Takashi and Midori Nagai: a Story of Faith and Love

The whole life of Takashi Nagai was one of continual conversion and growth in wisdom and knowledge. Here we will outline the beautiful story of his coming to Christian faith and baptism. This Japanese scientist and professor of radiology at the University of Nagasaki faced his greatest challenges after the atomic bomb turned his city into a nuclear wasteland. One of the most difficult of those challenges was the loss of his beloved wife Midori, who was such an important person in his conversion.

Takashi Nagai was born in 1908 in the rural Shimane Province, to a Shinto family. His father was a Western educated doctor. When Takashi himself entered Nagasaki's medical college in 1928, he considered himself an atheist and scientific materialist. Though he had high aspirations, something seemed to be missing. He tried to numb his dissatisfaction with intensive study and occasional drinking and carousing. But at his mother's deathbed, he was struck with the sense that she had not been simply annihilated; her spirit somehow lived on. And on hospital rounds, he saw that medical techniques were not in themselves enough to care for the whole suffering human person.

Then there was one Western scientist he greatly admired — Blaise Pascal — who was also an intense Christian believer. Takashi wrestled with the provoking and compelling aphorisms of Pascal's Pensées, and he decided to see for himself what actual living, praying, loving faith was like.

Nagasaki presented him with a unique opportunity: it contained the only significant Catholic population in all of Japan. Here martyrs had shed their blood and ordinary Christians had handed down the Faith secretly for three centuries without priests. When Japan opened to the West, Nagasaki's Christianity flourished anew.

Takashi took lodgings in the Urakami district of the city with the Catholic Moriyama family. Here he had the most decisive encounter of his life. Their adult daughter Midori befriended him, and in her he saw a conviction and a purity of soul unlike anything he had ever known. When Japan invaded Manchuria, Takashi was drafted and Midori promised to pray for him every day.

In Manchuria, he endured the horrors of scientific warfare for the first time, treating wounded from both sides under appalling conditions. Meanwhile Midori prayed for his safety and for his conversion. She wrote to him and sent him a Catechism, which he read. He began to realize that this devoted, beautiful woman and her faith held the answer to the meaning of life, and the brutal degrading military grind of the invasion — with its battles, prostitutes, and drunkenness — only served to make it clearer.

He survived the tour of duty, and returned safely. Midori's prayers were answered. In June of 1934 he was baptized, and soon after they were married. Takashi's faith grew stronger through the companionship he and Midori shared from 1934 until that awful day of August 9, 1945. Later, he found — in the wreckage that had once been their home — only her bones, ashes, and an object fused together into a metal lump in the skeletal remains of her hand. At the moment of the fiery atomic explosion, she had been praying the rosary.

Although Takashi himself survived the bombing and the immediate injuries that nearly killed him, his overall health steadily degenerated. He lived seven more years, raising their children, and witnessing to what he had leaned from their mother Midori and the faith they had shared. Even after he became totally bedridden (he was slowly dying from an aggressive leukemia, one of the consequences of overexposure to radiation) he wrote extensively. 

He observed and recorded daily the medical details of his bodily condition, hoping to contribute “data” toward the scientific investigation of the many issues raised by the dawning of the “Atomic Age.” He also prayed, offered his suffering, and wrote books about his experience on August 9, 1945 and its aftermath. He called for peace and cooperation among the many peoples living together in this world of unprecedented power and danger. He also wrote about the love of God that is greater than all the violence of this world, and is our hope for peace.

Takashi Nagai: Bombs, Bells, and Miracles in Nagasaki

Dr. Takashi Nagai (1908-1951) was a Japanese medical doctor, a scientist and pioneering researcher who specialized in radiology, a highly respected professor, a beloved husband and father, and a convert from atheism to Jesus Christ and his Catholic Church. I wrote about his conversion in my monthly printed column in Magnificat eight years ago.

But there is another story, the story of a more profound conversion, a radical change in Dr. Nagai's whole life that set him on the road to a greater faith, but also involved his passing through an almost unimaginable horror that began at 11:02 AM on Wednesday, August 9, 1945.

I can only say that the story of this great man, his wife, his family, his colleagues, and his community is one of the most intense and heart-wrenching and terrifying and beautiful stories I have ever come across in the twentieth century Church.

It is a story he lived long enough to tell, in a book called The Bells of Nagasaki. 

The Catholics of the Urakami district of Nagasaki, the disciples of Francis Xavier, the survivors of three centuries of persecution, were not specifically the intended target of the second atomic bomb. But because of various circumstances including weather conditions and wind, the very heart of Christianity in Japan - home to some 30,000 Catholics and their cathedral - became, literally, Ground Zero.

Many thousands of people were immediately reduced to ashes, including an estimated 8,000 Christians at the epicenter who were going about their morning routines, living, working, and praying. The cathedral was packed with worshippers praying for peace when the bomb exploded in the air above it. People in the vicinity of Ground Zero died where they were standing, sitting, or kneeling, in a flash.

The Nagai children were outside the city with their grandmother on that day. But their mother Midori Nagai was in the kitchen of their home in Urakami near the cathedral. The old home was built over a cowshed where her ancestors, the secret Christians, had gathered to pray and pass on their faith for seven generations without any priests, with only a basic catechism and the sacrament of baptism.

Days later her husband found remnants of her skeleton in the midst of the ruins, and some melted metal in the remains of the bones of her hand where he could barely make out the outline of a crucifix. Like so many of the Christians at Ground Zero, Takashi Nagai's wife had a deep devotion to Mary. When the awful fire fell, she had been praying the rosary.

Dr. Nagai was working at the Nagasaki University hospital on that morning. He was pinned under the wreckage of his laboratory, seriously injured but alive. Eventually the handful of doctors, nurses, and students who survived were able to reach him, stop the worst of his bleeding, and bring him to his feet. They formed a team that for several days worked heroically to treat whomever could be rescued from the flames and the scorched ground where there had once been a city.

As doctors, they did what they could to help the wounded, without medicines or supplies. As scientists, they discussed among themselves with horror and wonder the phenomenon that had occurred. They didn't know of the attack on Hiroshima, but they were able to see that this was a wholly new kind of bombing. Dr. Nagai and his colleagues were aware of the trajectory of atomic research, and had heard rumors that efforts were being made to use that research to make a horrible weapon, a nuclear bomb.

Their experience convinced them that these efforts had succeeded, and that they were living through a nuclear holocaust. And it wasn't over yet.

In the hours, then days, then weeks that followed, many people who had survived the blast developed strange and often fatal illnesses from radiation poisoning. Still others would succumb to their injuries. After a month of exhausting labor caring for the wounded and struggling to stay on his own feet, Dr. Nagai himself collapsed and was on the verge of death. His colleagues gave up hope of saving him as he moved in and out of a coma.

He recalled that he was prepared to die, but felt the desire and the need to live for the sake of his children (who had already lost their mother). Then he had a very unusual experience, which he reported to be something like a voice prompting him in a very specific way. In order to understand the significance of this prompting, we should note that Saint Maximilian Kolbe had lived in Nagasaki from 1930-1936 and was well known and much loved by the Catholic community. He had even been one of Dr. Nagai's patients. Father Kolbe had, of course, returned to Poland where the final act of his own drama awaited, and all news of him was blocked by the war.

But as Dr. Nagai lay dying, a voice seemed to urge him to "pray to Father Kolbe" for healing. No one in Japan knew that Father Kolbe was even dead, much less that he had died a martyr, but Takashi Nagai prayed for the intercession of the beloved friar. Soon after, he emerged from the coma, and the injury causing immediate danger to his life was inexplicably healed.

His fellow doctors said it was a miracle.

Unfortunately, his overall health was broken by radiation-induced leukemia, which eventually rendered him an invalid. From his bed, he turned to writing. In the light of his deepening faith, he wrote about the events he had experienced and their implications for the future. He wanted to record all he could for the sake of his native Japan and its reconstruction, for future scientific research, and as an advocate for peace in the world. He lived until 1951 and wrote 20 books, including The Bells of Nagasaki.

He is held in great esteem in Japan by Christians and non-Christians, and his story deserves to be more widely known. It is a profoundly Catholic story, a sorrowful and mysterious story, a story marked by the distinctively Japanese cultural character that the whole world needs to understand better.

I am a Tortoise in a World of Hares

You know the old fable about the race between “the tortoise and the hare”? The hare (which looks like a large rabbit) is very fast, but he is distracted and overconfident and strays frequently from the path. He even falls asleep. The tortoise plods along slowly but consistently, and eventually wins the race. This story is the origin of the metaphors I use in this blog post.

I have always been a plodder. Not only because I’m an incurable procrastinator; I think some of my “laziness” is methodological. I have always felt the need to pay attention to the many complex facets of a problem and listen to different perspectives before expressing my own attempt to form an assessment that is (I hope) guided by reality and worthy of consideration by others. This pertains particularly to writing. I can make rash judgments in conversation with others (especially when the opportunity to be witty presents itself, or the urge to complain when cynicism gets the better of me). Writing is different. Often my considered but far-from-perfect opinions and reflections change or acquire various nuances and distinctions as further knowledge and new circumstances occur. An ongoing blog has a “temporal arc” where written thoughts grow and change (even if no one else notices this except me). It has the characteristics of an open “diary,” an ongoing chronicle that stretches out over time and permits reflection and the development of understanding.

I have always plodded like the tortoise, observing and ruminating on what I see and hear, and articulating myself slowly — often first within my own mind, taking slow mental steps. I appreciate repetition (as you know if you read this blog) because remembering truths and expressing them “again” amplifies conviction and widens its depth and capacity for insight.

And for nearly two decades now, I have not only plodded. As a disabled person, I have “limped” through most things. I have become a sick old tortoise that inches its way along the course even as the increasingly “manic” hare of today’s global communications media runs faster and faster all over the field of opinion with little concern even for staying on the track. We sometimes benefit from the energy of these hares because they quickly (even if not always fairly) perceive strange intrusions on life that call for immediate attention.

I can appreciate the hares, as long as they don’t presume that speed alone wins the race. Perseverance in moving forward is more fundamental. I have found that “slowing down” doesn’t necessarily shrink one’s possibilities to discover and give one’s self while living a rich, engaging, challenging life. Vast spaces open up that would not otherwise be noticed. Compassion and empathy can become larger in one’s heart. There is time to wrestle with and ultimately find peace with one’s own peculiarity “uniqueness” as a person. One must pay attention, however, and seek out fresh possibilities when they present themselves. This means limiting distractions, moving step by step, slowly, steadily and focused toward the goal.

As the world ramps up further its engines of material “productivity” (and destructiveness), as well as the overwhelming volume, speed, and friction of “information” and its technologies, I can’t keep up with it all. But I’m not going to worry. Many people have the gifts needed to run in these fast lanes (and God will give them the grace to remain focused on what matters, if they remember Him).

I must continue on a slow and careful path, searching for and (I hope) finding those “two small coins” that will embody the gift I can give for the common good of my brothers and sisters, and to the One who gives me everything.

A Hiroshima Story

Toshiko Sasaki had a busy day in front of her. As the eldest daughter, she always helped her mother get the family ready every morning before going to work herself. But this time, her baby sister had taken ill during the night, and her mother was with the baby at a hospital in the city. On her own, she made food for her father and two younger siblings before commuting to the city and beginning her day’s work as office clerk at the East Asia Tin Works. She opened her record books and turned her head to say something to a coworker. But she never had the chance.

It was 8:15 AM on the morning of August 6, 1945 at Toshiko’s office in the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Seldom in all of history has a single moment in time been so decisive and destructive for so many people in one place. Tens of thousands died instantly (including Toshika’s parents and infant sister). Many more would die in the coming days, weeks, and months of the hideous effects of radiation poisoning. For those who survived, their lives would never be the same.

In a remarkable two-part book Hiroshima by American journalist John Hersey, six of the survivors of the world's first nuclear bombing tell their personal stories of endurance. They are difficult stories of people often permanently injured and afflicted with recurring strange illnesses. But the story of Toshika Sasaki stands out as a witness of grace and redemption, thanks to her encounter with another of Hersey’s six survivors, the Jesuit missionary Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge.

First, however, Toshika would endure many months of gruesome suffering, medical neglect, and near despair in the chaos of the obliterated city. The infamous “blinding flash of light” at 8:15 on August 6 was followed immediately by the unimaginable explosive devastation of the city. As her office building collapsed, Toshika was buried within the wreckage under shelves of books with the terrible pain of a compound fracture in her left leg. Nearly left for dead, she was eventually found and removed, only to be placed in the street with countless others who were horribly injured, waiting as improvisational medical stations were desperately thrown together with abysmally inadequate equipment. Eventually Toshika would be moved five times while she endured a broken and severely infected leg, some signs of radiation sickness, and dangerously high fever. When treatment finally began, the bones had fused, and the twenty-year-old girl appeared permanently disabled.

In February 1946, a mutual friend asked Father Kleinsorge to visit Toshika. The Jesuit priest — along with his confreres at the nearby mission church — was spending all his strength visiting the sick (when he wasn't himself hospitalized). Toshika, however, was not comforted by his words. She cried out, “How can a good God allow such a horror as this?” Kleinsorge tried to explain to her that sin — human rejection of God’s goodness — led to the evils of violence.

After her infection healed, Toshika returned to her home in a suburb, outside the blast range, where her brother and sister had remained unharmed. Father Kleinsorge, weakened by his own illnesses, continued to visit her, walking now from a great distance. She wasn't yet convinced by the things he said, but she was touched by his consistent concern for her whole person. Then one spring morning, she saw the sun beautifully glistening on the dew, and her soul was filled with an incredible joy and peace. She spontaneously prayed the “Our Father.” Suddenly, it all “fit together” and she desired to follow the religion of her Jesuit friend.

Toshiko was baptized in September 1946. A few years later she joined a religious congregation as Sister Dominique Sasaki, and served with great compassion the poor and sick for the rest of her life.

Transfiguration: Memory and Hope

August 6 is the Feast of the Transfiguration. 

God grants a unique grace to Peter, James, and John as witnesses to His luminous Transfiguration on Mount Tabor prior to His going up to Jerusalem to accomplish the redemption of the world. But an abundance of grace also flows out to all of us who encounter Jesus in the Scriptural account and liturgical celebration of this great sign, which we receive "through faith" in the testimony of the Gospel, given by the Holy Spirit and sustained through two millennia within the life of the Church. 

Here is a sign of eternal glory, the promised fulfillment of the Father's plan to renew all things through His Son Jesus and all those who "listen to Him" and follow Him and trust in Him. It is a sign for our memory, so that even in the midst of the greatest darkness and the ruins of sin and death, we can have confidence that evil does not have the final word! 

Thus, we remember the glory of Christ — the resurrected Christ who has conquered death — and we live in hope and offer all our days in union with Him.

Ukraine is a Land of Heroes

I thought I should say something about these two young Ukrainian heroes that have come to my attention in recent days.

It's hard to believe that in August of the year 2026, I still find myself writing in the present tense about the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia that began in 2014 (with the "annexation" of Crimea) and took current full-scale form in February 2022. The fact that I haven't written much about it recently doesn't imply that I am any less concerned about the ongoing suffering of Ukrainians and their nation. Nor have my objections and concerns about many other current events that I have written about in past several years undergone any change. (Anyone who wants to know them can find my thoughts sufficiently articulated in previous posts.) 

Rather, I’m devoting more of my very limited energy to further research on the “big picture” that contextualizes current problems (in Russia and elsewhere). It’s a picture with many facets that are obscured by conflicting myths engendered (in part) by the technological revolution that has simultaneously “united and divided” peoples of the world for over 150 years.

Recent images in the news give the impression that Ukraine may have turned the tide in the war they have been forced to fight in order to survive. Strategic drone strikes that reach deep into Russia are slowing down the enormous and extensive military-industrial war-making system that enables Putin to continue the aggression. The front line in Eastern Ukraine is virtually stalled, but it remains bloody and costly for both sides. Meanwhile Russian ballistic missiles continue bombing major Ukrainian cities relentlessly, with increasing intensity. Civilians continue to be killed or wounded every day. There are many painfully tragic losses, and in some cases there are people who lose their lives while courageously serving others and trying to rescue them from damage already inflicted.

Apparently, the aggressors have stuped to the egregious ruse of "double tap bombing," whereby a site is bombed once to cause initial casualties and damage, and then bombed a second time shortly afterwards, in order to inflict more casualties among those caught up in the crisis and chaos of the first bombing. So it happened on the night of July 31/August 1 in Kyiv.

The two young people I wanted to honor and remember in the above illustrations (based on photographs released post-mortum) are in a special category. Both were killed by "double-tap" Russian bombings while serving in rescue missions. 22-year-old Yehor Terekhin, a Kyiv police officer, rushed in to help those wounded from a first-bombing in a residential area, and was killed by the cruel second bomb moments later.  Then there was Vitalina Yarovenko, a university student and volunteer with a military medical battalion, who also died in similar circumstances while engaged in rescue work at another bomb site.

The admirable heroism of these two young people on the same night captured the attention of Ukrainians and people all over the world who follow with grave concern the bloodshed of this awful war. Though their courage is inspiring, their deaths remain poignantly tragic. Their youth is enough to take away our breath. It stands as an inescapable symbol of all the barbarism, the waste, the cruelty visited upon good, self-sacrificing people, young people, "ordinary" people, people who live their daily lives in the cities of Ukraine, people who have no intention of inflicting harm on anyone.

I hope that Ukrainians who survive this violence will always honor the soldiers who have defended them at such great cost in a war they never wanted, and the heroism of all their compatriots who have sacrificed their lives to protect Ukraine, each of whom had a face and a name like Yehor and Vitalina. May the people keep this heroic inspiration in their hearts, especially the young, who — God willing — will help Ukraine in the near future to take the exemplary place it deserves in the community of nations.

The “Spiritual Communion” Prayer of Saint Alphonsus

The month of August begins with the Memorial of the 18th century Italian Bishop and Doctor of the Church, Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787). He was a prolific theologian and spiritual writer, preacher and shepherd of souls. Six years ago, a brief prayer he composed became crucially important for 21st century Catholics. The unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic kept ordinary Catholics from attending Mass in their parish churches for many months. Instead, we connected with our churches on Sundays (and weekdays, if we wanted) via live-streaming while our priests offered Mass there.

On those Sundays, we were not able to receive the Eucharist regularly. For many of us, however, this crisis provided the occasion for us to learn (or become more familiar with) the practice of “spiritual communion.” Saint Alphonsus’s concise prayer (posted on the screen after the priest’s communion) became for us a way to maintain a vital relationship with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

Today, long after the churches have reopened, the widespread practice of live-streaming Mass each day has continued, to the great benefit of the sick and homebound and anyone who finds it helpful. The ministry of Saint Alphonsus in this way continues to touch the lives of Catholics, so that Jesus might sustain us and draw us to Himself.

Saint Ignatius and Ludolph of Saxony's "Life of Christ"

There are many wonderful stories from the life of Saint Ignatius Loyola (July 31) as he followed the Lord’s call (together with his earliest companions) to found and foster the emergence of a singular missionary charism in the life of the Church: the Society of Jesus.

It all began within the heart of Ignatius, as the Holy Spirit drew him from the ambitions of a worldly life to a total commitment to follow Christ. The main features of the story of Saint Ignatius's "conversion-of-life" and the beginning of his vocation are well known. An element that deserves more attention, however, is the vital human connection between the wounded soldier destined to found the Jesuits and a medieval Carthusian’s witness to the Person of Christ.

Born in 1491, Ignatius was the youngest son of a noble family in the Basque region of Spain. With a passion for earthly glory, he became a soldier in the armies of Castile, and was seriously wounded by a cannonball in May of 1521. During a long recovery, he became bored, and asked for books of chivalrous tales to pass the time. But the only books available were “saints’ lives” and “a life of Christ.” Having nothing better to do, he began to peruse these books. It was there, in his bed, that he encountered Jesus Christ, and the extraordinary change in his life began.

The saints inspired Ignatius. He found his Catholic faith incarnated in the stories of heroic men such as Saint Francis and Saint Dominic. His ambition began to change, slowly, as he felt the aspiration to “compete” with the saints for this new ideal of holiness. The witness of the communion of saints began to shine for him. Most importantly, however, he read and pondered for the first time the events of the life of Jesus. Ignatius did not read the New Testament in 1521, for it did not exist in Spanish translation. What he was given to read was a most extraordinary four volume “Life of Christ” by a 14th century Carthusian hermit, Ludolph of Saxony.

Ludolph takes up the Gospel stories methodically, following the events from the Annunciation to the Nativity and infancy, to the Baptism of Jesus, His Public Life and ministry, His Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, and onward to the Final Judgment. Each event receives copious attention with Ludolph drawing on Scripture and the Church Fathers to illuminate its meaning. Ludolph’s method is to lead the reader to place himself “inside” the particular events. He gives rich imaginative descriptions and exhorts his reader to “look” at the details, consider their significance and embrace the grace of a prayerful encounter with Christ. The fruit of his own contemplative life became a written witness to the Person of Christ that could be shared.

But Ludolph’s image-rich meditations were destined to have an audience he could never have imagined. A century after his death came the printing press. Suddenly, the hermit was translated into several vernacular languages (including Spanish, at the express request of Queen Isabel) and widely distributed among pious people all over Europe (including the sister-in-law of Ignatius, who brought it to his bedside in 1521).

Ludolph’s witness led Ignatius to grow more and more in love with Christ. Ignatius took some three hundred pages of notes on the text, and there is no doubt that this medieval monk inspired Ignatius in the formation of his own great instrument for bringing people to a deeper relationship with Jesus, the Spiritual Exercises.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola had many other encounters that shaped his own vocation, but it was on his sickbed that he met Christ, and it was the witness and work of saints and holy people that originated his own witness with its enormous fruits for the coming epoch.

Saint Peter of Ravenna: "How Much God Loved Humanity"

"As resplendent as the excellence,

power, and magnificence of the Creator were
when one contemplated His works,
all the same the love of God was concealed,
and the charity of God kept hidden.
To give to his subjects,
to bestow things on servants
is what usually characterizes a donor;
to suffer for one's subjects, to die for one's servants,
this is a sign of immense charity
and evidence of a love that is unique....

Anyone can grant favors, anyone can bestow gifts,
any prosperous benefactor can love
those who are deferential to him;
but will he be comparable to Him
who took the adversities of His own people onto Himself;
who puts Himself forward
to block dangers threatening His own;
who hands Himself over to punishments for His own,
who confronts death face-to-face
in order to remove them from destruction
and preserve them for life?
Love is proved by adversities,
the weight of affection is determined
by the dangers endured,
perfect charity is confirmed by death....

That dominion is true
which commands by love, not by fear;
which subjects both bodies and hearts to itself
by means of affection;
which by loving furnishes servants for itself
who are not unwilling, but willing.
[Jesus died because] He wanted it to be known
how much God loved humanity,
since He wanted to be loved rather than feared."

~Saint Peter Chrysologus (380-450 A.D.)

   Archbishop of Ravenna, Doctor of the Church

   Feast, July 30th

Summer Skies 2026

Here are a few multi-formatted, digitally “sculpted,” stylistically varied images I have been working on this summer. They are based on my original photographs, re-designed using everything but the digital kitchen sink. The technology is growing by leaps and bounds, but I’m still straining toward the same “vision” in my efforts with making these pictures. I want to shape images that hint at (even if only in inadequate or peculiar ways) the inexhaustible beauty that gazes upon me beyond and “through” this mysterious world I live in. Skies and clouds, sometime-sunshine, “blue” mountains, rivers, broken barns, quiet moments.

Where is Our Treasure, REALLY?

As usual, the Pope’s Angelus message for today is right on target (see above and below). The parables of the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price were in today’s Gospel reading. Where is our treasure, really? 

“While the consumer culture influences our tastes, constantly creating new needs only to sell us solutions that never satisfy, and that sometimes even poison the heart, we must learn to grasp what truly matters: the treasure of a relationship with God that opens us to joy and helps us to live our relationships with one another more fully” (Pope Leo XIV).

Saint James, Missionary and Martyr

Today is the Feast of Saint James “the Great,” fisherman from Galilee, one of the Twelve who followed Jesus most closely. He was probably young and strong, with a courageous and fiery disposition, as we gather from various gospel events, and especially from the “nickname” that Jesus gave to him and his younger brother John: the “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17). 

Jesus chose Peter, James, and John as special witnesses at certain profound moments in His ministry, most notably the Transfiguration (see e.g. Mark 9:2-10) and His Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (see e.g. Matthew 26:37-46). But James’s natural bravery and youthful energy were not in themselves adequate for following Jesus (he is overwhelmed on the Mountain, falls asleep in the Garden, and runs away when Jesus is arrested). Nevertheless James was called and chosen by Jesus for the foundational vocation of apostleship, and he received the grace of this vocation through his encounter with Jesus and His special friendship with Him, especially at the Last Supper, as a witness of the Risen Jesus, and — of course — in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. 

It was grace that led James from the moment he left his father Zebedee’s fishing business to become a disciple of Jesus; it was grace that prompted him to open his heart to Jesus’s companionship and teaching, and His death and resurrection; it was grace that raised him up after he fell, drew him to come back after he ran away — even after the Crucifixion, when he and his fellow apostles rejoined one another in the “upper room” in fear, with no idea of what could possibly happen next… and yet, they stayed together and waited with a hope beyond their capacity to articulate. It was grace that gave him a new and transformed life in the Risen and Glorified Jesus, with a new humanity wherein his bravery became a supernatural persistence and his young ambitions were shaped anew into a supernatural determination to preach the Gospel of Christ’s redeeming love as far as he could go, with a humility that made him willing to endure all things and surrender himself entirely to God.

In Acts 12, we learn that James was martyred in Jerusalem in the year 44 — the first of the Twelve to shed his own blood for Jesus. This is all we know about James “the Great” (the son of Zebedee and brother of John) from the Scriptures, and it can get confusing because another Apostle is James “the Lesser” (which indicates “younger”), the son of Alphaeus. We do know that the Apostles (along with all those who saw Risen Lord) were sent by Jesus to preach the Gospel to all nations (see Matthew 28:19-20, Luke 24:46-49). Ancient traditions indicate that James — with his Spirit-filled aspiration — preached all through the Mediterranean world as far as he could go, ultimately reaching Spain before returning to Jerusalem. These traditions recount that, after his martyrdom in Jerusalem, his remains were brought back to the new Christian community he had founded on the edge of the Iberian Peninsula (which, as far as he knew, was the “ends of the earth”), and they buried him in a place that remains an immensely popular pilgrimage site even today, after 2000 years: Santiago de Compostela.

Here are some prayers for the Feast of Saint James, the Collect Prayer from the Roman liturgy and the Byzantine liturgical hymns (Byzantine calendars celebrate this feast on April 30):

Collect:

Almighty ever-living God,
who consecrated the first fruits of your Apostles
by the blood of Saint James,
grant, we pray,
that your Church may be strengthened by his confession of faith
and constantly sustained by his protection.
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. Amen.

____________

Troparia and Kontakion, Byzantine liturgy:

As a soldier of the Lord you were ranked among the choir of Apostles.

Together with your brother, O James, 

you clung wholeheartedly to the Savior.

Armed with the power of the Spirit you proclaimed Him to all, and were slain by the sword.

Therefore, we sing your praises.

_____________

You were a chosen Apostle of Christ 

and the only brother of the beloved Theologian 

[i.e. “John the Theologian,” as he is known in the Byzantine tradition, Apostle and Evangelist, author of the Forth Gospel]

O most praised James, entreat Him to grant the remission of sins and great mercy

to those who sing hymns to you.

______________

You heard the divine voice when it called to you, O glorious James;

therefore, casting off the love of father, friends, and companions,

together with your brother John, you hastened to Christ,

and you were worthy to behold the divine Transfiguration of the Lord.

The “Earthly Tent” …

From 2 Corinthians.

The Great Love of Mary Magdalen

Mary Magdalen is one of the great women of the Gospels. She appears so vividly, as one who loved much, who loved with the singularity and passion that expresses the mystery of being a woman. She was a “great sinner” whose passion misled her into prostitution — into being a slave to the superficial urges of the men who bought her and abused her. Yet something within her cried out in agony for real love.

Then she met Jesus. Her desire for human love was transformed into a “passionate chastity” beyond the world’s understanding. She devoted the whole energy of her womanhood to the transcendent singularity of following Him through all the depths of the drama of salvation, through the suffering and death, the loss, the burial in the tomb, and the returning to the tomb with an unknown hope. She found in Jesus not only the healing and strength to live in the fullness of her dignity as a woman, in real bodily chastity abundant in supernatural fruitfulness. She also became a witness to the Resurrection — the beginning of the New Creation — and was made the first herald of the victory of Jesus over sin and death.

“[Jesus] appeared in the garden and revealed himself to Mary Magdalene, who had loved him in life, witnessed him dying on the Cross, sought him as he lay in the tomb, and was the first to adore him, newly risen from the dead. He honored her with the office of being an apostle to the Apostles, so that the good news of new life might reach the ends of the earth” (from the Preface for the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalen).

Wheat, Mustard, Dough, and God’s Kingdom

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus once again presents parables about the coming of God's Kingdom. Pope Leo XIV commented on this reading in his Sunday Angelus address, and he emphasized that God does not follow the criteria of worldly powers in His ways of drawing us to Himself. 

God's omnipotence is the omnipotence of love. He gives Himself freely and draws forth from within us the response in freedom of our own adherence, transforming us through His enduring love rather than imposing Himself by violence. We are called to follow God's plan of love in our way of perceiving the circumstances of this present life and in our love for others: with patience, perseverance, respect for the dignity of every human person, and confident hope that the Father's love will prevail through the gift of His Son Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

This is not easy for us Christians. We want God to "win" — or, rather, we think we want Him to "win" — according to our ideas of earthly success, which cannot encompass the mystery of His love. It is easy to slip into the pattern of wanting the victory of goodness according to our own measure, as the vindication of our power to control our own lives and our presumed superiority over others. It is easy to forget the Cross. But we have hope, because the Lord's ways are ever-greater and He has come to dwell with us. He calls us continually to give ourselves, go beyond ourselves, adhere to Him, and — in union with Him and by the transfiguring grace of His Spirit — to love one another as children of the Father, as brothers and sisters; to love our neighbors and even our enemies.

Here is an excerpt from the Pope's words today (courtesy of Vatican website):

"Following the parable of the sower, Jesus continues to address the crowds using a series of images: the good wheat and the weeds, the mustard seed and the yeast in the dough (cf. Mt 13:24–43)...[;] through these parables, Jesus reveals something important about the manner in which God works in our lives and in history. 

"We sometimes expect God to do something spectacular; we want him to intervene from on high, immediately uprooting the weeds of evil. We imagine a strong and powerful God, and, unfortunately, we also model our way of being Christians and way of being the Church on this image. However, the Kingdom of God spreads even amidst the weeds, requiring us to train our vision so we can discern the good that sprouts despite the darkness of evil, and avoiding rash judgments. It comes like the smallest of seeds and thus calls for patience in accompanying these processes, so that we can recognize it in the little things of daily life and in the simplicity of ordinary existence. It grows invisibly like yeast in flour, and so we are freed from discouragement and invited to have faith even when it seems that God is absent. In fact, he is always with us, and his love is always ready to help us.

"God’s way of acting must also become the way in which we live, both as individuals and as the Church, amidst the reality that surrounds us. We are called to adopt a Gospel-centered approach, without hastily opposing others through arrogant judgments, without imposing ourselves through power and force, and without losing trust in God’s work.”

~Pope Leo XIV, Angelus of Sunday, July 19, 2026

My Brother's Cancer: We Pray and We Wait

How does one speak of these things?

July 18th is my brother's 65th birthday. This is an significant milestone on the path of life for anyone who reaches it, but Walter has never wanted to draw attention to his birthday.

And this year, of course, it's overshadowed by greater difficulties.

He is doing okay, all things considered. He is somewhat slowed down and energy-depleted (along with other symptoms that require regular medical attention). But Walter still keeps up his good spirits and his remarkable personal warmth that has always been the mark of his tremendous capacity for friendship and hospitality. He is very much loved by this community and our family. And Walter has a strong faith in Christ living in His Church, where he has for many years found his most important and fundamental sustenance.

So far, he manages with outward equanimity all the twists and turns and uncertainty of the first serious illness he's ever had in his life.

We are still waiting for his first cancer treatment. We pray and we wait.

What was first believed to be the notoriously fast and deadly “pancreatic cancer” earlier this year, has turned out to be something different — a neuroendocrine tumor in his pancreas, which has also spread partially to his liver.

This, of course, is very serious, but it's a much more slowly progressing tumor. It is inoperable, but it is a slow and peculiar kind of cancer, and there are treatments that can partially reduce it and slow it down even more.

He is slated for a new kind of treatment involving a special form of injected radiation therapy. I can’t explain all the details of what exactly this therapy does, because I don’t understand it very well. But it seems to be the best option right now. His first treatment was supposed to be July 17th. But now it has been postponed because of the interminable wheels of bureaucracy in the United States medical system.

As I understand it, the hospital is still in the process of convincing The Insurance Company and/or getting a sufficient commitment from The Insurance Company that this treatment will in fact be covered by The Insurance Company. Thankfully, there doesn’t seem to be any need to rush into this therapy at present. Still, sooner is better than later.

So the bureaucratic wheels grind away, and we know not when they will finally lock into place. Walter's first treatment (when it finally happens) will give us some indication of how well he's going to tolerate the therapy, and what kind of "side effects" it will have. He is more patient than I am, and he says, "Don't worry about me."

And I say, "How can I NOT worry about you?" The fact is, I feel everything intensely (often too intensely).

But besides that, I really love my brother.

I'm really troubled at heart by the struggles that he is already undergoing and that no doubt will continue. And of course, it's unthinkable to me that this person who's been very close to me since I was born, might soon no longer be in this world.

It's yet another step, obviously a bigger step for him, but in a way also a step for me, in recognizing mortality.

But more importantly, it is an opportunity for Walter — and all of us who love him — to grow in faith in Jesus Christ, who has truly defeated death. Jesus is with us, and His Spirit works within us the capacity to love the Father, to surrender ourselves to Him, and to live each day that is given to us for the glory of His Kingdom.

This is our ultimate hope and prayer. It is a mystery that we glimpse "through a mirror, darkly" (1 Corinthians 13:12). We journey in faith, hope, and love... step by step, in God's time.

Along this path, of course, we also pray for the cancer treatments. We pray they go well. We pray that perhaps he gets some, possibly even a few years of time and enough energy to remain with us on this earth. Of course, none of us knows the day or hour when the Lord will call us to Himself. God knows what is for our good, our true happiness; God’s wisdom designs with unfathomable love for each one of us the measure of our days, our personal path for learning the mystery of Love, for growing in love for Him and fulfilling our personal vocation so that we might dwell with Him forever.

That doesn't make something like cancer easy, or less strange for our poor humanity. Sometimes it's really frightening.

God knows this too. Here, especially, Jesus is with us, and He wants to stay with us and open His enormous Heart to bear our sorrows and make them fruitful. Jesus, save us!

Low Water

“Low Water” (July 2026).

Bonaventure's "Tree of Life"

Today is the feast of Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274), Bishop and Doctor of the Church, and early follower of the charism of Saint Francis of Assisi. This outstanding contemplative theologian bequeathed to the whole Church numerous writings that inspire and guide Christians in prayer, aiding them to dwell on the Person of Jesus Christ and grow in love for Him.

The Lignum Vitae presents twelve meditations on the life, death, resurrection, and glorification of Jesus. Bonaventure "imagines" these meditations as twelve branches and their fruits that extend outward from the Cross of Jesus. The Cross is the new tree of life, the fruit of which Jesus provides for us by His redeeming death that frees us from our sins.

Bonaventure's contemplative imagery was soon illustrated in brilliant detail by the late medieval Florentine painter Pacino di Bonaguida (around the year 1310) in his famous altarpiece which is pictured above (for more information and "high definition" views, open link HERE).

Of these compelling meditations, I wish to cite an excerpt from the final one, which addresses Jesus as the goal and fulfillment of all things:

"As all things are produced through the Word eternally spoken, so all things are restored, advanced and completed through the Word united to flesh. Therefore he is truly and properly called Jesus, because there is no other name under heaven given to men by which one can obtain salvation (Acts 4:12).

[Prayer]

"Believing, hoping and loving with my whole heart, with my whole mind and with my whole strength, may I be carried to you, beloved Jesus, as to the goal of all things, because you alone are sufficient, you alone are good and pleasing to those who seek you and love your name.

"For you, my good Jesus, are the redeemer of the lost, the savior of the redeemed, the hope of exiles, the strength of laborers, the sweet solace of anguished spirits, the crown and imperial dignity of the triumphant, the unique reward and joy of all the citizens of heaven, the renowned offspring of the supreme God and the sublime fruit of the virginal womb, the abundant fountain of all graces, of whose fulness we have all received."

~Saint Bonaventure, Lignum Vitae 48

A Seed Among Thorns

“The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit” (Matthew 13:22).

This is from today’s Gospel. I recognize myself here.

Worldly anxiety and the lure of riches… I struggle with the obstructing power of these “thorns.” The lure of riches, indeed. Not so much material riches (though I wouldn’t refuse them if they came my way), but the “riches” of scholarly knowledge and reputation and influence? Those thorns still threaten to choke me. 

Worldly anxiety? These are anxious times, and they call for a deepening of faith and trust. It’s easy to make exhortations about this, but the things of this life (even the good things) stir up a deeper possessiveness in us than we realize.

I am still too attached to “this world.” Lord, have mercy on me. Increase my faith. Jesus, draw forth from within my heart a greater trust in you, a greater love for you.

The "Search" of Saint Benedict

July 11th is the Feast of Saint Benedict.

Saint Benedict was a man who went off into the desert in search of God. He sought to dedicate himself to God alone.

He had no project.

He did not plan to establish a monastery.

He did not plan to found a religious order.

He did not plan the preservation of the classical learning and culture of ancient Greece and Rome.

He did not plan to feed the poor, care for the sick, found schools, or become a counselor to the great and powerful.

He did not plan to lay the foundations for so much of what was true, good, and beautiful in the remarkable Christian-inspired civilization of the Latin Middle Ages (notwithstanding its many great flaws and inadequacies).

He sought only to give himself to God. He found God in the desert. He found Him in silence and prayer. He also found Him in obedience, which for Benedict meant responding to the little things that God gave him. It meant loving God in those first followers who sought him out. It meant helping them to live together as brothers. It meant writing his directives down, as a rule "for beginners."

Silence, prayer, obedience, humility, love. These are still the things that really matter. These are the things that build up the heart of the Church and shine light on the pathways of our journey to eternal life. But we must acknowledge all of God's gifts: it is also this radical self-forgetfulness out of love for Christ that builds up the world. Saint Benedict was not aware of this, but God used him nonetheless, and for centuries in the West he has been known as the "Father of Europe." By seeking God after his example and according to his rule, Benedict's followers would also change the history of the world. Benedictine monasteries rose out of the ruins of the Latin Roman Empire, preserved and fostered valuable achievements of late antiquity, and inspired and helped shape the institutions of the new peoples who built Western Europe's Christian-inspired culture.

In the forgetfulness, distraction, and opaqueness of today's global epoch, with its immense material power and its many genuinely good (though often ill-directed) achievements and aspirations for a more equitable and humane world, are there "new Saint Benedicts" who are willing to forsake themselves to search for God and inspire others to join them?

The Second Decade of "Remembering Christina Grimmie"

Last month completed a decade of remembering the late, legendary Christina Grimmie by her frands worldwide. July 10th marks the first month of the second decade (i.e. ten years and one month) of our ongoing appreciation of the courageous young singer, songwriter, and musician, her gift of herself, and her legacy.

I have participated in the enduring phenomenon of "Team Grimmie" over that period, both through writing and various artistic projects generating memes and/or digital artistic images (mostly portraits) based on photographs of "still shots" from her many videos. Her remarkable face has led me to appreciate the delicate art of portraiture (in what ever medium it is pursued) as a way of "searching for the human face" in its unique expressiveness.

Over these past ten years, my attempts at portraiture are, at best, "incomplete," but nearly all of them fail to express the human visage — at once familiar and mysterious — with concrete precision or even in successfully evocative caricature. Christina has not been my only subject. I have accumulated a huge digital file which serves as something between a virtual wastepaper basket and a place to store partial efforts that I believe might still have some potential.

So-called tools of "artificial intelligence" have, in my experience, expedited a few technical matters but have engendered many more problems, as their "algorithmic prejudices" frustrate the intent of my particular artistic sensibility. I am not interested in generating images from descriptive words, but rather in molding the image in its "digital plasticity" which is a "hands on" work of practical design that ranges from photographic enhancement to a kind of two-dimensional digital "sculpture." I also form "natural scenes" based on my own photographs.

I'm moved by the human face, but I'm also in search of how all these new (and constantly changing) technologies might be gathered together as "materials" for a new form of genuine art. Art springs from the human urge to "make" something beautiful and the human "intuition" that guides and governs (with an often unyielding sternness) the creative process. Ultimately, the artist him-or-her-self must must be contented with the completion of the work. No technical "tricks" or shortcuts can substitute for the discrete prompting that leads the artist to construct a work of art as a personal expression.

When it first appeared more than a century ago, photography was spurned by "real artists," and it took generations for the photographic medium to become widely used and  recognized as a crafted image of personal expression and communication. Digital programs and AI will certainly improve their capacity to "generate pictures." But an artist remains frustrated insofar as an “independent process” replaces his or her own personal involvement — the "work" of bringing forth something beautiful from "within" but also "incarnated" through an engagement with external materials. An algorithmic fabrication of a picture — even a good picture — is something essentially different from an artistic work in which I have in some significant manner invested myself. It may seem that AI can do “everything” to make a great picture, but the artist feels no connection to these pictures, and becomes frustrated and bored. I still believe the artist can gather these technological materials and make something “different,” some that is — in a certain sense — “original,” even if the artist is the only one who “sees” it. Eventually, vivid new forms may be recognized more generally, and others will be able to distinguish genuine personal artistic expressions of beauty from AI’s mass-collated-data “imitations.”

Christina Grimmie wrote music, which I also did in my youth and may yet return to. But for now, she inspires me to wrestle with a brave new world of pictorial art, seeking human faces as I have "seen" them — which remains more difficult than it might seem, but remains an artistic task that I find worth discovering and cultivating.