The Light that “Shines” on the Troubles of Every Day

The Holy Spirit leads us ever more fully into the Heart of Jesus and the infinite mercy of the Father who loves us and sustains us through the whole of this mysterious life. We need God’s light — as we live through the obscurity and sufferings of every day — in order to begin to experience the joy of realizing that He is transforming our humanity and preparing us for the fulfillment of this life in eternity. Indeed, “everything is grace…” But that doesn’t mean that everything is easy.

Christianity is grace, but as we are often reminded, it is not “cheap grace.” It is not an escape from suffering. It does not dispense us from the need to strive to live a genuine human life, to be obedient to the wise and loving plan of God, or to wage relentless war against our own selfishness.

Christianity does not provide “cheap answers” to the painful and troubling questions of our lives. It is not a guarantee against disappointment and failure, nor is it a pretext to compromise with mediocrity. It is not a place to hide from our own weakness.

Critics claim that people embrace faith because they want easy answers. They want a package of solutions to their problems and emotional comfort for their hurts and fears.

But this is not the effect of real Christianity. It is not an anesthetic. On the contrary, it opens new dimensions of the questions of the heart, and sparks a deeper dynamic of intelligence in the search for understanding. It awakens a unique sensibility to our own wounds and a compassion for the wounds of the world. It engenders a love that is the opposite of power and domination, a love that has the courage to be more vulnerable, to be poor and humble, to endure our own sufferings and to be with others in the places where they suffer.

Christianity is not a list of cheap answers that take away the real drama and vulnerability of human life. Christianity is a Person who loves us and endures our vulnerability to the very end, transforming it from within. The “answer” is the way Jesus embraces each of our lives. We are changed by living with Him.

We are not changed by a “satisfying explanation.” We are changed by Him.

Martyr Franz Jagerstatter’s Path to Mature Faith

Blessed Franz Jagerstatter is commemorated on May 21st.

An Austrian farmer, husband, father, and Nazi resistor, Franz Jagerstatter was beatified and declared a martyr in 2007 for being faithful to his conscience. He was executed in 1943 because his conscience forbade him to serve in the German army, to take an oath of obedience to Hitler, or to cooperate in any way in the Nazi war machine. He maintained his position even against the common opinion of the Catholic Church in Austria and Germany at that time (and numerous priests who tried thus to counsel him) that Catholics could fight for their country without endorsing or participating in the evil intentions of the Nazi regime. Franz never spoke against those who fought or the hierarchy who authorized them. Rather, he held himself accountable for the particular grace God had given him, the prophetic insight that solidified his conviction that the Nazi regime was antithetical to the Gospel and that its war of conquest and plunder was unjust.

But the early life of this Austrian peasant showed little signs of the luminous solitary heroism for which he is celebrated today. Franz was born in 1907 in the small Austrian village of Saint Radegund. After a basic education, he took up farming the land he would eventually inherit, and also took his place among the boisterous young men of the village. When they weren’t working, these fellows played cards, engaged in sports, danced, and got into fights among themselves or with the youth of neighboring villages. Above all, they sought the company of young women.

Franz was popular and had a bit of daring in those days. Like everyone in the area, he was a Catholic of ordinary observance, but by age 20 he was becoming restless. He lapsed from the practice of his faith for a while, went to work for wages in the iron mines in Eisenerz, and returned after three years riding his own motorcycle (a first for the village). Now back to church, and occasionally making pilgrimages to the nearby Marian shrine at Altotting, Franz had not entirely lost his “wild streak.” In 1933, he fathered a child with one of the local serving women. (Though he was unable to marry the mother, he remained attentive to his eldest daughter for the rest of his life.)

After this liaison, Franz realized that he wanted to commit to settling down on the farm and living his faith with more consistency. He realized that he needed a companion to share every aspect of life. On April 9, 1936 he married Franziska Schwaninger, a devout Catholic from Hochburg. There was some great grace, and some hidden beauty in this relationship that marked a radical transformation in his life.

After they returned from a honeymoon-pilgrimage in Rome, villagers noticed that he had changed. The lovable, fun, troublemaking youth had more than matured; he was going to weekday Masses and receiving communion frequently with his wife, studying the Bible, and developing firm convictions right around the time Austria “joined” Hitler’s “Greater Germany.”

Franz’s conversion to a deeper faith corresponded to the beginning of his refusal to capitulate to Hitler or participate in Nazi regime’s social program. It was the beginning of a witness that would ultimately separate him from his wife and daughters, his village, and his own life — so that he might remain faithful to Christ and attain eternal life.

Come Holy Spirit and Renew All Hearts

We live this liturgical week preparing for the great feast of Pentecost. What we as Christians celebrate and anticipate in these days symbolizes the truth of our journey in this world. We are called to live our whole lives trusting the promise of Jesus, following Him, listening to the Holy Spirit whom the Father has sent to “teach us all things,” opening our minds and hearts to grow toward the fullness of our vocation in union with the Risen and Glorified Jesus, as children of the Father and heirs to His Kingdom.

God pours out His love, freely creating each one of us, giving us to ourselves. Then, in an immeasurably greater gift, He chooses to give Himself to us in His Son, who took our human nature so that we might be raised up to share in the glory of His eternal life. Jesus seeks us out, finds us, carries us back to the road of God’s beautiful plan. Through our sin, death entered the world, but Jesus bore our sins on the Cross and conquered sin and death, revealing the immensity of God’s love for us — for each one of us and for every human person.

The Holy Spirit is at work in every human heart, in hidden and mysterious ways. The deepest truth about any person’s life is in the depths of this mystery, where the Spirit stirs the heart, summons the conscience, and empowers human freedom to turn to Jesus and His presence in His Church. Countless people are united to the Church by their fidelity to the “desire” the Holy Spirit places within their hearts even if they don’t know the Gospel “explicitly” or are honestly mistaken in their conscious minds about its meaning. In the secret realm of their hearts they say “Yes” to Christ’s love. Or perhaps they resist and wrestle with the God who continues to love them, offer them forgiveness, and may indeed win over their freedom in the end.

We Christians have been chosen to be instruments of the Lord, to bring the whole world to Him in our worship and to witness to His tremendous love given through Jesus Christ for everyone — even those who are ignorant about Him but seek Him with the Spirit-inspired, holy desire that mysteriously shapes them beyond the limits of their thoughts, and even those who run from His hidden calling but then return with renewed desire.

We don’t know the "hidden history" of the countless human hearts are thus “touched” by the Lord. They are drawn, prompted, and stirred to seek His merciful love through the mysterious working of the Holy Spirit who draws every person to take up the road that leads to Jesus Christ. 

And those of us who are sustained by the fullness of the Risen Lord's enduring presence in His Church are empowered and equipped by the Holy Spirit to bear witness to Jesus and His redeeming love. He is center of the cosmos and of history. He is the meaning and destiny of every human person. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Come Holy Spirit, increase our love for Jesus and our confidence in you who work — in mysterious ways — to make Jesus known and loved by everyone. Work miracles of grace in our poor, suffering world.

Happy “Ascension Sunday”

HAPPY "ASCENSION SUNDAY"! Jesus, who knows that First-Worlders live in societies that worship work more than God, has decided (through the Church) to hold this "encore" liturgical celebration of Thursday's feast, so that we too might rejoice and remember to "seek the things that are above," where our ultimate home is, in the Kingdom of His Father. And, although a bit late to the "upper room," we too have time to await the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. 

It’s true. I'm not just being a wee bit "sarcastic" — God “bends down” to meet us, as our late Pope Francis used to say. It is God's Mercy that always brings us together! Our hearts are full of gratitude as we follow Jesus through the Communion of His Church, who makes "room" for us.

The image is an 11th century Byzantine icon.

Papa and the Granddaughters Having Fun

The littlest Janaros are growing “less little” all the time!

I’m grateful that they live close by and we get to see them on Sundays and during the week, that we get to be a regular part of their lives. They bring such a brightness to our house, an energy that reminds me of when this place was hoppin’ and boppin’ with kids (which doesn’t seem so long ago). Maria is now the same age as Jojo was when I started this blog, which is … amazing to me! Yet they are very much their own persons. Families are a great sign that every human person is unique and “given” by God, but also that we “belong” to one another in a communion of life which is the “environment” for the growth of love and freedom. We share in the great history of the human family which stretches long into the past and that continues to unfold under the goodness of God’s loving providence. 

God sees everyone within the interrelationship of this human history — especially those who are suffering, who are lonely, who are separated from their loved ones, who are in poverty and sickness, or are hindered or divided by violence, dysfunctional behaviors, addictions, or deep wounds inflicted on one another. Jesus our brother redeems and raises us up, brings forgiveness and opens up possibilities for “new beginnings,” and remains with us always within this history. And the Holy Spirit works through the Church and in the mysterious depths of the human heart of every person, so that the we might finally dwell together with the whole human family as transfigured persons in God’s own likeness within an eternal communion of presence and love with the Triune God and one another.

I’ll have to develop these meditations further on another day: they are the profound truth that makes real the activity of “Papa and the granddaughters having fun,” that gives it meaning and draws it into the joy that will never end. But Papa doesn’t get to think about it much when the grandchildren are here — instead he is summoned to read books and play with blocks and toys and games, or just listen to them as they begin to articulate their own experiences and questions and sense of humor.

I wanted to share a few recent pictures. The first set of two pictures below this text feature Papa with Anna. She is two-and-a-half years old, and is always excited to see Papa. Soon she toddles over with a stack of children’s books and says, “Read! Read!” In the next picture we see Maria, nearly five years old (!) helping her seven-month-old sister Catherine (Catie) with a bottle of Mom’s milk. Maria is very attentive to both her little sisters (usually) and she is already attending Montessori “Primary” School (ages 3-6) and flourishing there. We have begun to have real conversations, which is amazing! She is very bright, and also has “wit.” She seems to “get” my humor, and responds cleverly when I tease her.

Finally, my face squeezes in on a “triple selfie” with Maria and Catie (and some kind of stuffed animal). Baby Catie is growing! She reminds us of her father when he was her age. She’s happy and snuggly… when she’s not hungry, tired, crying, or just “kvetching” — as my mother used to say, because New York Italians picked up a bit of Yiddish in the old days from their Jewish neighbors. When I remember those old words (that were used to describe me as a little kid), it feels like my mother is close to me and our family.

We need the “closeness” of my Mom and Dad these days, in the mystery of the “communion of saints” that sustains human bonds of love even as it transforms them. As the “Virginia Janaros” face together a new and difficult trial of one among them (many of you know about this — please keep praying — but at the appropriate time I’ll probably write about it here). Things are stable for now, and there is a plan.

As for myself, I’m finding peace, and — for the time being — a bit of improvement in health. The grandchildren are a very good “medicine,” even if I’m worn out by the end of their visits. It’s a “good kind” of worn out. I have explained a little to Maria about my ailments (why I use a cane to walk, and other chronic problems that she is already sharp enough to notice). She doesn’t quite understand. One time she said, “Don’t worry, Papa. It’s not because you’re sick. It’s just that you’re very very very very OLD!” Ha! The white beard contributes to that perception, I’m sure.

Catie has reached the age where she loves to grab the beard and pull on it! Ouch!! She’s got a good grip.🙂 (see picture above).

“Be Artisans of True Peace”

Pope Leo visited and spoke at Rome’s Public University La Sapienza on May 14. Post from @pontifex Instagram account.

Peonies and Buttercups

Here are some typical “May Flowers” around here. Peonies are large, and found mostly in gardens and hedges. Buttercups are tiny and are found everywhere.

Remembering the Blood of Saint John Paul II

Forty-five years ago today! May 13, 1981.

I was 18-years-old. It still brings a lump to my throat. We prayed and we watched the TV News updates. Time seemed to freeze in those hours, as we wondered, "Would John Paul II live?" Thanks to the Blessed Virgin Mary for saving his life that day. She knew how much the Church and the world needed him!

And, of course, it was the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, who would be for all time linked to this epoch-defining papacy and the world-shaking historical events that were soon to happen. 

On that fateful spring day in 1981, however, none of us imagined that the liberation of Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union would all happen within a little more than a decade. In 1981 the Iron Curtain seemed like a permanent fixture of political geography (although the rise of Solidarity in John Paul’s native Poland was a glimmer of hope). Indeed, the failed assassin was likely hired by agents from behind the Iron Curtain.

In those days, Mary’s promise of “the conversion of Russia” was an object of prayer and inconceivable aspiration. Although something new began for Russia in 1992, it has turned out to be a long and painful road full of dangers, suffering for the people and their neighbors (especially Ukraine), and violent dreams among those who grasped power in the ensuing decades. 

But there are reasons for hope. Some Russians have glimpsed the “Promised Land,” the Beautiful Russia of the future, and have shared their vision with their compatriots and the world. Alexei Navalny saw it and gave his life for it — not, however, without beginning to build a new road and exemplify the journey through the awakening of his own Christian faith.

As we pray for peace, let’s not forget to pray for the conversion of Russia, a land so dear to the Heart of the Mother of God and her Son.

Pope Leo XIV marked the 45th anniversary of the assassination attempt of Saint John Paul II by stopping in Saint Peter’s Square to pray at the stone which marks the place where his predecessor shed his blood on that day.

Through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, may Jesus draw all people to Himself, and grant peace to our poor world.

“Go and Bear Fruit that Will Remain”

Jesus said to his disciples: “I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another” (John 15:15-17).

Christina Grimmie's "Media Revolution" Lives On

Yesterday marked nine years and eleven months since the phenomenal young singer, songwriter, and musician Christina Grimmie was murdered by a deranged man after a concert in Orlando, Florida. He then turned his gun on himself, leaving behind no clear indication of a motive or anything to suggest the tortured thought process that led him to the concert that night armed with two Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistols, two rounds of replacement ammunition, and a hunting knife. He had more than enough to carry out a mass shooting, but Christina was, apparently, his primary target. The evil in this tragedy is clouded in obscurity. Several TV "true crime" shows have tried to speculate on the details based on hearsay (regarding his internet-based obsession with Christina Grimmie) and the theories of psychiatrists about stalkers and shooters and the dangers of being a "celebrity." Marcus Grimmie, Christina's brother and guitarist, said they had never seen the man before. Nor was there any evidence of (or warning signs from) anyone treating Christina strangely or harassing or threatening her through comments or interactions on the internet. From the point of view of the shooter, very little is really known of his dark and sad story.

Yet the darkness of this lethal aggression was inches away from the shining light of a gratuitous love. Christina was shot once in the head and twice in the chest at point blank range. In the end, this violence needed no clever strategy to find its target. She came forward with arms wide open, ready to offer a welcoming hug at her meet-and-greet to an approaching man who seemed troubled and shy. It was clear that she didn't know him, but there were always new people at her concerts who had watched and heard her sing on YouTube and on television in the Spring 2014 season of The Voice. They had experienced the warmth and encouragement and personal affirmation that Christina offered through her presence on the internet.

Christina wanted to meet all of these people. Her meet-and-greets were not reserved for VIPs and they didn't cost money. She and Marcus would stay at the venue until she met everyone who wanted to meet her, and she took time to listen to their stories and encourage them one-on-one, face-to-face. She called her fans "frands" (friend-fans) which might sound naive, overly sentimental or even false if someone else did it, but — for some reason — it was totally authentic and real coming from Christina. Her capacity to "connect with" young people all over the world through YouTube and her other social media platforms was (and still is) utterly unique.

She had a gift for making “virtual” communication into something real. Her music stood out, of course. Nevertheless, what she did went beyond the expression of her own musical talent. But her wider “influence” is hard to explain. Christina's personal approach in videos and livestreams had nothing flashy or obviously special about it. She was a normal kid and then a young adult — goofy, funny, sometimes awkward (but with a wonderful sense of humor about herself), passionate about her music, boy-crazy, chocolate-loving, full of life — but there was nothing about her that would strike a casual watcher as extraordinary. She had no "influencer tricks," no weird cultish "charisma," no emotionally manipulative techniques. Yet she gained an enormous YouTube following long before the "influencer culture" took off. Her channel exceeded three million subscribers and her videos were viewed by tens of millions of people all over the world. (Today, the most prominent “Team Grimmie” Facebook Group has members from 99 different countries!) 

Christina never endorsed or sold corporate products in her videos (no one did in those days). She promoted her concerts and her recorded music on iTunes, but in her own inimitable way. She wanted to share her music, so she let people know what was available or happening. She certainly had an earnest enthusiasm for her live shows and recorded music, but when she promoted them she usually mixed in some goofy humor, self-parody, and funny or ironic facial expressions. Then she would have a good laugh at herself, with the awareness that she was “laughing with” the hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions) of people “watching” on the other side of the screen. She was, after all, someone who gave away for free so much of her incredible musical talent through her weekly videos posted to her YouTube channel. She also asked her frands to vote for her in contests, and was effusive with gratitude when she won many of those contests. She drew the people who supported her music into a kind of “collaboration” with her in her efforts to build her music career. And she shared her success as if it belonged to everyone in “Team Grimmie.” She saw them as playing an essential part in a common musical and media endeavor, even though her amazing voice was uniquely her own, pouring out from her overflowing heart.

I can't explain the deep humanity of her media presence. It doesn't necessarily strike one immediately, and indeed it is easy to miss it if one isn't paying attention. It penetrates the flow of adolescent (and later young adult) chatter, with all its jokes and “free association” — the kind of talk that older adults tend to ignore. But this powerful humanity is real. There is a gentle, unobtrusive but profoundly attractive goodness that pervades her conversation, her gestures, her gaze, and the whole way she “carries herself.”

At some point in the course of watching her videos, one begins to realize that, for Christina, the person on the other side of the screen matters more to her than her own ego. She has a strong personality, but it always expresses itself as giving and as receiving-with-gratitude. Christina’s YouTube videos are a treasure the likes of which will never be repeated; they are an important part of her own legacy, and also a piece of the history of media from which we still have much to learn even as the current technology continues to develop. Christina employed media in pioneering ways in the 2010s, but without losing the sense of her own human personhood or of the human persons she sought to engage. Her media presence "opened up a space" where young people (including lonely, troubled young people, and also people of all ages from all over the world) felt welcomed, engaged, and appreciated.

There are a few notable consistencies: Christina never spoke badly about anyone. She never used coarse language. Occasionally — with utter sincerity and without any agenda — she would make reference to the fact that she lived her whole life for Jesus Christ, that she loved Him, that everything was for Jesus. No sermons. When she said it, she was making reference to a fact and to a Someone who was as real to her as her mother or father. She didn't talk much about Jesus (and never artificially) but her relationship with Him was evident by the way she treated everyone else.

Christina loved her frands. Of course, every performer says that about their fans (usually sincerely). But Christina was singularly and ardently devoted to her frands. She poured herself out for them, to inspire them, mentor them, affirm their dignity, encourage them to live generously. She gave her time and attention (online and in person) to those who reached out to her. But there was nothing emotionally unbalanced about her efforts to care for her frands. She wasn't seeking self-validation by trying to get young people to feel like they needed her. Rather she was a wellspring of attentiveness and gratitude for everyone, even while she had her own focus on the work of developing and sharing her special musical talent. She was full of freshness and a sense of wonder, as if she were on an adventure toward something greater than herself and she wanted to bring everyone with her. The only way I can think of to express this is to say that she was living her life as a vocation. People enjoyed the amazing music, the fun, the youthful vitality, the goofiness, and her unique integration of wise innocence and badassery that made her compassionate toward people and bold in front of every challenge she faced. And while she never "pushed religion," she made no secret of the One she loved and sought in her singing, her relationships, her aspirations, her frands... in everything.

I have been studying communications media technology for nearly 20 years. I have watched more videos than I can remember and pondered extensively the philosophical implications of how media technology facilitates and/or hinders human interaction; and — more fundamentally — I have tried to understand what kinds of encounters take place through media, especially two-way audiovisual communications media. I have written a few tentative pieces on the subject, but it's all changing so quickly that it's difficult to "stay current" with the particulars of rapid and ongoing technological expansion.

One thing hasn't changed: I have still never seen anything like Christina Grimmie.

Part of that, of course, is that she had what was arguably the greatest singing voice of her generation, combined with a remarkable musical creativity. But it was more than that. It was this mysterious love, giving herself with a persistence that "mastered" the medium and shaped it to her message, which was that every person is unique, precious, and worthy of love. And she risked her love — on the screen, on stage, and in meeting people. Every person was welcomed, even — finally — the terribly disturbed young man who (unknown to her) was hiding two guns under his jacket.

Over the past ten years, many people have continued to discover her through the legacy of her videos and her music. These "gifts of herself" remain, and they continue to astonish us, inspire us, make us laugh, and weep. She still moves our hearts and reminds us what it means to be human. She still helps us to keep going. And now — ten years later — she inspires us to dare to believe with a stronger confidence and conviction that there is something greater than the "sting" of death.

Missing My Mom on Mother's Day

We had a beautiful Mother's Day with Eileen and Emily and grown-up children and little children (grandchildren) and phone conversations with those who couldn't be there. Still, I couldn't help being struck by this being already the fifth Mother's Day since my Mom died. I miss her but my grief is growing into gratitude for all she gave me, and prayerful hope for her to attain the fullness of eternal life.

The old pictures make me feel like I have lived whole lives that are irrevocably buried in the past. But I hope for the Day when every good contained in every moment will be transformed, raised up, washed and fulfilled in the Mercy of God.

"Love One Another" — A Year With Pope Leo XIV

I can't believe it's only been one year since a Chicago-born, Peruvian Cardinal named "Bob" appeared on the balcony of the Sistine Chapel in response to the proclamation "Habemus Papam!" In one year, the "new" Bishop of Rome known to everyone as Leo XIV has already made a powerful mark on the history of the Successors of Saint Peter, especially among the people of the nation of his birth (Catholic and non-Catholic alike). I need not revisit all he has said and done, since this entire blog has been more about him than anyone else during the past year. His distinct focus on the communion-of-persons-in-fraternal-charity continues to develop our understanding of this core element of Christian and human experience. We need this in a special way in our world today with all of its alienation, division, and violence. 

Pope Leo draws on the evident prayerful depth of his own relationship with Jesus Christ, along with his lifelong experience as a missionary (and former Superior General) of the Augustinians and as a Bishop in Latin America. Beyond all of that, he has been given that unique Papal "charism" that empowers him to use his particular gifts in the service of the whole Church.

We have seen, in particular, how people in the United States are being challenged by Leo's insistence on the radical Gospel foundations of Catholic Social Teaching, as well as its reasonableness and amplitude. USA Catholics are growing in the awareness of their distinctive "Catholic" identity in Anglo-American society and some of the important responsibilities it entails.

It was fitting that the gospel reading for today (quoted above) emphasized fraternal love and its Source: God's outpouring of His love for us through Jesus Christ. This love — expressed in the context of compassion and mercy — is the way God reveals Himself, and when we experience the embrace of His love, we are raised up to a supernatural existence and empowered to respond with a love for God that participates in His absolute vitality. This same love enables us to see our fellow humans as God sees them. They are our brothers and sisters, and we are all children of God our Father who sent His Only-Begotten Son to save us and to give us a share in the communion of Trinitarian Love. This is our hope for eternity, but it also infuses and transforms our relationships even in this world, as we journey together toward that definitive Life and "work out" our salvation day by day.

UPDATE: 

In his remarks for the Regina Caeli on May 10, Pope Leo addresses the mystery of how God's love empowers us to love one another according to incomprehensible measure of His own love. This is no vague sentimental humanitarianism. It is the Christian vocation. Lived in patience and trust, this vocation always bears fruit in eternity, and also (according to God's wisdom) on the roads of this world.

"Christ says: 'If you love me, you will keep my commandments' (John 14:15). This statement frees us from the misconception that we are loved because we keep the commandments, as if our righteousness were a prerequisite for God’s love. On the contrary, God’s love is the basis for our righteousness. We truly keep the commandments according to God’s will when we recognize his love for us, just as Christ revealed it to the world. Jesus’ words are therefore an invitation to enter into a relationship, not a blackmail or a suspicious ultimatum.

"This is why the Lord commands us to love one another as he has loved us (cf. John 13:34): it is Jesus’ love that begets love within us. Christ himself is the standard, the measure of true love: the love that is faithful forever, pure and unconditional. The love that knows no 'buts' or 'maybes;' the love that gives of itself without seeking to possess; the love that gives life without taking anything in return. Because God loved us first, we too can love, and when we truly love God, we truly love one another. It is like life itself: just as only those who have received life can live, so too, only those who have been loved can love. The Lord’s commandments are therefore a way of life that heal us from false loves. They are a spiritual lifestyle that is a path towards salvation."

~Leo XIV, Regina Caeli, May 10, 2026

“Remain in Me…”

The Gospel Acclamation for Wednesday’s Liturgy (May 6). 

“Alleluia, alleluia. Remain in me, as I remain in you, says the Lord; whoever remains in me will bear much fruit. Alleluia, alleluia.”

The Joys -- and Sorrows -- of Our "Easter Season"

We continue to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ during this Easter Season. It is a celebration which is eminently congruous with the journey of faith that we continue to undertake, adhering to our Risen Lord, and living as human beings in history with all the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of each day.

We understand that God's plan is mysterious. We pray, we offer, we try to embrace the sacrifices of daily life. What people often don't understand is how this deepens the sense of tenderness toward the world and other persons, toward the little things; how it makes for a greater awareness of the preciousness of life and all the gifts and the joys that God has given us in this world. [Painting: William Congdon, “The Risen Christ,” 1966]

We believe that the Mystery — God's love — is at the depths of everything, as the Creator of all things. God is the transcendent and (for that very reason) foundational Source, Sustenance, and Fulfillment of every "piece" of reality, of every apparently precarious fragment of truth, goodness, and beauty that draws our hearts from moment to moment. We meet everywhere hints of an undying goodness, a "reflected glory" that constitutes the inner reality of created things, but always as signs that move us "onward." We find nowhere to "rest," nothing that remains in the passage of time, nothing we can grasp and manipulate into a tool with which we might construct our own narrow satisfaction. Created things are gifts on our journey, awakening gratitude and joy and a mysterious longing that can "hurt" for reasons we do not comprehend.

We are made for God "alone." Who is this God? He is Love. He pours out Himself in love, and He has taken our humanity so that we might be conformed to His immeasurable glory — this God who is goodness and love, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this Father who sends His Son into our history, to fulfill all things in His Spirit.

We wrestle with the passing-away of all things in this world, with their "limits" and with our own limits. And yet with Him nothing is lost, nothing! The human heart asks for everything. And the Father's love in Jesus Christ is the answer to our heart's plea. There is no "disappointment" in the embrace of His Love.

Resurrection. Our destiny is a transfigured life forever with the Triune God, and it is a fulfillment in which we shall find everything anew; the gifts of God and the promises they awaken in our hearts are destined to be fulfilled. God and His world are not lying to us as we journey toward this destiny. The joys are a promise that the present sorrows and struggles and sufferings are not in vain. Through everything, we are being changed and "formed" for what we cannot yet imagine. We live in hope. [Painting: William Congdon, “Moon Over Cascinazza,” 1971]

Resurrection. Then we shall love and be loved. There will be no more tears, no more separation, no more of that sense of division between joy and suffering which is the arduous pilgrimage of this life — a life in which the more deeply we possess something, the more deeply aware we are that the ultimate value and beauty of what we possess remains beyond us and beyond our power to grasp. We cry out for what we love in faith and hope, we beg for that "ultimate" that becomes more evident and more painfully absent in the measure that we really risk in loving and in allowing ourselves to be loved in this life. 

We find this especially in the experience of loss. Loss seems to contradict love, and even though we know it is part of God's plan, part of our journey; even though we know that it is shaping and preparing our hearts for that fulfillment God has promised us, it remains — in this life — a kind of darkness, an absence, a wound in the heart that is itself a sign. It is a sign that our destiny remains before us, that we have not yet attained happiness, that our life remains a state of begging before God. 

This "absence" and this begging are impressed upon our poor, weak, forgetful, sinful hearts as our hearts are broken and remade. This mysterious renewal can be accomplished even in the midst of experiences that might frighten us — anger and frustration, helplessness, distress, the lament of "Why, O God?" Misery. Grief. 

We must not be discouraged. We must abandon ourselves to the One who knows our hearts and is greater than our hearts. We must let our hearts pray. We don't understand these groanings, but God does. Let the heart pray. "The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit" (Romans 8:26-27). 

Resurrection.

Grief need not become despair. It is the Spirit moving our hearts to speak to God in ways that are beyond our thoughts and understanding. Grief is poured out. Grief is prayer. It does not forget that God is faithful to His promise. The Resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit are at work in our hearts, even within the greatest sorrows we endure in the time of our Easter Season.

Clouds and Light

“Clouds and Light, Shenandoah Valley, May 2026.”

The Enduring Legacy of Saint Athanasius

I celebrated the feast of Saint Athanasius the Great by writing this post and assembling a few more quotations and liturgical texts. This is useful for me as a reference point, and — I hope — might prove useful and edifying for others too.

Saint Athanasius of Alexandria is a crucial figure in the early history of the Church for his heroically uncompromising defense of the mystery of the Trinity against Arianism in the fourth century. Today, non-Christians and secular people may wonder why Athanasius was so passionate and so persistent about what might seem to be an abstract theological point. Yet we can appreciate the energy of his zeal if we realize that he perceived the deep connection between the mystery of the Trinity and the mystery of the Incarnation and Redemption. 

Athanasius’s conviction about the Trinity is inseparable from his conviction regarding the central Christian event and its significance for the life of humans. Through the incarnation and redemption, God has made it possible for us to share in His very life.  Our union with the Word made flesh gives us “a participation in the Divine nature” (see 2 Peter 1:4). This is the great patristic teaching on deification (“theosis”): God became man so that humans might become “gods”—that is, adopted children of the Father (see 1 John 3:2). Athanasius grasps the radical implications of Arius’s theories: if the one who became incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary is not fully Divine, how could he possibly give us a participation in the Divine life? 

In Arias’s reductionist view of the Son of God in the Trinity as merely an exalted creature, the magnificent destiny of the human person in Christ comes crashing to the ground. It means that the one who walked the earth, who became our friend, who gave us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink, was merely another creature like us.  God has not shown us His face nor invited us into his friendship.  He remains a stranger to us.  Thus Athanasius declares: “the Son of God became Son of Man, so that the sons of man, that is, of Adam, might become sons of God."

Moreover, if the Holy Spirit is not fully God, how can he possibly transform us into the likeness of God?  “If the Holy Spirit were a creature, there could be no communion of God with us through Him.  On the contrary, we would be joined to a creature, and we would be foreign to the divine nature, as having nothing in common with it…If by participation in the Spirit we are made partakers in the divine nature…it cannot be doubted that His is the nature of God.”  

For Athanasius, the full co-eternal divinity of the Word and the Holy Spirit with the Father is above all the truth about the mystery of the Triune God; at the same time this mystery is revealed as the decisive reality for the human vocation. Only the Divine Word-made-flesh divinizes His brothers and sisters in the flesh. If Christ is anything less than God, then the gates of heaven are closed and man is still in exile from his eternal home. The comfortable rationalism of Arius's theories is no small matter; it deconstructes the mystery of God, reducing the incarnation into a kind of gnostic mythology, and robbing human beings of their true destiny — of the ultimate hope stirred up by Spirit of God in their hearts, that they might be redeemed, raised up, and supernaturally recreated in the likeness of God, to “participate” in the Divine nature by being conformed by grace and glory to the Divine Person of God the Son, the Word made flesh.

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******* Quotations from Saint Athanasius *******

"Through this union of the immortal Son of God with our human nature, all humans were clothed with incorruption in the promise of the resurrection. For the solidarity of humankind is such that, by virtue of the Word's indwelling in a single human body, the corruption which goes with death has lost its power over all" (Saint Athanasius, On The Incarnation 2:9).

"Thus taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under penalty of the corruption of death He gave it over to death in the stead of all, and offered it to the Father— doing this, moreover, of His loving-kindness, to the end that, firstly, all being held to have died in Him, the law involving the ruin of men might be undone (inasmuch as its power was fully spent in the Lord's body, and had no longer holding-ground against men, his peers), and that, secondly, whereas men had turned toward corruption, He might turn them again toward incorruption, and quicken them from death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of the Resurrection, banishing death from them like straw from the fire" (On The Incarnation 8:4).

"The Word begotten of the Father from on high, inexpressibly, inexplicably, incomprehensibly and eternally, is He that is born in time here below, of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, so that those who are in the first place born here below might have a second birth from on high, that is, of God” (On The Incarnation 8).

"God's love of man is such that to those for whom first He is Creator, He afterwards, according to grace, becomes a Father also. The latter He does when men, who are His creatures, receive into their hearts, as the Apostle says, the Spirit of His Son, crying 'Abba, Father'. It is these who, by their having received the Word, have gained from Him the power to become children of God; for, being creatures by nature, they could not otherwise become sons other than by receiving the Spirit of the natural and true Son. To bring this about, therefore, the Word became flesh - so that He might make man capable of divinity." (Discourses Against the Arians II, ch. 21, para. 59).

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******* Liturgical Texts for the Feast of Saint Athanasius *******

“Blaring trumpet of the Lord and flute of the Spirit, O great Athanasius, O fiery mind, it is fitting to sing your praises with hymns; for you taught us to honor the Trinity of one essence” (Kontakion, Byzantine Liturgy for Feast of Saint Athanasius).

“Almighty ever-living God, who raised up the Bishop Saint Athanasius as an outstanding champion of your Son’s divinity, mercifully grant, that, rejoicing in his teaching and his protection, we may never cease to grow in knowledge and love of you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever” (Collect, Roman Liturgy for the Feast of Saint Athanasius).

The Virginia Dogwood

In recent weeks, the Virginia Dogwood (the official State tree) has bloomed everywhere.

The unfolding of Spring 2026 continues.

And So, the King and Queen Came to Front Royal

Here are King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the gazebo on Main Street in Front Royal, Virginia, on April 30, 2026.

I didn’t go personally to see the “Royals in Front Royal.” In my condition, I can’t stand in a crowd for five hours. But I had my fair share of these adventures 30-45 years ago when I was young and healthy: Baseball World Series, rock concerts, and then — of course — the Pope (John Paul II), many times, in Denver (World Youth Day 1993), in Rome, in Mexico. Many years ago, I saw Princess Grace of Monaco walk from a building to a waiting car. But the USA is not a place where one generally bumps into royalty, and I never imagined that King Charles III would visit the gazebo on Main Street. But, as I said, my legs (not to mention my back, my neck, etcetera) can no longer handle standing for long hours in huge crowds, so I couldn’t go.

Nevertheless, the Front Royal Janaros were well represented at this remarkable event. Eileen went with our daughter-in-law Emily and two of the grandkids. John Paul was there. Jojo was there. It was a unique day in the history of this little town in the Shenandoah Valley. It sounds like they had a lot of fun, and that things in general went relatively smoothly. 

For “historical purposes,” I want to record on the blog that it did in fact happen. And, even though I couldn’t go to see the king and queen, I didn’t mind too much. After it was over, I got to spend some time with these little princesses, whose visits are always special:

Saint Catherine: “Do Not Judge,” but Offer “Holy Compassion”

For Saint Catherine of Siena’s feast day, I revisited her remarkable text, the Dialogue, a rich and inspiring collection of mystical and theological insights in the form of “conversations” between God the Father and the extraordinarily dynamic 14th century Dominican Tertiary saint and Doctor of the Church.

The powerful exhortation in Chapter 100 of the Dialogue is a radical reminder of the Gospel’s insistence that we must not judge, hate, or desire revenge against anyone, even in our thoughts. Rather, we must trust that God loves us and works His will for our good through our fellow human beings — our brothers and sisters whose actions he guides — or permits — as He leads us on the path to salvation. “Everything is grace,” even the injuries that God permits our neighbors to inflict upon us, which he allows so that we might grow in patience and endurance and conformity to His Son Jesus. Insofar as we do see our neighbor’s faults, we are called to offer “holy compassion” — to be merciful in union with the God who is Mercy.

Too often I forget this basic aspect of my own vocation to be merciful and compassionate to everyone; yet it is necessary for me because I myself am so much in need of mercy and forgiveness. And the love for war that breeds so many conflicts in our time stems from the war that begins in our hearts when we presume to “judge others,” when we forget “holy compassion.” Saint Catherine faced much conflict in her times, but trust in the goodness of God and the practice of compassion and mercy made her an exemplary peacemaker from whom we still have much to learn.

Text from Saint Catherine of Siena, Dialogue, chapter 100.

[God the Father speaks:]

“Unite yourself always to me by the affection of love, for I am the Supreme and Eternal Purity. I am the Fire that purifies the soul…

[God says that if you want to be united to His purity,] “you should never judge the human will in anything that you may see done or said by any creature whatsoever, either to yourself or to others. You should consider my will alone, both in them and in yourself. 

“And if you should see evident sins or defects, draw the rose out of those thorns. That is to say, offer them to me with holy compassion. In the case of injuries done to yourself, judge that my will permits this in order to prove virtue in yourself and in my other servants, figuring that the one who acts thus does so as the instrument of my will. You should also realize that such apparent sinners may frequently have a good intention. 

“No one can judge the secrets of a person's heart. What you do not see you should not judge in your mind, even though it may evidently be open mortal sin. See nothing in others but my will — not in order to judge but, as has been said, with holy compassion.

“In this way you will arrive at perfect purity because when you act this way, your mind will not be scandalized either in me or in your neighbors. Otherwise you fall into contempt of your neighbors if you judge their evil will toward you instead of my will acting in them. Such contempt and scandal separate the soul from me and prevent perfection and, in some cases, deprive her of grace, more or less according to the gravity of her contempt and the hatred her judgment has conceived against her neighbor.

“A different reward is received by the soul who perceives only my will. As has been said, [my will] wishes nothing else but your good so that everything I give or permit to happen to you, I give so that you may arrive at the end for which I created you. And because the soul remains always in the love of her neighbor, she remains always in my love and thus remains united to me.”

King Charles is Coming to Front Royal?

I have fact-checked this. It looked so obviously ridiculous. (I thought, “this has gotta be a joke!”)

But I checked it and checked it and checked it. This is NOT fake news! 

It's... surreal, I mean, the King? The ACTUAL King??? Of England, the U.K., Canada, Australia, and lots of little islands where they play Cricket? The King who is the descendant of the King who used to be the King of… the Colony of Virginia? 

But why here? Front Royal is not exactly a big stopping point for celebrities. Bing Crosby once came here back in the 1950s, and that was a big deal. The town named the baseball park after him. We call it “the Bing.”

Well, move over Bing Crosby.

King Charles wants to visit Shenandoah National Park during his State Visit to the U.S.A. The northern entrance to the Park is here in Front Royal. But Charles and Camilla also want to experience some local life, and we just happened to be having a special 250th anniversary “block party” on Main Street on April 30.

The royals are somehow going to participate in this event, although no one knows exactly how. But the word is that 30,000 people (twice the population of Front Royal) are coming to find out.

Perhaps the King knows that “Front Royal” was on the Western border of the colonies in the days when Great Britain still ruled them. After the Seven Year’s War with the French, the British took the line corresponding to the Appalachian mountains as the border of their sponsorship of and involvement in the Anglo-American colonial project. The remainder of the region was to be preserved for the indigenous tribes who had roots there. Is there something symbolic about going to “the West” as it was 250 years ago, when the British still ruled the Eastern colonies? Or am I just overthinking this whole thing?

Whatever I “think,” they are coming on Thursday.

And the town just announced all this today. It's going to be crazy around here on Thursday.

“No One is Excluded…”

The African Journey of Pope Leo XIV has concluded, and he has returned to Rome full of gratitude. This is taken from the @pontifex Instagram account, April 23.

The Courage, Endurance, and Humility of Pope Francis

One year ago this week, on the morning of Easter Monday, April 21, 2025, our beloved Pope Francis was called home to the God he served so well for 88 years, especially in the final 12 years during which he was called from Argentina to Rome to be the Successor of Saint Peter.

Imagine all this! Here was an Archbishop of the great city of Buenos Ares who had passed the 75-year-retirement-age for bishops, who intended to submit his resignation (again) to the Vatican in 2013. He had a room picked out in a nursing home, where he intended to live out his old age ministering to the elderly who are often forgotten, distressed, physically afflicted, and — especially — lonely. It was not his plan to become Pope at the age of 76, but once he was chosen he embraced the papal ministry vigorously with the mind and heart of a pastor.

I learned so much from his teaching, his preaching, and his witness. I’m sure countless others did too. He preached the mercy of Christ, the ardor of Christ for our salvation, the Lord’s closeness to every human person, and His tenderness with our wounded souls and all our afflictions of mind and body. Francis especially wanted to draw our attention to the poor and to those who were “on the margins” of modern society, as well as those neglected by the ministry of the Church.

He also lived the Gospel of mercy for the poor with countless gestures: embracing the sick, visiting prisons and consoling the prisoners one by one, eating with homeless people … these gestures which came from his own heart and shaped the attention of Catholics and others to focus on recognizing Christ in every person and serving Him through them.

There are many extraordinary gestures of Francis that were unforgettable, that we all witnessed on internet media or television. For the moment, I wish to recall one particular example: Francis’s audience with the leaders of different factions near the end of a brutal civil war in the new African nation of South Sudan. Nearly half a million people died and many others were displaced in the fighting there from 2013-2020. In 2019, these leaders were trying to work out a peace agreement, to find a unified modus vivendi for political stability that could overcome the violent divisions they represented. 

Francis often “threw away the script” for these kind of meetings, but this time it was beyond anyone’s expectations. Already frail with age and struggling with mobility problems, Francis went down on his knees and kissed the shoes of each of the rival leaders. Once his own attendants realized what he was doing, they assisted him: Francis clearly needed help bending down, stretching himself to place his lips on the feet of six people and then getting up again. Then he exhorted, counseled, and begged them to persevere in the peace process. 

It was an astonishing gesture! It may have helped to bring about the “beginning of the end” of the civil war in 2020, though violence continued to flare up. Francis visited South Sudan in 2023 (the long pilgrimages he made to Africa and Asia in the last two years of his pontificate were heroic triumphs of evangelical ardor over the limits of human exhaustion). He said Mass in the capital city of Juba, and — realizing that much of the ongoing violence was fueled by vengeance for atrocities committed by both sides during the civil war — he begged the people to forgive one another: “Even if our hearts bleed for the wrongs we have suffered, let us refuse, once and for all, to repay evil with evil. Let us accept one another and love one another with sincerity and generosity, as God loves us.” 

Sadly, the always-fragile peace agreement and the frequently-violated ceasefire between factions has been threatened by an increase in violence over the past year. But a special bond has been formed between the people of this troubled new nation and a humble, courageous Pope. The fruit of Francis’s extraordinary witness to Christ’s love for these people will grow with time.

Now, as we mark one year since his death, I want to remember this beloved Pope, pray for him to enter into the fullness of eternal joy, and also continue to be grateful for his successor, our current Pope Leo XIV, and to pray for him and his ministry in our current, increasingly chaotic and dangerous times.

The words of Pope Francis in his last two homilies (the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday 2025) continue to be powerful, encouraging, and relevant to the present day. Popes are only the “servant[s] of the servants of God.” They come and go — although the popes of my lifetime have been especially enlightened and strengthened by the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us through the strange darkness of our times — still, popes are only servants. Jesus Christ is the only Lord, who is always the same. Jesus the unfathomable gift of inexhaustible Love for each of us and all of us, for our salvation, for our total fulfillment as human persons, for our eternal destiny to share in the companionship and love of the Triune God — the glory of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — forever. The night of this life is long, but the Risen Jesus is here. We must stay with Him and follow Him, for He is our hope.

Quotations from Pope Francis, Easter 2025:

“The light of the Resurrection illumines our path one step at a time; quietly, it breaks through the darkness of history and shines in our hearts, calling for the response of a humble faith, devoid of all triumphalism. The Lord’s passage from death to life is not a spectacular event by which God shows his power and compels us to believe in him… On the contrary, the Resurrection is like little seeds of light that slowly and silently come to take root in our hearts, at times still prey to darkness and unbelief… We cannot celebrate Easter without continuing to deal with the nights that dwell in our hearts and the shadows of death that so often loom over our world. Christ indeed conquered sin and destroyed death, yet in our earthly history the power of his Resurrection is still being brought to fulfillment. And that fulfillment, like a small seed of light, has been entrusted to us, to protect it and to make it grow.

“When the thought of death lies heavy on our hearts, when we see the dark shadows of evil advancing in our world, when we feel the wounds of selfishness or violence festering in our flesh and in our society, let us not lose heart, but return to the message of this night. The light quietly shines forth, even though we are in darkness; the promise of new life and a world finally set free awaits us; and a new beginning, however impossible it might seem, can take us by surprise, for Christ has triumphed over death.”

“This message fills our hearts with renewed hope. For in the risen Jesus we have the certainty that our personal history and that of our human family, albeit still immersed in a dark night where lights seem distant and dim, are nonetheless in God’s hands. In his great love, he will not let us falter, or allow evil to have the last word. At the same time, this hope, already fulfilled in Christ, remains for us a goal to be attained. Yet it has been entrusted to us so that we can bear credible witness to it, so that the Kingdom of God may find its way into the hearts of the women and men of our time.”

~Easter Vigil, April 19, 2025

“Brothers and sisters, this is the greatest hope of our life: we can live this poor, fragile and wounded existence clinging to Christ, because he has conquered death, he conquers our darkness and he will conquer the shadows of the world, to make us live with him in joy, forever. This is the goal towards which we press on, as the Apostle Paul says, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead (cf. Philippians 3:12-14).”

~Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025