced" with the computer (or maybe I will add a few licks, if he lets me).

The things kids can do creatively with music thanks to computer technology are beyond the wildest dreams of that guitarist from 30 years ago in the picture at the top (and we dreamed big in those days). Of course, nothing will ever replace the sound of the human voice, or the natural material resonance of traditional instruments. We could let the ease of technology ruin our musical art (and it's doing that a lot). But we can also shape technological capacities into genuine forms of artistic expression; we can elevate them to express and communicate beauty. We can also bring the ancient and the new together in beautiful ways. This too is being done today, though you have to look around to find it... or try to do it yourself. Why not?

Perhaps while I'm helping John Paul and the others, I might rediscover some of my old songs. Or compose some new ones.

It may turn out to be a very musical summer.

Everything is New and Wonderful

The weather was beautiful today. And I am guardedly optimistic that I am recovering from the most recent flareup of what I call my "rheumatism," which put me in bed and in some significant pain over the past couple of weeks. Rest and patience do appear to be the best medicine for preventing a relapse (at least for the past several years). I'm glad that my present circumstances permit me to be flexible and to moderate my activity and step back when I feel the need to.

Exercise is important, of course, when I can manage it. I was able to enjoy today's weather and walk around the neighborhood a bit. It is easy to forget how lovely it is here in the Shenandoah Valley, but today everything looked new and a little wonderful.

Down the block, a road leads to the commercial area of town.

Of course, that can be explained in part by the fact that Spring is ripening into a green and growing Summer. It is as if you can just stand still and hear the leaves drinking in the sun and the grass drawing up to the sky.

I hope it was a peaceful Sunday for everyone.

Sunset is well after 8 PM, leaving the air warm in the lingering light of dusk.

Cherry Blossoms and Holy Week Together: Must I Be Sad?

If I take their picture, will they last forever?

The cherry blossoms are finally in their glory.

I saw the pictures from the banks of the Potomac river in Washington D.C., but we have them here too, 70 miles away, lining Main Street Front Royal and popping up in clusters, here and there, all over town.

They are always a sign that Spring is taking hold. Some types have the cherry streaks, but many are bright white, as if the touch of warm air has transformed the very snow into flowers.

I realize that the lovely weather of recent days is going to cool off this week, and even bring some frost. Poor folk in the northeast and midwest are even supposed to get more snow! Oh, but it will melt right up.

While life bursts all around us, we walk the path of Holy Week. Perhaps that seems incongruous. Spring has finally come, and now we must be gloomy and think about death?

At this time of year, life is new and fresh and full of promise, but only for a season. The promise is fulfilled in growth and fruit and harvest, and then there is the sleep of Winter again. The beauty of things wounds us with longing. It whispers "forever" to our hearts and then it fades. Perhaps we should just not think about all that and simply enjoy the flowers. Still, the flowers will fade. The time will pass. The "forever" that life whispers... where in this world can we find it?

Holy Week is not a time to brood upon death. Death haunts us all the time (whether we brood or not). Death presses everywhere against the limits of our lives, in the exhaustion of our paltry loves, in the inexorable advance of weakness as all the seasons pass and the beauties fade.

Holy Week does not come to haunt us with death. It comes to awaken us to a greater hope.

I Was Just Teasing. Please Don't Be Offended.

I'm always teasing. It's my disposition, and sometimes my effort to show love. Sometimes it's just a bad habit. It's just sloth: fear of the seriousness of life.

Often when people are expressing their frustrations with the ordinary problems of the day (either in conversation or in a post online) it seems natural for me to find something of the humor that runs like a current through all these things. So I tease a little; I try, perhaps, to "make light" because I see some lightness that's really there.

I also know that there is always the temptation to be flippant or dismissive or cynical. There is the temptation to twist humor into a way of evading or denying the impact of another person's suffering on myself. This temptation is strongest with people I know the best, with those who are -- in the most immediate sense of the term -- my "neighbors," my brothers and sisters.

I'm so sorry for all the times I've done this to my loved ones: to Eileen first (who is always quick to tell me to cut it out, thank God) and to my children. I'm sorry when I let amusement (or analysis) become a pretext for a lack of attention. I'm sorry. My dear loved ones, Eileen, my children (especially my quiet daughters), sometimes you may feel put off, but don't be... I love you all so much.

I'm sorry, my friends. I know that the burdens of the day are real. A moment of suffering is beyond measuring, and worthy of offering with Jesus. Precisely that one moment holds a mystery of suffering that encompasses your personal pain and your own cry for God. I always want to respect you, and live in compassion, to join with you in the loneliness of pain.

Humor would seem rather awkward here, but that is because I am awkward. I want to be compassionate, but I am powerless to help you by my own power. I can't reach you, because suffering (in itself) is incommunicable. How easy it is for words to bend in the direction of a dark cynicism or even a veiled rejection. Sometimes even mutual laughter is just noise to distract us from the silence of a resignation to the cheapening of life, or even to despair.

I'm sorry, my friends. I am a fallen human being. I am afraid of suffering. It is so easy to forget, in the moment, and to see nothing but the limitations of everything.

Only in Jesus can we share our sufferings. Jesus bridges all the distances and overcomes the limits of all things. He rises from the dead. I must remember Him and dwell with Him more deeply in my heart. There I shall find the strength for compassion and the healing salve of good humor.

I'm sorry to you also, my friends on the Internet. Especially in a combox, it's so easy to crack a joke that comes off the wrong way because you can't see my face. Winking and smiling emoticons are a poor substitute for a human face that wants to say, "We are together in Jesus. I don't know how to help, but we are together. Your suffering is my suffering, in Him. I joke because I feel awkward, because it's beyond my understanding, but also perhaps because the Risen Jesus already hold all of us and He doesn't want us to be gloomy."

I tease all the time, and it comes naturally. Life can seem melancholy but there's a line of humor through it all that remains like a glimmer of the irrepressible glory of creation, and the surprising miracle of redemption and the undying hope that comes from it.

I see in humor a reflection of God's mercy, and the utter gratuity of everything. Existence is a gift, and we will never be its masters. But the recognition of this restores innocence and awakens joy, and I just want to rejoice in the irony and the beauty of how we all exist, and we are all together, and we are each so peculiar, so ...unique.

And how we are, each and all of us, so dear to God.

The Hymn of Glory

God’s infinite Being, and His infinite Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are reflected by the profound signification that is to be found in the depths of every being He has created.  The human person is led by the mystery of created existence to an acknowledgement of God that is full of wonder and awe.

To praise, to adore and glorify the Infinite Mystery who possesses in an ineffable and super-eminent way all the loveliness of creation--who is the overflowing Source of every good and every beauty that draws and fascinates the human heart--this is at the foundation of religion, and especially of worship.

In a certain sense, all creation worships God. But when this praise is consciously and intentionally taken up and offered to God from out of the heart of the human person, then worship takes on its full stature, and the hymn of glory that all creation sings to God by virtue of all that it is reaches its summit in the personal offering of the human being.

The mysterious sign of the perfection of God imprinted upon each creature and upon the whole of creation finds its voice in human worship, which lifts up the world and consecrates it to God.

A New Kind of Hope

Yesterday was the great feast day of St. Agnes of Rome, a twelve year old girl of noble family at the beginning of the fourth century. She openly professed her Christianity and died a martyr, which is certainly extraordinary in itself for a young girl. But there is another reason why Agnes is regarded as one of the great saints of the Church.

Carved statue of St. Agnes from the shrine at St. Agnes Catholic church in Arlington, Virginia.
Agnese Janaro was baptized in this church over 14 years ago. Was it really that long ago?!

The earliest accounts praise St. Agnes's heroism and her purity. Clearly she made an astonishing impression on those who witnessed her martyrdom and communicated her story. The traditions that come down from various sources, and that are reflected in the ancient liturgical texts for her feast, indicate that even before her martyrdom this young girl had already given over her life to Jesus in a total dedication--one that would inspire and shape the personal identity of countless women over the next 1700 years.

Agnes had consecrated her virginity to Christ, not for a term of service like the vestals of pagan Rome, but forever. She sacrificed her natural vocation to be a wife and mother in this world and embraced a life of virginity as a witness that God alone was the love of her heart. Christ would be her true husband, and as His bride she would begin to reflect the glory of the life of the resurrection by remaining a virgin, by being entirely for God and God alone, offering Him her entire identity as a woman.

But this was not her idea. It was He Himself who had called her. In the liturgy, Agnes says, "My Lord Jesus Christ has espoused me with his ring; he has crowned me like a bride."

There is no disparagement of earthly marriage here. Marriage itself serves as a sign of what she found, and finds its own fulfillment in being this sign.

Rather, something happened to this twelve year old girl, Someone revealed to her a new kind of life, an eternal life that was already dawning in that moment of her heart, a life and a love worthy of all she had and all she was, worthy of following exclusively, a life greater than any human hope even as it fulfilled the promise hidden in all hopes, a life that could not be broken by all the power of the most powerful Empire the world had ever known, a life greater than the whole universe: eternal life in communion with the God who is Love.

"I am espoused to him whom the angels serve; sun and moon stand in wonder at his beauty."

It was this Beauty that made her utterly fearless. It was a Beauty that so filled this child that all the connivance and energetic cruelty of the powers of this earth could not prevail against her freedom, even when they dedicated all their deception and all there brute force to crushing that freedom.

They did not prevail.

Now, Agnes of Rome sings in glory, in the company of a multitude of women who followed as she did, into martyrdom, into the prayer and silence that seeks Him alone and in so doing lifts up the cry of the whole world, into an exclusive devotion to Christ wherever He is found, seeking to bring comfort to His heart, seeking Him as missionaries, teachers, care-givers, companions and servants of the poor, workers of mercy. St. Agnes leads the song that brings sweet breezes of consolation to the weary, and the strength of a new kind of hope for all of us in the face of every danger and every kind of violence:

"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."

Walking in the Afternoon

The sun is shining. The air is warm.

There is goodness.

Goodness will endure.

The storm and show of evil is not the final word.

All the clatter that shakes our thoughts

will not be silenced by a better idea.

Our hope is that hope has an answer

that whispers like the still small voice.

Here Comes Another ZERO!

I know, its coming up. The "milestone" day.

January 2, 2013.

Of course I've been thinking about it. Its an odd situation for me. I'm still very much a kid at heart. Indeed, I am "like a child" but not so much in the way Jesus had in mind. There is Christian joy and hope in me. I can't deny that; its a gift from Him. But there is also a lot of emotional immaturity. A lot of plain foolishness. Yes, its a mixed bag, again.

"Master, you gave me ten talents. I was so afraid that I buried five of them right away. But then I saw the other guys going to invest in the bank, and I followed them. I invested three. Then I took the other two and went shopping...." (see the parable in Matthew 25:14-30).

Age is also a funny thing for a college professor who has spent his life among young students, younger teachers getting started, experienced colleagues who are his own age, and the older generation of still very active teachers and scholars. The learning experience builds bonds of friendship between generations. In the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty, we are all children. The "fountain of youth" is wonder.

Then, for me, "middle age" has been twisted all around by the fluctuations of my health. I feel much, much better right now than I have in the past. I have been down to the dark places of the earth, and have been brought back up. My aspirations have been simplified. I am grateful for the amazing gift of being alive.

I am alive, outwardly and inwardly. Thank God!

I must accept that I have constraints and limits, but this is helping me to focus on engaging what is in front of me right now, risking the capacities and the talents that I do have to respond to the real vocation of life in the present moment.

I also know that there is weakness. There is failure. I must not let it discourage me. I must trust in the mercy of God, and receive His forgiveness. Then I must begin again when necessary, repair what has been broken, and always keep struggling to do the good and to build up what is good.

And we are all in this present moment together. It challenges us to help one another, to understand one another, to forgive one another, and to give ourselves. Give. Dear Jesus, please heal me and free me, please enable me to love!

I know its just stumbling, in the end. My life expresses itself in the gestures of a hungry man begging for food; and even more than food, begging for truth and meaning, begging for goodness and beauty, begging for love.

And I shall keep stumbling and begging, because I can see the merciful Father running toward me with His arms held open.

Learning New Things, and Finding New Places

Another October is passing by. It brought the bursting color to our leaves and now is taking them away. The mornings are dark, and the days are shorter.

College students are back from their Fall break, and it is time to begin to get serious about thinking about those term papers that are due at the end of next month. Of course, you'll wait till the very last possible moment to write them, and they'll arrive in your professors' boxes at 11:59.9 PM on the due date.

Then the next day in class, we shall have the sleepy, and the scruffy, and those who are begging for extensions and trying to lose as few of those precious *POINTS* as possible.

Please, write a good paper.

Seek the truth. Try to understand something. Yes, I know, the professor is obtuse and you don't know what the class is supposed to be about...but just look at what's there and find something real and grab hold of it.

Its your education. Stop blaming circumstances and other people. Roll up your mental sleeves and work with what you have. You will learn many things, and also you will begin to learn how to live. Wherever you are in life, reality is your teacher, and circumstances are the resources that are given to you so that you may grow as a person.

Circumstances can be strange and painful, but there they are, every day. So we engage them. We often do badly, but we learn from our mistakes too.

Right now, this "retired" professor spends his days in the office at the John XXIII Montessori Children's Center, where his wife directs the elementary program. One might say he's a sort of "writer in residence," although he does his own research and writing at his laptop (and he is working on developing some "new media" platforms for the Center...eventually).

He is also a kind of "resource person," who gives small lessons on religion or history, helps students with research, works with maps (he's always loved maps), reads stories to the primary level kids, answers the phone, fills in wherever an adult is needed, etc.

The most important thing he does is just be there, frequently going out of the office and into the "classroom" (oops, wrong word; the word is environment--and that's exactly what it is). He sits in a chair, reads a book, and lets the children "bother" him. They find ways to learn all sorts of things from him.

These are not the circumstances he expected for himself at this period of his life. But they are good.

The professor is learning about what it means to learn...and to teach.  He sees his own children, and others, in a learning environment, where they look at what's around them, find real things, grab hold of them, and discover paths of understanding--ways of seeking the truth.

If they want to learn about plants, they can read about them. But they can also plant something, tend it, and watch it grow. Math is involved with tangible things. Numbers are strings of beads that they can see and touch and combine. Shapes are...actual shapes! And there are spheres, and cubes, and cones of various sizes.

There are rocks, and there are jars with minerals and all kinds of things to compare and contrast tangibly, visually, engaging the senses. They learn how something smells by actually smelling it! Maps are of every sort: maps that show terrain, maps in puzzle form with pieces corresponding to country borders, and many globes that model various facets of topographic or political geography.

One thing cannot be found here. There are no grades. There are no *points* to be accumulated as external rewards. Progress is monitored according to the interests and capacities of each child. Learning is not about discovering and mastering the tricks necessary to win a prize. Learning is about reality; its about experiencing and understanding reality.

The children grapple with real projects, using their hands and their minds. They make mistakes and learn from them. All of this happens in an exquisitely organized environment in which everything has its proper place. The directress guides individuals and groups of children in the various works, gives lessons, and "keeps order"--not with a stick, but by helping the children to learn what is required of them if they are to work together.

And they also do plenty of reading and writing. They even learn handwriting, with pens and pencils, on real paper.

The Montessori environment is a rich and beautiful place, where children are guided in a learning experience that engages the senses, imagination, mind and heart. The environment is realistic for the child. This method actually works! Discipline is built into the order and the ethos of the place, and that includes a healthy awareness of fallen human nature, but not a morbid preoccupation with it.

It is a beautiful place, and there's room in it for anything interesting...

...even an old, rheumatic, "retired" professor. :)

St. Francis Part One, Creation, and Benedict at Loreto Too!

The dateline on this post is October 4th, which was when the remarks below were given by the Pope during his pilgrimage to Loreto, to consecrate to the Blessed Mother the upcoming Year of Faith and the synod on the New Evangelization. These are the beginnings of what we trust will be specially blessed, even extraordinary days for the Church, as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council.

Of course, October 4 is the feast of St. Francis, and this post was supposed to be devoted to him. But to adapt for my purposes Boromir's popular meme:

I rather think he has a point. So far I have not been able to get out much about St. Francis beyond *GASP! What a man!*

There is so much to say. One could start right here: without St. Francis and his way of being-at-home-in-the-world while not belonging to the world, it is hard to imagine that anyone could have written The Lord of the Rings. St. Francis embodies that new Christian vision of the created world, in which things have their own truth and beauty precisely through their reference to One who made them.

LOTR is a "myth" without any gods, not because it is atheist, but because it is everywhere indicative of the transcendent source of reality. It is a "Christian myth" by the very fact that the divine is not to be found in nature or in fate, but rather in the pervasive presence of a transcendent Providence that calls forth personal responsibility and also shows mercy.

St. Francis provokes a lot of thought about a lot of things.

And that means that I intend to devote a post to him. Its just going to take a little more time. But its coming soon.

Meanwhile, to return to Pope Benedict's schedule, the Year of Faith begins October 11. It is intended to be a time for deepening our faith, and growing in awareness of the amazing event that is God's presence in the world through Jesus Christ. Like Mary, we must entrust our freedom to Him. He is not a restriction on our freedom. On the contrary, He alone is adequate for our freedom. He is the source and fulfillment of our freedom. Here are the words of Benedict XVI:

"As we contemplate Mary,

we must ask if we too wish to be open to the Lord,
if we wish to offer him our life as his dwelling place;
or if we are afraid 
the presence of God may somehow
place limits on our freedom,
if we wish to set aside a part of our life
in such a way that it belongs only to us.
Yet it is precisely God who liberates our liberty,
he frees it from being closed in on itself,
from the thirst for power, possessions, and domination;
he opens it up to the dimension which completely fulfils it:
the gift of self, of love,
which in turn becomes service and sharing."

The Hundredfold of St. Augustine

St. Augustine. There's no end to what we could say about him. There is one particular thing that has always fascinated me. St. Augustine is a radiant example of what Jesus calls "the hundredfold" (Mark 10:31).

Jesus says that if we follow Him, we will receive eternal life...but also, we will receive a hundredfold in this life (along with "persecutions"). He also says "seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added as well" (see Matthew 6:33).

What does Jesus mean? He does not mean the we should follow Him in order to get stuff in this life. That would be to reduce Jesus to our own measure. Jesus wants to transform us according to God's wisdom. He wants to give us a new mind and a new heart. He promises eternal life, which is the mystery toward which everything in this life points, and which is therefore the real meaning of everything in this life.

The Servant of God Msgr. Luigi Giussani often said something that resonates deeply in me, and corresponds to my own experience. He said that if you really follow Christ, you will also discover that you love your wife a hundred times more than you ever could have imagined; that you love your children a hundred times more, your work a hundred times more, your friends a hundred times more. You will discover the real greatness of this life, and you will even be able to embrace suffering.

There is a particular way in which St. Augustine's life indicates this pattern. Here was a man who aspired to be a great rhetorician, an artist with words. He pursued this ambition with relentless passion, but without understanding its true value. And then he found Christ, and he gave up all thought of being a rhetorician. He gave up the desire to be known for his speeches and writings and works in this world. He longed for Christ, followed Christ, and kept his heart fixed on Christ.

And from out of his singular passion for Christ--without even thinking about it, or caring, or noticing it--he wrote an amazing book. Desiring only to praise Christ, he wrote a book that was not only the greatest book of its epoch, but one of the greatest ever written in human history. He gave the world inimitable and unforgettable Latin prose, soaring and poetic diction, and timeless, soul-penetrating insight into the heart of the human being.

Aurelius Augustinus the rhetorician and scholar, had he followed his ambition, might have become a teacher with some following, or even perhaps a minor provincial statesman of his period. Students of late antiquity might have known his name. But Saint Augustine, by following Christ, became also a hundred times more in the history of this world. He wrote books that speak to every time and in every language, and he gave us words that ring out through the ages--words that rival any that have ever been uttered in human speech.

There is something of the hundredfold here, although it has been more for our benefit than for his.

"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace" (Confessions X:27).

Clothed With The Sun

We know that Mary has been assumed body and soul into heaven. She sent us a picture!

Indeed, it's more than a picture. We are so familiar with reproductions and even color photographs of this "picture" that we are in danger of growing accustomed to it. But the original is unique.

We all know that the "tilma" has been the object of many scientific studies. They can't explain it. They know it's not a painting. Indeed there is no known human technique for making an image like this. Studies have concluded that the colors and patterns of the image are on the tilma in the way that color and design are on the wings of a moth.

In other words, they are like something natural. There is no sign of human artifice. At the same time, no one can explain how the image actually "interacts" with the cloth. To put it simply: it's not like anything we know.

And then there are the eyes....

I like the story of a Japanese optic specialist who came to Mexico to study the eyes of the image with the latest technology. According to the story, he was making his examinations through his scope when, suddenly, he fainted to the ground. When he regained consciousness, people wanted to know what happened, and he said:

"She was looking at me!"

As a pilgrim (three times) to this amazing place, my response is, "Of course she was looking at you."

During this beautiful period between the feast of the Assumption and the feast of the Queenship of Mary (August 22), I cannot help but recall the precious time that I have spent with her.

The Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of the Lord of heaven and earth, Our Merciful Mother...she lives there. People who seek her, with attention and faith and patience, will find her, and will be changed by her personal presence.

Moreover, quite of few distracted or merely curious people will be surprised by a tap on the shoulder, and an encounter with a person who knows them, and looks at them with a profound tenderness. It makes them forget any other reasons they had had for coming. And they find themselves being loved, and healed, and gently corrected and set upon the right path. So many people speak of these experiences that it must be more than a collective delusion.

"Here, I will give all of my love...." This is the promise she made to Juan Diego.

Mary lives with her whole humanity, body and soul, in the New Creation. And in some mysterious way, her glory radiates from her resurrected life, and touches this earthly place and this inexplicable image, so that she might be "there" for us, to meet us, and to become a personal presence in our lives.

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

P.S. - I neglected to mention the extensive temperature studies that have been done on the cloth. Regardless of the temperature outside, the cloth and its image have always maintained the same temperature. It always measures 98.6 degrees. Fahrenheit. Yup!

People, this is for real!

The Olympics: What Did They Show Us?

The Olympics are over.

Here in the U.S.A., it was fun to get up in the morning and turn on the television to watch people from all over the world compete in a wide variety of sports.

The girls, of course, were especially captivated by the gymnastics. For a few weeks we may have several amateur gymnasts romping around the house, adapting the furniture to their routines. After the 2008 Olympics, Lucia turned the couch into a trampoline (they're not supposed to jump on the couch!) and almost went flying through the front window, shattering completely one of the glass panes (no one was hurt, thank God).

Of course, we also enjoyed the swimming, the diving (everybody loves synchronized diving), the sprints and the distance runners, the field events, archery, some of the more unfamiliar sports like water polo and handball, as well as the standards like volleyball, basketball, tennis, etc. (there was no baseball this time, which is a crime that must be rectified).

But the highlight of the entire Olympics, for our family, was (of course) Team U.S.A.'s gold medal in Women's Soccer. After last year's epic World Cup, with all its heroics and the brave but heartbreaking loss to Japan in the final (see last year's blog), we were ready to see "our girls" take the pitch once again.

They seemed like old friends: Abby and Hope and Alex and Carli and Meghan and everyone. And they did it again. With grit, relentless energy, and their never-give-up team spirit, they thrilled us, amazed us, and put us through the agonizing suspense of close matches and dramatic finales. And then, finally, they won the gold. Our American women were champions!

And they really were...indeed all the many participants in the various sports, within their defined courts or fields, gave a display of excellence, and those who won showed us what it means to be the best. In our rejoicing in victory or our sorrow in defeat, we could not help acknowledging that "goodness" is objective and real, and that human beings strive to attain it.

We cheer our athletes, who build something beautiful and awesome by the arduous work of developing their talents, strength, and skill. This requires intense training, total focus and dedication, and lots and lots of sacrifice. Here, people in our culture today can clearly see the value of submitting to an objective discipline. People see the value of sacrifice. They are stirred to the experience of a kind of wonder.

But things of deeper beauty are not so evident. People don't see these things, and so they don't even understand why they are worthy of seeking, of effort, of sacrifice.

It is here that we must aspire to be champions. We must take the "field" of each day, and keep working hard and making sacrifices in order to live lives of deep beauty, so as to make truth and love shine in the world.

The Beauty of the Edifice

The feast day of the unforgettable Cure of Ars brings to mind many stories about the humble and extraordinary parish priest. I have always been especially touched by the remarkable and perhaps unlikely friendship between St. John Vianney and another great French priest - who is not a saint (not yet, at least) but who was the great pioneer who helped bring about the restoration of religious life in post-revolutionary France, Fr. Henri Lacordaire, O.P.

Sometimes called "the French Newman," Lacordaire refounded the Dominican order in France, and dedicated himself to a vigorous and erudite apologia for the Catholic faith in his famous discourses given at Notre Dame to crowds of believers and unbelievers alike. He was the towering Catholic figure in the midst of the positivistic French intelligentsia of his time, and he lit the spark that began the Catholic intellectual, literary, and cultural revival of France in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Lacordaire's talents and education, however, were accompanied by a genuine humility and a devotion to the Church, and in Vianney he saw one of the saints that he knew the Church in France so desperately needed in his time. The Cure, in turn, recognized the value of great Dominican's brilliant preaching.

When it was remarked that Lacordaire's conferences had produced few conversions, St. John Vianney spoke up on behalf of his friend. Lacordaire's work with skeptics and unbelievers was important nonetheless, said the Cure, because "we must make them admire the beauty of the edifice before inspiring them with the desire to enter."