Remembering Oscar Romero on Holy Thursday

It is fitting that what would have been the first official "feast day" of the now Blessed Oscar Romero is superseded this year by Holy Thursday.

Blessed Romero was in every way a priest and bishop whose life was centered on the Eucharist. His service to the poor and his courageous opposition to the injustice and violence of those in power were seamlessly woven into his priestly life, to his giving Christ and himself tirelessly in the Eucharist.

Today is the 36th anniversary of his martyrdom. He was shot during the offertory of the Mass in the chapel of the Divina Providencia hospital, the chapel where he prayed daily to Jesus in the Eucharist and the hospital where—in a simple room—he resided as Archbishop, so he could be close to and minister daily to the sick and the dying.

Religious sisters and others at Mass rush to aid the felled
Archbishop. Some say that before he died he whispered
"God have mercy on the assassins."

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

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

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

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

And so, on this Holy Thursday, as our priests and bishops (especially those suffering along with their people from repression and persecution all over the world) renew their commitment to their vocations, let us ask Blessed Romero's intercession for them, that they might have the courage to live the Eucharist they offer, to give their own body and blood in union with the Body and Blood of Jesus entrusted to their ministry.

Let them make their own, in whatever circumstances they face, the final words of Blessed Oscar Romero's homily on March 24, 1980—words that were spoken even as Romero probably saw his assassin enter the back of the small chapel, and then saw him raise his weapon as the bishop approached the altar.

He was ready to give Christ and himself, totally, in that moment. Lord, give our priests this readiness. Make us all ready, each moment, to give ourselves in love and in hope of the resurrection.

Blessed Oscar Romero, pray for us!

"May this Body immolated

and this Blood sacrificed for mankind

nourish us also,

that we may give

our body and our blood over to suffering and pain,
like Christ--not for self,

but to give harvests of peace and justice

to our people."

(The final words of the homily of the Blessed Archbishop Oscar Romero, Martyr, moments before he was shot dead during the offertory of the Mass, March 24, 1980.)

Preaching.

A bishop and a shepherd.

With God and with his people, especially the poor, the oppressed, the victims of injustice and violence.

Romero's bedroom at the Divina Providencia Hospital where he lived as Archbishop.

Joseph Goes To Egypt

Here's a bit of a "poem" of sorts, for Saint Joseph's Day 2016. We must imagine here that the Holy Family had at least one loyal old servant, one old fool who fancied that he knew how things worked in Bethlehem and Jerusalem in those days, who thought that he knew the ways of kings....

Waxing Moon

Waxing moon as we head toward the first day of Spring (this weekend), and then Holy Week and Easter.

First Stirrings of Spring

The last couple of days have been cloudy, but before that--on a bright sunny afternoon--I got some photographs of the first signs of the real Spring that will begin to bloom all around us in the next few weeks.

This is what we are seeing in mid-March:

The Forsythia bushes have just begun to show their first tentative yellow shoots.

Elsewhere, green buds bathe in the sunshine.

Reepicheep also gets her fair share of afternoon sun. She is glad to see the warmer weather here to stay.

The big maple trees are still bare except for their early red tips. Hard to believe this will be a green canopy soon!

We see and hear lots of birds in the early evening. The starlings are all about in the bare branches.

And the robins are all around, scouting for places to build nests when the trees are green.

Mourning into Dancing

This text of Psalm 30 caught my attention recently:

As for me, I said in my prosperity,

    “I shall never be moved.”

By your favor, O Lord,
    you had established me as a strong mountain;
you hid your face;
    I was dismayed.

 To you, O Lord, I cried,
    and to the Lord I made supplication:

“What profit is there in my death,
    if I go down to the Pit?
Will the dust praise you?
    Will it tell of your faithfulness?
 Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me!
    O Lord, be my helper!”

You have turned my mourning into dancing;
    you have taken off my sackcloth
    and clothed me with joy,
 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
    O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

Psalm 30:6-12

Tweets of Mercy

The only way to get Pope Francis and a laptop together is by photoshopping (badly here)

Okay you know that picture is a joke. I don't think the Pope even uses a computer. So I did a sloppy cut-and-paste with PaintNet, and...well... that's my fun for the day!

Seriously, even though the Pope has someone else do the actual posting, he's been giving us plenty to ponder recently on his Twitter account. I wonder what would happen if we took up and prayed about the theme of the daily tweet that Pope Francis sends out in seven languages (including Arabic). What if we allowed it to guide even a few moments of prayerful consideration and comparison with our own lives and priorities?

This brief meditation could bear much fruit.

Here are some of his recent offerings that I have collected in no special order:

Breathe!

Look here: I posted on the BLOG!

I'm bursting with things to say and reflections to articulate and share, and I can't get them out. But here is one small thing for the day--one achievement--and for this I am grateful.

It's important, if possible, to set at least one goal and accomplish it every day. It's part of living with chronic illness. Even if it's a really, really, really small accomplishment. Find one thing you can do, one challenge (tiny, tiny challenge, don't freak out, don't overdo it, a "baby step"). Do that. Or if you try but fail, find something smaller. Make a half step.

When you achieve something during the day, rejoice and be grateful. You have grown as a human being. It's humiliating, I know, but the "measure" for growing as a human person is a mystery to us. The measure is in the hands of Someone Else.

As I said in my book, there were days when my goal was to get from my bed to the chair in the living room so as to be closer to Eileen and the kids.

Of course, I never felt satisfied with that (just as I don't feel satisfied with this blog post right now). But what I'm talking about here is not satisfaction. It's living, growing, moving forward, becoming more human according to the rhythm of the mysterious journey that each of us has been given in this life.

If and when we find ourselves in circumstances where we are immobilized, where all we can do is lay there and breathe, then let's breathe! Breathing, if we think about it, is a living image of so many things. But never mind that now. Breathe. Say "yes" to the gift of existence, go forward from breath to breath with trust in that gift, and let each breath speak its own gratitude.

This is the stuff of which real heroism is made.

The Dawn Will Come

Sometimes I find it helpful to "switch gears" in the brain. So when I'm worn out with writing, I'll shift over to making graphic memes using PaintNet. I'm just a hack at this, learning as I go along, but I enjoy it (until it, too, exhausts me, which is like... now).

So here's what I came up with, from the Psalm in today's Liturgy. It gives me hope as I pass through this long night. Hope, because the dawn will come.

Happy Birthday to My Great Lady

Eileen's birthday was on Saturday. It was a lovely day, especially because John Paul is home on Spring Break.

Here's to my great lady! I can't imagine life without her.

Eileen in her classroom watching her students work.

Hypocrisy and Humility

Here is a short reflection on the Gospel that I wrote for today's MAGNIFICAT Lenten Companion. Please do click on the link to learn more about our monthly magazine and other publications of this excellent resource.

Meanwhile, I'll take advantage of my previous writing by using it for today's blog post:

Let's Not Tear One Another Apart

I haven't been moving around very well lately, and I don't exactly feel inspired to write. But that doesn't mean I have stopped thinking. I wanted to say something about these difficult days in the U.S.A. and our world, to take the approach of addressing the larger context of problems many of us are wrestling with right now.

So I made a video.

The quality is not very good. Except for a few edits, it's just a straight spoken reflection. Anyway, I decided to just post it.

Perhaps there is some value in it.

Leaping Toward the Future

I hope I'm not the only one getting "life coaching" from Facebook.

Why don't y'all just be a social media platform. We'll take care of the content. Sheesh. One day I logged onto Facebook and was greeted with this message:

Uh... "Good afternoon, Facebook algorhithm. So... can you bring me a cup of coffee?"

Anyway, I made the most of it. Indeed, it was a beautiful day without any help from me. Sunsets are after 6:00 PM by now, and traveling back up along the Ridge.

It would appear that March is coming in like a lamb.

"Oldies but Goodies" Part 1

One thing I can do on this blog right now is represent some fun "Oldies" that pop up in places like Timehop. The Never Give Up BLOG--after all--goes back five years. One thing that strikes me in reading old entries is how much the kids have grown.

Josefina may still be pretty small physically but she has grown so much as a person. Here is a blog entry from four years ago, when she was age five.

Not that she doesn't still do things like this, but it's ...different now. Just read it and you'll see:

Brother Against Brother

Soon after posting about the centenary of the beginning of the Battle of Verdun, I remembered a reflection I had written that recently appeared in the MAGNIFICAT Lenten Companion. The film footage described below was not from Verdun, but from another stretch of the Western front.

Still, it makes for an appropriate followup as we try to put war in perspective:

1916: The Killing Fields of Verdun

We have another date to mark in our Centennial of Infamy: February 21, 1916 (the English newspaper reports first appeared a hundred years ago today).

I have neither the energy nor the disposition at present to say much about the German offensive that began on the Western Front in these strange days. The Germans advanced into an historic region in the valley along the Meuse river, in a place that had been one of the "crossroads" of Europe for over a thousand years.

Ten months and nearly a million casualties later, the Germans and the French had traded back and forth about five miles of territory. Today we remember this monstrous nightmare of blood, fire, and madness as "the Battle of Verdun." We must bare our heads and weep for the multitude of men and boys from both sides who were ground up by the relentless machine of death.

Eyewitness descriptions of these days, weeks, and months of chaos are terrifying even to read. Let these words from the journal of a French officer suffice: "What a massacre! What scenes of horror and carnage! I cannot find words to translate my impressions. Hell cannot be so terrible. Men are mad!"

Even after the greater and more destructive war of 1939-1945, the killing fields of Verdun remain a singular monument to the violence, futility, and stupidity of human pride.

I Need to Listen More

I've been having a hard time over the past month. A very hard time.
Please pray for me.

This blog may slow down for awhile. I don't know. My faith remains firm. I'm still on Twitter:

I've been through all this before. I need to listen more. I shall listen to other people and music.

I shall listen to the Pope:

Everything is Present in Hope

Some things seem always the same.

Thirty years ago, I commuted between the Valley and Washington DC, where I had just begun graduate studies. I was 23 years old in February of 1986, and yet much was the same as it is now. I saw this same sky on a winter's afternoon. I breathed this same air and felt the same fading warmth of the waning sun.

And yet, the people whom I care most about in the world, the people with whom I now share every day, were unknown to me.

Thirty years ago, I had not yet met Eileen. I could not even imagine her or the life we would share together. So much that makes up who I am simply did not exist. The children did not exist.

The sky looked just as it does now, but I was alone.

And in another generation, the sky will again glow as it does now. What kind of turmoil will the world have endured between now and then? Where will we all be?

I will have continued, and perhaps completed, my part in this story. There is nothing vivid about the future, except what I have learned up to this moment, which convinces me that everything is already present in hope. I know that there is a story, and that I am not meant to be alone.

Mercy and the Odd Ways that Books Get Written

If you're still looking for some good resources for living this extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, it's not too late to get a copy of this very fine Year of Mercy Companion.

This is a special Magnificat publication of readings, prayers, and devotions that are worth holding onto even after the year is over.

Click HERE to learn more. Paper copies are still available, as well as ebooks in your favorite format.

A team of excellent writers and editors worked very hard to put this beautiful collection together. Since I only contributed a few entries to its 448 pages, I am saying this in recognition of the work of many others.

I am reproducing below one of my entries that appeared on February 11. It's hard to believe that it's been six years since my book Never Give Up: My Life and God's Mercy was published by Servant and Franciscan Media (the BOOK is still very timely and worth reading, and it is still in print and ebook - click HERE to get a copy for yourself or someone you care about).

I'm glad I had wonderful editors for the book who corrected my funky sentences (like that last one).

The Never Give Up book and its ongoing "sequel," the Never Give Up blog, are projects that were never on my bucket list. They were and remain surprising and fruitful things in my own life and, I've been told, in the lives of others.

Here's my reflection on how it all came about:

An Event That Gives Us Hope

Pope Francis prays before Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe at her Basilica in Mexico, at the center of the land that stretches from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego (Screen shots from CTV broadcast).

Here she is, the real Virgin of Guadalupe
in her "house" of nearly five hundred years.
She came in those days to one poor man
(and yesterday another poor man went to see her).
Then and now, her presence—however incomprehensible and wonderful
to our understanding and science—is simple in its meaning:
She wants to stay with us.

This event gives me hope.
Hope for eternal life, for glory,
for victory in the resurrection of the Man
who was born from the tiny space beneath those folded hands.

This event gives me hope.
Hope for our poor world,
for the building up of goodness and true freedom,
even as we journey through our time of sorrows.
Hope against violence, cruelty, and lies.
Hope for the reconciliation of peoples.

Hope for the land in which I live,
where there is a trail of earth and soil
from my doorstep to her threshold.
Hope for "all the people" in what she called "the land,"
this land upon which we are blessed to live,
entrusted to us by God
and specially blessed by this miracle,
this enduring sign of her presence.

The times are evil, indeed,
and the children of God are in distress.
The world so much needs a mother's tenderness and closeness.

Our land and all its peoples—ancient, old, and new—cry out
with so many pains,
so much suffering,
so much confusion.
We do not know how to go forward.

All the more reason to turn to Mary.

She comes, our mother, with consolation, counsel, compassion.
She brings Jesus, our only hope
who belongs to all of us,
to those who know Him,
and those who have forgotten Him,
and those who do not know Him yet.

She wants us to open our eyes,
to show us how we must love one another,
not only as a "solution,"
but above all to be true to who we are...

All people are her children,
all of us are the little brothers and sisters of Jesus,
and therefore
brothers and sisters of each other,
of one family,
a human family
so greatly loved that Love Himself
became her child, and our brother.

Mary's Plan to Meet with Francis in Mexico

Pope Francis is in Mexico after his historic meeting with Moscow Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church (more on this historic meeting in a future blog).

We know that Francis wants to spend personal, one-on-one time with the Virgin of Guadalupe, who is present at the Basilica in Mexico City in what can only be called the second most amazing image in the universe.

He expressed this particular desire before embarking on this trip.

The great news is that his "personal audience" has been arranged for Saturday. Vatican Radio had this report:

This "sort of secret room," as they call it, is a very small private chapel. The frame that holds the tilma can be turned around so that it faces the interior of this chapel.

We know well about this, because during his five (five!) visits to Mexico, Saint John Paul II spent long periods of time in this place. He would go during the night (after the Basilica closed to pilgrims) and pray long hours alone with Mary.

I have been told that security cameras in the chapel revealed some of these intimate moments (I have never seen any footage; I don't think they keep that sort of thing.) Supposedly, John Paul II would spend long periods of time with his face pressed to the glass, near the Blessed Mother's feet.

He prayed for the Church and for the world.

Dear friends, have confidence in Jesus and His holy mother Mary. Have confidence, whatever the storms of these times may bring.

Let us join Pope Francis in renewing our hope for our salvation, for the life of the Church, for a witness to the world.

The frame holding the tilma and its image as seen in the Basilica. The small chapel is behind this wall, and the frame can turn.

Loaves and Fishes

What are we, O Lord?
Five loaves and two fish.
Take us, Lord,
and make us new
according to the measure of Your love.

Francis's Pilgrimage to Mexico and Mary

Pope Francis spoke by teleconference with Mexicans preparing for his upcoming trip to their country. There are many important elements of this trip, but I want to focus on just one here. The Pope's desire to meet with the Virgin of Guadalupe is absolutely real.

Jorge Bergoglio is no stranger to Guadalupe. He has been to "Mary's house," but this will be his first visit since his dramatic and unexpected transfer from Latin America to Rome three years ago.

I have no doubt that these words of the Pope, and this great desire of his "to visit the maternal house, and to feel the tenderness of her kind presence," are profoundly rooted in his experience, which is the experience of countless Guadalupan pilgrims (myself included).

Through the inexplicable phenomenon of the image on Saint Juan Diego's tilma, Mary "lives there." The whole miracle of Guadalupe has a purpose, and that purpose is the possibility of encountering Mary personally, with a kind of physical "presence," a tenderness, a hospitality, and eyes that look upon you before you think to look at her.

Pope Francis gets it. He knows this place. He knows that she has asked to see him "as one more son," and that he needs to see her, to bring to her all the suffering of our times.

Let us join him in placing our confidence in her.

"Do you want me to confide in you [one] of my greatest desires?

To be able to visit the Virgin Mary’s house.

As one more son, I will approach our Mother

and place at her feet all that I bear in my heart.

It is lovely to be able to visit the maternal house,

and to feel the tenderness of her kind presence.

There, I will look at her in her eyes

and implore that she not fail to look at us with mercy,

as she is our Heavenly Mother."

Here's How Virginia "Does" Blizzards!

The pictures really say it all:

Mountains of snow have been reduced to ... well, that, along with lots of soggy ground:

Meanwhile the melted snow has turned drainage paths into roaring streams:

Poor Earthen Vessels of His Love

In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, we Catholic Christians are encouraged to meditate especially on the mercy of God, to receive His mercy through Jesus in the Church, and to do the works of mercy.

It is an invitation to rediscover and take up in a fresh way our Christian and human vocation.

The Jubilee is a time to focus once more on what is essential. We are presented with the possibility of remembering and encountering anew the astonishing bond that God has established with us through Jesus Christ. As Christians we place our hope in the mercy of God who has become our companion in Jesus. Jesus wants to be with us, to remind us that we are not alone in front of the enigma of existence. We struggle every day with life, its joys, its suffering, its mysterious and inescapable destiny, but we know that He is here to respond to our poverty with His divine and human compassion.

And as we experience this compassion, we are called to proclaim it, to share it with one another and everyone in need. The call of God's love and mercy extends beyond ourselves; He burns with love for every person, and He longs to enkindle that flame in our hearts. For this reason the Christian is called to live and to manifest something new in the world.

This is our poor world, confused, struggling and seeking, full of human persons who have been created in the image of God and redeemed by Christ, and who travel along broken paths searching for the One who loves them and calls each of them by name.

It is a world in which many do not yet know Him, or do not know Him enough, or perhaps hold onto Him mysteriously in the depths of their hearts but without knowing all of the beautiful ways He wants to help them, strengthen them, and be a light to their steps. It is also a world of many who have rejected God or who ignore God, even as He continues to passionately seek them out and draw them to Himself. God's mercy works secretly in their hearts, but it also works through us and wants to manifest itself and give itself through us.

God wants the beauty and the glory of His mercy to shine through us, so that those who are weary and heavily burdened by the riddle of life's meaning may see that God Himself has brought something new into history that answers and indeed overflows superabundantly all the depths of the human question.

Here we are, poor earthen vessels of His love. We ourselves are so much in need of healing and of experiencing His love and mercy. Our mission is not one of winning over the world to our party, as if the fulfillment of human existence somehow came from our own selves, our ideas, our projects--as if it were the construction of our own brilliance and coherence, the assertion of our own power.

No. Being Christian means knowing that we are weak and broken, that we depend upon His mercy in every moment. We are sinners. We are not called to isolate ourselves and condemn the rest of the world. Our mission is to let Jesus win us, and win the world with us and through us.

The conversion of the hearts of others is linked to our continuing conversion, our growing in love for Him and our solidarity with all our brothers and sisters--our willingness to suffer and share with compassion all the pain and longing of being human, and to bring it all into the merciful heart of Jesus who is our healing and our hope.

A "Light of Revelation" For The World

Byzantine style icon of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem forty days after his birth, according to the Law.

Happy Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.

Today we celebrate the events that occur at the conclusion of St Luke's account of Christ's birth and epiphany. This feast marks forty days after Christmas (already?!) and a week before Lent begins this year.

Our brothers and sisters of St Nicholas Orthodox Church in U.K. have an explanatory chart for the classic Byzantine icon for this event (indeed, they have beautiful charts for icons of all twelve of the Great Feasts. Click the link above.)

Here is the classic icon for the Presentation and a helpful explanatory overview. (N.B. Westerners, "The Panagia" is an ancient Greek reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Here we see it used as a proper name, "The All-Holy One.")

Western sacred painting follows a similar pattern as well. Here is THE PRESENTATION by the great early 14th century Italian painter Giotto Di Bondone.

By the way, bookmark the WEBSITE that I must acknowledge as source of the image above. Really, this site should be one of your "go-to" pages for all things Giotto.

CLICK HERE for Giotto, Giotto, Giotto!

Giotto's painting has the same basic iconic form that we saw earlier. Joseph has the doves. In Western tradition Mary has a blue mantle, while East usually clothes her entirely in red. Anna is at the far right. The Temple setting here is in the style of a Christian basilica.

It is significant, however, that here we see the beginning of a more realist style in the West, as Simeon and Anna are both drawn in profile. The Byzantine icon tradition continues to draw saints facing front with both eyes visible. (Note that Giotto still presents Mary and Joseph with both eyes in the classical iconic style.)

All through the world and in the many ancient Christian rites, this "Meeting of the Lord" is celebrated as an epiphany of God incarnate. We have returned one final time to the infant Jesus--the focus of much of our Christmas season meditation--revealed to the humble of Israel who awaited the fulfillment of God's promises with faith. Let us look at how many different traditions testify in images to this revealing event.

A Russian icon of the 15th century, by the incomparable master, Andrei Rublev:

Here is the "Meeting of the Lord" from the Armenian tradition:

The distinctive, almost childlike simplicity of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church:

Finally, a contemporary painting from sub-Saharan Africa:

We can hear the ancient Simeon speaking:

"My eyes have seen Your salvation,

which You prepared in the sight of all the peoples:

a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

and glory for Your people Israel" (Luke 2:30-32).

A light of revelation for the Gentiles. The light still burns brightly in so many places.

Let us celebrate this feast with the light of Jesus in our hearts.