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

Rhododendron 2026 Survives and Thrives!

It was a rough winter for the Rhododendron in Virginia, with their year-round green leaves taking a beating from all the frost, cold, and wind. But spring is here, and these tough little trees are blooming beautifully. I’m especially glad to see them this year!

Paul VI: Peace Requires "A New Way of Thinking About Man"

When Pope Paul VI addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on October 4, 1965, the memory of the cataclysm of World War II was still fresh in everyone's mind. The unprecedented perils born in the aftermath of that war continued to afflict millions of people whose lives were subjected to the resulting expansion of totalitarian Communist regimes. Other countries (especially new nations emerging from colonialism) were often subjected to dictatorships, corruption, and regional warfare. But an unprecedented number of nations (not only the USA and Western Europe, but around the world) struggled to establish or improve the ideals of democracy in ways that sought to respect the dignity of every human person. It was a struggle that inevitably involved failures (great and small), misunderstandings, the manipulative dynamics of power-politics, and many other problems. But there were also positive achievements: such as improvements in general social mobility and the recognition of the rights of minority groups within these nations, as well as unprecedented international collaboration in an increasingly globally interconnected world. 

Paul VI's trip to United Nations headquarters in New York was his third major trip by air, making him at the time the most-travelled Pope in history. Like subsequent Popes who would surpass him, however, he traveled in the service of his unique pastoral ministry. The world, created and loved by God and redeemed by Christ, had many troubles. Human beings — called to live as brothers and sisters — remained deeply and dangerously divided.

"Peace" was more and more recognized as a necessary ideal, yet it remained very far from any kind of adequate realization. The proliferation of potentially world-destroying nuclear weapons cast a huge shadow over the earth. Ironically, the gigantic nuclear arsenals of the two "Great Powers" during the Cold War era engendered a kind of "military equilibrium," but it remained extremely fragile (coming very near to breaking in October 1962), not to mention morally "problematic" to say the least.  It was based on a System-Of-Terror that essentially "held innocent civilians hostage" as the primary targets of nuclear warheads capable of traveling great distances via intercontinental ballistic missiles. The missiles were locked onto opponent's civilian targets, establishing a correlation of threats to respond to any "first use" of these horrible weapons with a "retaliatory strike" that would destroy a substantial portion of the first-user's civilian population centers and all their inhabitants. This bizarre strategic edifice was called "Mutually Assured Destruction" (M.A.D., an apt anagram).

By 1965, however, everyone felt uneasy about this set-up. It seemed in some ways that Communism (other than in Mao Zedong's Chinese Dystopia) was beginning to "wear thin" not only in reality — where it never worked — but even in the imaginations of its ideological elites. Nevertheless, Marxist-Leninist socialism was still embedded within the oppressive power-structures that controlled half of the world, and its revolutionary theories still strongly attracted radicals in poor and/or post-colonial newly independent countries. Meanwhile, the "Free World" was on the threshold of its own very-big-blunders (a topic for another post). But in 1965, there seemed to be some hope of movement toward peace. The shock of the Cuban Missile Crisis had led to the signing of the first Nuclear Test Ban treaty by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union.

Thus, there appeared a “small opening” (a proverbial window of opportunity) for a Pope to address fundamental issues regarding the dignity of the human person and the unity of the human family in an exciting, complex, and bewildering historical moment. The Pope emphasized the need for a more profound wisdom to correspond to the progress of unprecedented technological power, the need to renounce the waging of offensive war with its ruthless weapons and their tendency toward uncontrollable and incalculable escalation and chaos (while still recognizing the need for self-defense), and the need to search for a better kind of peace — a search that still motivates people of good will. 

And Pope Paul VI especially wanted to witness to this new "Global Areopagus" the unbreakable bond by which every authentic human need draws us toward the God who took our humanity to Himself and redeemed us: Jesus Christ, who makes us children of God our Father in a new way, and brothers and sisters of one another. Pope Paul and his successors are not naive about the weakness of humanity; rather they proclaim this bond of our redeemed humanity in Christ, that calls us to and makes possible a "higher wisdom" and a greater love, a depth of fraternity that is destined to be fulfilled in God's Kingdom, and that can also shed new light and awaken new possibilities for mutual love, for peace, among peoples and nations on our pilgrimage through life in this world.

Here is a selection from Pope Paul VI's speech to the United Nations on October 4, 1965 (with emphasis added):

"There is no need for a long talk to proclaim the main purpose of your Institution. It is enough to recall that the blood of millions, countless unheard-of sufferings, useless massacres and frightening ruins have sanctioned the agreement that unites you with an oath that ought to change the future history of the world: never again war, never again war! It is peace, peace, that has to guide the destiny of the nations of all mankind!... The pathways [to peace] are marked out before you and the first one is disarmament.

"If you want to be brothers, let the arms fall from your hands. A person cannot love with offensive weapons in his hands. Arms, and especially the terrible arms that modern science has provided you, engender bad dreams, feed evil sentiments, create nightmares, hostilities, and dark resolutions even before they cause any victims and ruins. They call for enormous expenses. They interrupt projects of solidarity and of useful labor. They warp the outlook of nations. So long as man remains the weak, changeable, and even wicked being that he so often shows himself to be, defensive arms will, alas, be necessary. But your courage and good qualities urge you on to a study of means that can guarantee the security of international life without any recourse to arms...

"The edifice [i.e. the United Nations] you are building does not rest on purely material and terrestrial foundations, for in that case it would be a house built on sand. It rests most of all upon consciences. Yes, the time has come for "conversion," for personal transformation, for interior renewal. We have to get used to a new way of thinking about man, a new way of thinking about man's community life, and, last of all, a new way of thinking about the pathways of history and the destinies of the world. As St. Paul says, we must "put on the new man, which has been created according to God in justice and holiness of truth" (Ephesians 4:23).

"The hour has come when a pause, a moment of recollection, reflection, you might say of prayer, is absolutely needed so that we may think back over our common origin, our history, our common destiny. The appeal to the moral conscience of man has never before been as necessary as it is today, in an age marked by such great human progress. For the danger comes neither from progress nor from science; if these are used well they can, on the contrary, help to solve a great number of the serious problems besetting mankind. The real danger comes from man, who has at his disposal ever more powerful instruments that are as well fitted to bring about ruin as they are to achieve lofty conquests.

"To put it in a word, the edifice of modern civilization has to be built on spiritual principles, for they are the only ones capable not only of supporting it, but of shedding light on it and inspiring it. And we are convinced, as you know, that these indispensable principles of higher wisdom cannot rest on anything but faith in God. Is He the unknown God of whom St. Paul spoke to the Athenians on the Areopagus — unknown to those who, without suspecting it, were nevertheless looking for Him and had Him close beside them, as is the case with so many men of our times? For us, in any case, and for all those who accept the ineffable revelation that Christ has made to us of Him, He is the living God, the Father of all men."

"Jesus is Always With Us"

Posted on @pontifex Instagram yesterday, from Cameroon. Jesus is our only hope.

“A Sustainable Path Rich in Human Fraternity”

The African nation of Cameroon has endured civil war in its westernmost regions since 2017. Pope Leo visited the area as part of his pastoral journey to four African countries that began in Algeria on Monday, and he probably had in mind for some time what he wished to say at the ecumenical gathering for peace he attended in Cameroon on Thursday. The civil strife, separatist war, and humanitarian crisis there has much in common with other ongoing conflicts in various African countries, and Leo’s speech addressed the problems of war and opportunities for peace in these afflicted regions. Even if the United States of America had not been involved in a globally dangerous war in the Middle East, the Pope probably would have said the same words and expressed the same solidarity with these participants in Cameroon’s “Movement for Peace.” 

Nevertheless, some reports in the U.S. assumed that his references to “masters of war” and “tyrants” were directed specifically (or even exclusively) against Donald Trump; the assumption was part of the effort to create and sustain a narrative of political struggle between the two (Anglo-) American “leaders.” A “Leo-versus-Trump” verbal wrestling match makes for better clickbait, which for many digital journalists is the bottom line. Others are trying to “enlist” Leo as a representative of the opposition party (conveniently ignoring — for the moment — that Pope Leo does not support abortion, among other things). It doesn’t help that Trump and his supporters continue to try to stir up a political fight with the Pope. All of this activity reflects the ongoing collapse of news reporting in U.S. society — which has been facilitated by the growth of the power of (Dis)Information Technology. Nevertheless, real news sources are not entirely defeated. Pope Leo explained to reporters on Friday’s flight to Angola that this narrative was fictional. 

Leo had already stated that he did not wish to engage in a foreign policy debate with U.S. politicians. Rather, he was preaching the Gospel of peace and calling for conversion from the sinful destructiveness of waging war for the purposes of increasing the presumption of power, plundering the natural world, and irresponsibly amassing material wealth through control of valuable natural resources. In Africa, local conflicts are often stirred up (and armed) in order to serve the avarice of rich and powerful political and economic interests. Pope Leo spoke to encourage the people who live and suffer in the midst of these wars to begin to build peace through their own mutual understanding and love for one another. War is a long-standing and distinctive problem in Africa that needs to be addressed for its own sake. In spite of the fact that Donald Trump often talks and behaves as if everything in the world revolves around his ego, Pope Leo is on an Apostolic visit to Africa and right now his concerns are focused on the people he is visiting, encouraging them to grow in God’s love.

Of course, Leo’s overall insistence on peacemaking and his vigorous condemnation of using violence as a means to solve problems applies to all those who fight such wars, which means that the Pope’s admonition naturally extends to the U.S. regime’s and Israel’s reckless and dangerous offensive war waged against Iran. He is not interfering in politics when he opposes sinful and dehumanizing actions that are being perpetrated by individuals, groups, or governments. He is being a bishop, serving and defending the integral dignity and ultimate destiny of the human persons entrusted to him. As Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, Servant of the Servants of God, his pastoral responsibility extents to… everyone.

The causes, motives, and results of indulging the “love of war” are fundamentally the same all over the world. What Pope Leo stressed in a particular way in Cameroon, however, was the exemplary witness and work for peace that people there are taking up. It represents a movement of genuine “conversion” to the fraternal love that the Lord wants for all of humanity, and which He makes possible in the heart of Christ.

"The crisis impacting these regions of Cameroon has brought Christian and Muslim communities closer than ever before. Indeed, your religious leaders have come together to establish a Movement for Peace, through which they seek to mediate between the opposing sides.

"I wish this would happen in so many other places of the world. Your witness, your work for peace can be a model for the whole world! Jesus told us: Blessed are the peacemakers! But woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth. Yes, my dear sisters and brothers, you who hunger and thirst for justice, who are poor, merciful, meek, and pure of heart, you who have wept — you are the light of the world! (cf. Matthew 5:3-14)...

"The masters of war pretend not to know that it takes only a moment to destroy, yet a lifetime is often not enough to rebuild. They turn a blind eye to the fact that billions of dollars are spent on killing and devastation, yet the resources needed for healing, education and restoration are nowhere to be found. Those who rob your land of its resources generally invest much of the profit in weapons, thus perpetuating an endless cycle of destabilization and death. It is a world turned upside down, an exploitation of God’s creation that must be denounced and rejected by every honest conscience. 

“We must make a decisive change of course — a true conversion — that will lead us in the opposite direction, onto a sustainable path rich in human fraternity. The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters! They are the descendants of Abraham, as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. Let us look into each other’s eyes: we are this immense people! Peace is not something we must invent: it is something we must embrace by accepting our neighbor as our brother and as our sister. We do not choose our brothers and sisters: we simply must accept one another! We are one family, inhabiting the same home: this wonderful planet that ancient cultures have cared for across millennia."

~Leo XIV (Bamenda, Cameroon, April 16, 2026)

More Colors of Spring

Here are some more "colors of spring."

War and Peace: The President and the Pope

I don't wish to reproduce in any form the long insulting rant against Pope Leo XIV that the President of my country posted on Sunday on social media. This latest petulant stream of verbal abuse was a cause for great sorrow, but unfortunately it was not particularly surprising. It was appalling, but — more than that — it was disoriented and pathetic; among other things, it revealed the pathological and painful insecurity that has driven the afflicted ego of Donald Trump for decades. At present, he probably suffers not only from chronic mental illness but also from increasing cognitive decline. 

Still, it was a shame for him to attack the Pope. I hope he is capable of experiencing shame, as it can be a salutary thing. It can be an opening for Divine Mercy, which is the only hope for any of us. I hope and pray that he finds healing and salvation, just as I hope and pray that I find healing and salvation. In the midst of the ongoing political and social arguments in my own country, and without denying the requirements of justice and accountability for whatever suffering he has caused others throughout his long career, I never want to forget that Donald Trump himself is a human person, created by God and loved by Jesus Christ. Donald Trump is my brother.

Nevertheless, it's clear to me that for a long time my brother Donald has been behaving like a deeply disturbed, egomaniacal, narcissistic man who lashes out at anyone and everyone who disagrees with him, who doesn't admit to his mistakes or apologize for them, and who refuses any public criticism of any of his actions. Unfortunately, as President of the United States, he also continues to be the leader of a regime that wields enormous power. I am convinced (along with many others) that the current U.S. regime continues to abuse this power repeatedly both here in the United States and internationally. Most recently, it chose to initiate what is widely recognized as a reckless and foolish offensive war against Iran in the Middle East, and it continues to hurl dangerous new threats of violence in the face of an alarmingly unstable situation during these two weeks of so-called "cease fire." Longtime allies and large portions of the international community think that the power of the U.S. regime has in recent years brought division, confusion, and hardship into the lives of many people, and may yet participate in unleashing a wider, uncontrollable new global war with forms of destruction we can scarcely imagine.

Pope Leo XIV didn't take offense at Trump's rude outburst against him. On the flight to Algeria to begin his Apostolic visit to several African countries, however, he made an effort to answer the questions of reporters. These were not published as any kind of document, but I have assembled his video-recorded and widely quoted responses below. One of the first questions raised was whether he was afraid of Trump. He made it clear that he does not seek political power, nor will he bend his Papal ministry to the will of those who hold political power. Rather, he is intent on preaching the Gospel, which includes calling out and admonishing those who misuse the Gospel to cover up the assertions of human pride and the aggression of worldly powers. It also includes exhorting and encouraging political and military leaders, diplomats, institutions of civil society, and all concerned persons to take up the difficult work of being "peacemakers." 

Jesus Christ says, "blessed are the peacemakers" (Matthew 5:9), identifying peacemaking as a work of mercy rooted in the Gospel. Christian witness insists on the intrinsic dignity of every human person, and the God-given transcendent vocation of every person that nevertheless is lived out within the flawed and fragile social, cultural, and historical bonds of human communities and, ultimately, nations. Pope Leo recognizes that the widespread destruction and chaos of offensive war are disproportionate to the aim of making adjustments to the complex geopolitical relationships between nations. He insists on the urgency of real dialogue, efforts toward mutual collaboration, and respect for international law not simply as "political values," but because he sees that the whole realm of politics is elevated by the Christian and human vocation to love one another.

Here are Leo's responses:

"I have no fear of the Trump administration, nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel. That's what I believe in. I am called to do what the Church is called to do."

The Pope said his words "are certainly not meant as attacks on anyone and the message of the Gospel is very clear, 'Blessed are the peacemakers.'

"I will not shy away from pronouncing the message of the Gospel, of inviting all people to look for ways of building bridges for peace and reconciliation, of looking for ways to avoid war any time that's possible. To put my message on the same plane as what the president has attempted to do here I think is not understanding what the message of the Gospel is and I'm sorry to hear that.

"I do not look at my role as being political ... I don't want to get into a debate with him. I don't think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing.

"I will continue to speak out loud against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue, multilateral relationships among the states to look for just solutions to problems. Too many people are suffering in the world today. Too many innocent people are being killed. And I think someone has to stand up and say, 'There's a better way to do this.'"

Have Mercy on Us and on the Whole World

The Octave of Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday.

The Mercy of God is inexhaustible. His mercy is infinitely greater than all my sins - all the mess I've made of the life He has freely given me. I don't know how to "fix" myself. In fact, I can't fix myself by my own power. I need so much the grace and mercy of God.

Through Jesus, God reveals Himself as "Father," and He draws us to a share in His glory by the gift of the Holy Spirit. We all need the mercy of God, which He is always ready to pour out upon us beyond any measure we can conceive. God is our Father. He never stops loving us. He is always drawing us to Himself, sending His Spirit to search the hidden depths within us, to soften our hardened hearts and to “open spaces” in us wherein He mysteriously awakens us to our desire and our need for God, and moves us to begin to hope for “salvation” from the impenetrable darkness of our sins, our guilt, and all the anxiousness and helplessness that we cannot escape. God’s grace reminds us that we are made for Him, that we long for Him, that we can search for Him and cry out to Him even in the greatest darkness.

God loves us always, even if we don’t realize it. He sent His Only-Begotten Son into the world to save each one of us. He whispers the promise of salvation within us, and if we ask for His healing and transforming power, and surrender ourselves to His loving mercy, He will change us. He will free us from sin, renew our lives, and raise us up to become “adopted” sons and daughters in His Son Jesus. The Holy Spirit will work within us and empower us to cooperate with Him in freedom, as full human persons who are integrally redeemed and liberated so that we can receive God's love and love Him in return.

We are all sinners and we have contributed to the sinful evasions, distraction, and blindness that have become the patterns-of-sin that have infected the forms of our societies. We have all contributed to the pervasive violence of our societies. Now, as the prospect of a devastating war continues to loom over us, we beg for mercy for ourselves and for the whole world.

Nothing is greater than Divine Mercy, and the Spirit contually prompts us and lifts us up, strengthening us and giving us hope. We begin to see the world through the eyes of Jesus.

Here is our joy, strength, and peace. Even as everything is in disarray all around us, Jesus remains with us. He loves us. He loves every human person. He will enable us to love one another.

Lord, in your mercy, never let us "give in" to cynicism or discouragement. Let us rather place all our trust in you, and go out and bring the good news of your inexhaustible mercy to the whole world.

Pope Leo’s Worldwide “Prayer Vigil for Peace”

On Saturday, April 11, 2026, Pope Leo and the people of Rome assembled at Saint Peter’s Basilica to pray the Rosary for peace. Vatican media live-streamed the event around the world, inviting people everywhere to join in this most urgent plea to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace.

It was a beautiful event that will bear fruit in its own time, under the Lord’s merciful Providence.

The Pope continued to be very concrete in his prophetic witness regarding the dangerous conflict that continues in the Middle East, and the even more perilous “love of war” that has entered the hearts of too many people in our world today. He denounced “the idolatry of self and money” that turns people and nations away from the service of life and toward destruction and death. It is sinful to seek power and profit in ways that violate the dignity of human persons created in the image of God. 

But the entire event proclaimed the fact that God loves us and wants to save us, that Jesus gave Himself to free us from sin and to draw us together into the eternal life of God — which also entails drawing us together here and now (amidst all obstacles and difficulties) to dialogue with one another and try to understand one another, to begin — with great patience and trust in the mercy of Jesus — to build a “civilization of love” and peace.

Celebrating Easter With Christina Grimmie

This Friday of Easter Week moves me to recall the late Christina Grimmie. In two months we will mark the 10th anniversary of her tragic passing from this life. I wonder if all my portraits of her look the same, but I don’t mind working on them. Christina loved Easter, and proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus each year on her social media accounts.

She lived her love for Him every day of her brief bright beautiful life.

The Risen Jesus and the World’s Problems

The turbulence in world events this Easter Week is not without historical precedent. The violence and covetousness of persons, communities, and nations usually seem unaffected by the liturgical year. Moreover, most of us Christians have probably noticed that our own flaws, problems, difficulties, and fears have not miraculously disappeared. The Resurrection of Jesus inaugurates the beginning of God’s Kingdom, which includes the mysterious presence of His Lordship over the history of this world. Still, the human journey through this world continues for us who live in it: we are still called follow the Lord, to do His will, and to “carry our crosses” by persevering in our vocations. Indeed, the Kingdom of God has begun within us and among us when we adhere to Jesus in faith, hope, and charity. Our liturgical and sacramental participation in the Paschal Mystery during Holy Week and Easter enriches our lives with superabundant graces (more profoundly than we know). Nevertheless, we usually don’t feel like we have changed very much: we still often forget God, commit sins, and struggle with sorrows and sufferings that can seem very distant from the redemption we celebrate in these days. 

We must not lose heart. The Paschal event of Christ’s definitive victory over death does not “undo” His crucifixion; He rises with His wounds (hands, feet, side) in His glorified body, wounds transfigured by Divine Mercy, to be forever signs of His forgiveness. 

His glorified wounds are a constant and particular invitation to us. We all have wounds and we all hurt one another. The consequences of the violence we carry out against one another are real, and the disfigurement, the pain, the bitterness, and the anger may last long after the wounds become scars. But we who have been wounded must not allow ourselves to be reduced and defined by these afflictions so that they diminish our trust in the Risen Jesus and our willingness to turn to Him every day for mercy, forgiveness, and renewed hope. The ultimate truth about our lives consists in our relationship to our destiny: eternal communion with the Triune God and with one another in the Love that never ends. The resurrection of Jesus and His presence among us in the Spirit and through the Church means that the fulfillment of our true selves has already begun and is already shaping us in this present moment.

The Risen Jesus shows us His wounds, and reveals to us that our own wounds have meaning. The Kingdom of God manifests itself, and the world begins to be transformed into the New Creation, when — in letting ourselves be forgiven, healed, loved, and changed by Jesus crucified and risen — we forgive those who have injured us, we love our enemies, we pray for our persecutors. When we love our enemies, we bear witness to our encounter with the Risen Lord and our belonging to Him in a gratuitous and wondrous embrace that He extends to everyone. The good news of the Gospel is the victory of God’s love and mercy over sin and all its pains, divisiveness, and corruption — the victory over sin and death. 

Mercy doesn’t ignore justice, trying to pretend the wounds of sin and violence (our own and others) are not there. But when we come to know Christ’s saving love for us, we are freed from the illusions of our own inclination to seek revenge. Instead, the Holy Spirit stirs up in our hearts a desire to be instruments of mercy to everyone. As we grow in this renewal of our lives — listening to and following the grace of His Spirit — Jesus transforms our own awareness and compassion so that we ourselves become merciful. We begin to seek the conversion of our enemies — not only that in their sorrow they might try to repair what they can of the damage they have done to us — but fundamentally that our enemies might become our friends, together with us in the Body of the Risen Lord, united in His forgiveness that brings new life — eternal life.

It is important to ask the Lord continually for the grace to be merciful as He is merciful. Only in this way can we truly become “peacemakers” in our troubled world.

The Colors of Spring

Here are some photograph-based digital artworks expressing the colors and freshness of the spring 2026 season in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. The fair weather and longer evenings have me out and about once again.

"A Whole Civilization Will Die"? This is Madness!

Easter Tuesday.

"Today as we all know there was this threat against all the people of Iran. This is truly unacceptable" (Pope Leo XIV).

At this moment, we are one hour and forty minutes from initiating Total War against Iran, because of this sad, deranged man who has for too long abused the office of the President of the United States.

Jesus Risen from the dead, have mercy on us! Our Lady Queen of Peace, spread your maternal mantle over the people of Iran.🙏

Pray to God, and — as Pope Leo has recommended — flood Congress and the Senate with messages of protest.

————————————————————————————

UPDATE: At ten minutes before 7:00 PM, the President of the United States announced a “two week cease fire” based on negotiations mediated by Pakistan in which Iran proposed some kind of “basis” for further negotiations. He insisted that Iran, of course, would have to open the Strait of Hormuz “immediately and completely.” An official claiming to represent Iran’s “foreign ministry” confirmed this report, although his language about Hormuz was more complicated and hedged.

Iran’s regime is deeply embedded in various layers of the nation’s political and military structure, with provisions to — if necessary — decentralize the authoritarian system if the central leadership is wiped out. It is a system designed to survive and continue to fight for its survival. The destruction has been vast over the course of these weeks, in Iran and in the Gulf States that have borne the brunt (thus far) of its retaliation.

How can we even know what’s going on?

Does anyone know what Israel thinks of all this? Are they part of this “cease fire” too? Southern Lebanon has over a million refugees, as Israel continues to press forward into their territory.

The most vulnerable people, as usual, will suffer the most from this chaos. Jesus is united with them in their suffering, even if they do not know His name.

And the truth of our Easter feast remains forever: Jesus Christ is Risen from death. He is the only Lord. The rulers of this world will not prevail against Him. 

If we speak out against evil, it must never be out of a spirit of vengeance or hatred. It must only be for love — that the leaders and the peoples of our times might turn away from evil and surrender themselves to His victorious love, so that He might heal them, free them from the idols that have made them slaves of their own power, and turn them toward Himself, His goodness, justice, patience, and mercy. We beg for this healing for them and for ourselves.

Our task in this world is not to destroy civilizations. It is not to crush our adversaries. It is not to win at any price. Our task is to love God our Father through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, and to love one another as brothers and sisters.

Happy Easter 2026!

Christ is Risen, Alleluia! He is Truly Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia! Happy Easter 2026.

The Great Mystery of Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday has been the subject of profound theological speculation since the last century, as Christians pondered the terrible anguish of the human being living and dying in the darkness of a “world” that was socially constructed in such a way as to exclude God. In the twentieth century, history confronted us with the awful and inescapable question: if the Creator is made to disappear, what hope could there possibly be for the creature (especially the created person)? Nevertheless, there were some Christians who began to realize that God would not so easily let Himself be set aside. They began to ponder the Paschal Mystery of the redeeming event of Christ’s death and resurrection in distinctive ways. Holy Saturday, with its mysterious silence, began to take on a new focus as God “seemed to be silent” in the face of all the individual and corporate violence perpetrated within existentially-totalitarian-secularist societies with their ideologies, wars, concentration camps, gulags, genocides, and countless other forms of agonizing oppression. 

Nietzsche had said, “God is dead,” and many people feared (or hoped) that this was really true. The Christian tradition, however, knew more of the mystery of God’s love for the world and the depths of the salvific suffering of the Father’s Only-Begotten Son. How might this relate to Holy Saturday? Can it be said that the Divine Person of God the Son — who really died on Good Friday in His human nature and endured the silence of “being-dead” on Holy Saturday — made Himself “present” in solidarity to the ultimate depths of human anguish? 

Such speculations are not meant to replace the traditional Holy Saturday theme of Christ going down to the realm of death to rescue the righteous people of Israel and all others who had lived and died in fidelity to whatever light of truth had been given to them. Their souls were all awaiting Christ’s redeeming “descent” wherein He would lead them into the Father’s glory, “opening the gates of heaven” that had been shut by original sin. Rather, these more recent theological speculations sought to encompass this traditionally explicit Holy Saturday theme within the consideration of a more fundamental mystery of how Jesus enters into death itself — how He really, “ontologically (so to speak),” takes our sins and our death upon Himself, repairs the irreparable through His saving love, and opens the way to salvation beyond all human possibilities.

Here there is much that remains veiled in mystery, and prone to misunderstanding or over-mystified expressions. But there appears to be something herein that responds to the unspeakable anguish of human persons in the face of evil and death — the anguish that became especially a stumbling block to belief in God for many people who felt trapped by the limits of a world without transcendence and constructed by human power alone.

As it so happens, one of these theologians articulated his reflections on this theme in a very moving way during a “meditation” he presented while visiting the Holy Shroud of Turin on May 2, 2010. These reflections are of particular interest because the theologian in question was not there in a merely private capacity; he was the Pope making a Pastoral Visit to the Archdiocese of Turin. Pope Benedict XVI was anything but the unimaginative, rigid, reactionary that so many journalists made him out to be. He was a great and profound theologian, and his teachings as Pope continue to guide some of the most important “new pathways” that authentic Catholic theology is called to investigate and ponder today and in the future.

Here is what Pope Benedict XVI said about the mystery of Holy Saturday on May 2, 2010, after he referred to the Shroud as the “Icon of Holy Saturday.” Check the Vatican Website for the full text of this beautiful and powerful reflection. It gives courage to our faith to know that we are so unfathomably loved by God:

“Holy Saturday is a ‘no man's land’ between the death and the Resurrection, but this ‘no man's land’ was entered by One, the Only One, who passed through it with the signs of his Passion for man's sake: Passio Christi. Passio hominis…

“In this ‘time-beyond-time’, Jesus Christ ‘descended to the dead.’ [From the Apostles’ Creed: “He descended into hell.”]

“What do these words mean? They mean that God, having made himself man, reached the point of entering man's most extreme and absolute solitude, where not a ray of love enters, where total abandonment reigns without any word of comfort: ‘hell.’

“Jesus Christ, by remaining in death, passed beyond the door of this ultimate solitude to lead us too to cross it with him.

“We have all, at some point, felt the frightening sensation of abandonment, and that is what we fear most about death, just as when we were children we were afraid to be alone in the dark and could only be reassured by the presence of a person who loved us. Well, this is exactly what happened on Holy Saturday: the voice of God resounded in the realm of death.

“The unimaginable occurred: namely, Love penetrated ‘hell.’ 

“Even in the extreme darkness of the most absolute human loneliness we may hear a voice that calls us and find a hand that takes ours and leads us out.

“Human beings live because they are loved and can love; and if love even penetrated the realm of death, then life also even reached there.

“In the hour of supreme solitude we shall never be alone.”

Love Does Not End With Death (Good Friday 2026)

My Dad passed away seven years ago today. Here is a picture of that "original Virginia Janaros" family from about 40 years ago, when we were all young: my parents (both passed on from this world) and my brother who has been like an anchor in my life for 63 years. 

Life is a great mystery. Every human person is precious, and we discover that especially through the persons that are given to us to love. I am learning in an ever more concrete way that love does not end with death. But if it weren't for Jesus Christ and his victory over death that we remember and celebrate in these days, I would be a lost man. The passage of time would be unbearable.

Instead, I have hope. I know that life is destined to be fulfilled in eternity, that our loves and labors and sorrows in this world — entrusted to Jesus — are seeds that will bear fruit in the Resurrection. Thus we journey through time with the firm hope that we will dwell forever together with the Triune God who is Love, in whose embrace we find unending joy — and where nothing is "lost," where we will see one another's faces healed and made whole, with every tear wiped away.

Holy Thursday 2026: “God Gives Himself to Us”

Holy Thursday.

Jesus washes the feet of the apostles. Detail from Ethiopian icon.

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

“The gift and example overall, which we find in the passage on the washing of the feet, is a characteristic of the nature of Christianity in general. Christianity is not a type of moralism, simply a system of ethics. It does not originate in our action, our moral capacity. Christianity is first and foremost a gift: God gives himself to us - he does not give something, but himself. And this does not only happen at the beginning, at the moment of our conversion. He constantly remains the One who gives. He continually offers us his gifts. He always precedes us. This is why the central act of Christian being is the Eucharist: gratitude for having been gratified, joy for the new life that he gives us” (Pope Benedict XVI, Holy Thursday, 2008).