The Virgin of Guadalupe in Her Own Words

It has become the custom of this blog to post, on this great Feast Day, two excerpts from the original account of the events of December 9-12, 1531, as dictated by Saint Juan Diego in the language of the Nahua peoples and recorded by an indigenous Mexican, Antonio Valeriano. These are Mary's words to Saint Juan Diego and to all of us, and they are an important complement to the singular icon that accompanies them.

Three times I have been a pilgrim to the Villa de Guadalupe, in 1999, 2002, and 2003. I have spent hours upon hours in her company, and I know the truth of what she says in these words. The icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe is not just a picture, and the greatest wonders that are worked through her are beyond all the observational and measuring techniques of the sciences.

The testimony of science to the inexplicable nature of the image and its preservation are enough to impress us and gain our attention.

But what matters above all is the dialogue that our Merciful Mother carries out with each of her children who seek her, cherish her, and bring to her their needs.

Readers will no doubt find this version slightly different from other versions they may have read. The Guadalupe account is translated in various ways from various sources (usually from Spanish translations of the original). I am using here the translation of the late Father Martinus Cawley, O.C.S.O., a lifelong scholar of Nahuatl and native Mexican texts, above all the critical edition of Antonio Valeriano's original account, known as the Nican Mopohua. Father Cawley endeavored to render into English the poetic cadence of the text, which corresponds to the rich aesthetic quality of the image.

To communicate herself and her Son, Mary entered a particular place, time, and culture. In the same way, she desires to dwell in a particular way with each one of us, in our families, our homes, and our communities.

In her company, we always find her Son and our Brother, Jesus. And through her we learn how much Jesus wants to stay with us.

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The words of Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego
(as presented in the Nican Mopohua):

"Do know this, do be assured of it in your heart,

My Littlest One,
that I Myself, I am the Entirely and Ever Virgin, Saint Mary,
Mother of the True Divinity, of God Himself.
Because of Him, Life goes on, Creation goes on;
His are all things afar, His are all things near at hand,
things above in the Heavens, things here below on the Earth.

How  truly  I wish it, how greatly I desire it,
that here they should erect Me My Temple!

Here would I show forth, here would I lift up to view,

here would I make a gift

of all My Fondness for My Dear Ones,

all My Regard for My Needy Ones,
My Willingness to Aid them,

My Readiness to Protect them.

For truly I Myself, 

I am your Compassionate Mother,
yours, for you yourself,

for everybody here in the Land,

for each and all together,
for all others too, for all Folk of every kind,
who do but cherish Me,

who do but raise their voices to Me,
who do but seek Me,

who do but raise their trust to Me.

For here I shall listen to their groanings, to their saddenings;
here shall I make well and heal up

their each and every kind of disappointment,
of exhausting pangs, of bitter aching pain."

. . . .

"Do listen,

do be assured of it in your heart, My Littlest One, 
that nothing at all should alarm you, should trouble you, 
nor in any way disturb your countenance, your heart.

And do not be afraid of this Pestilence,

nor of any other pestilence, 
or any rasping hardship.

For am I not here, I, Your Mother? 
Are you not in the Cool of My Shadow?

in the Breeziness of My Shade? 
Is it not I that am your Source of Contentment?

Are you not cradled in My Mantle?

cuddled in the Crossing of My Arms? 
Is there anything else for you to need?

Nothing else, though, should trouble you,

should disquiet you." 

Happy Mother's Day

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to two amazing, outstanding women, my own incredible wonderful wife Eileen Janaro, and the tremendous human being who is my mother, Joan Janaro. I love them both more than I can ever express, and I am grateful to them beyond measure. And Happy Mother's Day to all you good mothers, family and friends. Remember: you are GREAT! God bless you all.

Social Media post, May 11, 2014

Here is my beloved wife Eileen.

On Parenting and Encounter

It's particularly hard to be a parent in the secularist culture of the Western world today. But Eileen and I have been blessed to be surrounded by a group of friends who support one another in the task of giving their kids a complete education.

We see all the dangers and frustrations and dead ends in our society; some of us have been down these paths in the past. But we also see many possibilities for goodness and beauty and solidarity in our society -- many perennial human possibilities but also many new possibilities opened up by all that is genuine in this emerging new epoch.

The forces of corruption are pervasive, as is the tremendous damage that is being done to persons, relationships, communities, and the civil order. It's only human for us to want to be "protective" of our children.

So we protect them, certainly, by setting certain prudent "boundaries," but also by living so as to build an environment, together with our friends and their children, that allows them to grow and develop through the normal stages of childhood and youth. We thus engage life not with a reactionary ideology, but from inside the positive dynamic of human nature and redeeming grace: the life Jesus generates among us because he is present with us.

We live with Jesus, within the context of the family, supportive institutions, and the sacramental life of the Church. From this context we introduce our kids, in a pedagogical way, to the great potential, the challenges, and the struggles of adult life in this society.

Do I mean something more here than simply that "we want to raise good kids"?

Well, certainly we want to raise good kids.

With the right pedagogy, we hope to help our children cultivate a generous personality, an authentic understanding and empathy, and a sense of responsibility based on the truth -- a solid moral character.

These are all realistic and admirable goals.

But there is a problem that might arise. I might be inclined to take as a "given" the very purpose of everything else in life, to assume it in such a way that I forget about it or it loses focus. I want an intellectual and moral formation for my kids. But as the Pope said, "Christianity is not a new philosophy or a new form of morality. We are only Christians if we encounter Christ." (And this is not Pope Francis speaking. This is Benedict XVI, and he says this over and over.)

I want to help my children to be open to the love of Jesus. I want them to encounter Jesus, to be drawn by his love, and to follow him in the paths of their vocations.

It's especially easy among us Christians to focus on raising good, morally strong kids who have the right ideas. It's easy for us to talk about Jesus and the Church and faith, but forget that he is present with us, that he is drawing the hearts of each and every one of our children and shaping their destiny according to the mystery of his wisdom and love.

Our children belong to God. It's easy to forget that as parents our vocation is to have stewardship over them, and the environment in which they awaken to life and hear his voice.

Of course we want our kids to be moral, but why? It is because we want them to respond in love to the God who gives himself to us in Jesus. This is what life is all about. Our primary task as parents is to prepare our children to encounter Jesus and follow him.

And I have failed so often (in 17+ years of parenting) to be the instrument of God's love to my children, but I pray and I beg Jesus to shine through even my weakness, to touch the hearts of my children and draw them to him, to enable them to know that he loves them personally and calls them to share in his eternal life with the Father in the Spirit.

Our children have been created for this and given to us for this. How do we truly succeed in our task as parents?

I can only humble myself before the Lord and ask for his grace for my own life, for my wife and our marriage, and for our family. The infinite mercy of the heart of Jesus is my hope. May all our children encounter him in his mercy, and place their trust in him.

Finding God's Mercy in a Parking Lot: A True Story

Many years ago, when I was a graduate student living in Texas, I used to meet on Saturday mornings with a church group. We would pray the Rosary together in front of the local Women's Health Clinic. It was a small building with a path from the sidewalk directly to the front door. Next to it was a parking lot.

We were gathering in a public space in front of the clinic to pray. We also brought literature from a nearby Crisis Pregnancy Center, where some of us had connections. The brochures of the center were not shocking or upsetting. They offered other possibilities, concrete possibilities for pregnant mothers facing all sorts of difficulties. They offered committed personal support, as well as financial and other life-situation support, real support for the mother and her child.

Many pregnant mothers are driven to desperation because they don't know that there are people who will stand by them and help them. And it can be very difficult to reach these mothers to offer this kind of help. For us, the only practical way was to approach (as gently as possible) the women who were walking on the sidewalk from the parking lot to the clinic entrance. We would try to talk with them and listen to them if possible, or at least we hoped that they would take the brochure and consider it.

What we had to offer was real help, from a network of good and loving people. It's sad this offer was sometimes misunderstood, and that it was necessary to present it in such an awkward manner. But here were these women, these pregnant mothers, wrestling with so many pressures and influences: the pressures of insecurity and self-image, of society's expectations, or even the pressure of those who were supposed to be loving and taking care of them. Or perhaps they were ashamed, or angry, or afraid, or simply allowing themselves to believe the lie, and falling into the abyss of violence that opens up under the thin veneer of apparently easy solutions offered by this brutal and manipulative society. In such circumstances, one must risk offering help, even at the price of being awkward or misunderstood.

Not many women came to this particular clinic on Saturday mornings, as I remember. Still we prayed. Sometimes our turnout was small too. On this one Saturday morning, it was just myself and a little Hispanic woman who barely spoke English. After a little while, she told me that she had to go.

It would just be me, alone, with the brochures. It hardly seemed worth staying. But before she left, the woman held out a card to me and said, "take this." The card had a picture of Jesus on it, patterned after the painting of St. Faustina, with the inscription "Jesus I trust in You." There were prayers on the back of the card. The image was of the blood and water pouring forth from the heart of Jesus. The image of the Divine Mercy, the inexhaustible fountain of forgiveness and healing. Mercy.

Today, this icon, its prayers, and the chaplet of mercy are central to my life. But back then I did not know much. I thought, "Oh, another one of these cards; I have some of these at home and I really don't need...." But I took the card and thanked her. I wanted to be polite. After a moment of fiddling with the card, I stuck it in my back pocket and forgot about it.

Really, I just wanted to go home. I was not an experienced "sidewalk counselor" and I am not confrontational by nature. As I mentioned before, offering this literature was awkward. It was a gesture all to easily misunderstood.

Then a car pulled into the lot and parked. A woman got out of the car and began walking towards the clinic. I was terrified. "Why am I here by myself!?" I thought. But somewhere in the midst of all this I remembered that I was not alone. I represented the Pregnancy Center; I was there on behalf of a community of people who cherished the mother and her child, and were dedicated to fostering this relationship--with friendship and with material assistance--from the beginning. So I held out my trembling hand....

The woman was smartly dressed, and walked with a confident stride. She was probably in her thirties. I felt a certain relief just looking at her. And then she gave me something like a smile, and said, "Oh you don't need to worry about me. I'm just here for a pregnancy test." She looked at me with a bright, benevolent face and nodded to me.

I won't deny that I breathed a sigh of relief. She seemed kind, and very self-assured. A few minutes later she came out the door, and seemed to nod and smile at me again. I smiled back as she walked toward the parking lot. And I remained standing there, with my brochures and my rosary beads, looking at the clinic and thinking about how I really should be going home. The place was closing soon and there wasn't any reason to hang around....

"Excuse me," I heard suddenly, from the parking lot. "Excuse me, I want to ask you a question."

I looked over at the parking lot, and there she was, the nice woman who had come for a pregnancy test. She was sitting in her car with her window down. She must have been waiting in the car for several minutes, but I had not noticed.

"Sure," I replied.

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

I was taken aback. "Sorry, what?" I replied, a little confused.

The kindness and the smile were gone. Instead it was controlled (but very strong) anger and confrontation. "Who the hell do you think you are?" She yelled from the car.

Oh boy, I was thinking. This lady sat in the car for five minutes and then decided to have an argument with me? As I said, I'm not the confrontation type, but I knew my facts and I was ready to have an argument if that's what she wanted. So I walked toward the car in the parking lot and said something like, "What do you mean?"

The woman's features had changed. Her expression was full of righteous anger, and she was positively intimidating to this graduate school kid who spent most of his time reading books. Still, I went right up to the window of her car.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" She roared at me. "Trying to impose your beliefs on other people!"

I can't really explain what happened inside me at that moment. Part of it, frankly, was that I didn't want to get into a verbal slugging match with this lady. She was angry with me, I thought. But there was also something else; something inside me gave me the sense that the frequently hashed out "argument" that seemed about to begin wasn't really the point of our encounter. It was something else.

Who do I think I am? I wondered. Not much, but I am here to represent the pregnancy center. I don't even work at the pregnancy center, but I'm here to deliver their invitation, their offer of love.

And then some very gentle, unpremeditated words came out of my mouth. I spoke without any tint of argument, and I realized that I was speaking sincerely: "We are here to offer opportunities for the mother and the child. All we want to do is to love both the mother and her child."

She was not impressed, and continued to speak angry and confrontational words that I don't remember. Again and again I said (as if I were somehow being moved to say it), "All we want to do is to love both the mother and her child."

"All we want to do is to love both the mother and her child."

Her anger began to abate slightly. "Well," she said, "You don't sound like most pro-lifers I run into!"

I was not going to go down that road. I only had one thing to say, and every time I said it, it came straight from the heart and filled with some mysterious compassion that was not my own. Love.

"All we want to do is to love both the mother and her child."

"Well," she said, "if more pro-lifers talked like you, maybe people would listen." She had calmed down, and was making an effort to continue her remonstrative tone.

I didn't know anything about who she may have encountered in the past. I just kept listening to her, and spoke quietly about giving help and love and support to the mother and the child. I was just a kid barely out of college who didn't know much about life, whose own heart was crying out for mercy, leaning at the car window of a professional, accomplished woman who looked like she could have been any of the women that I see every day.

It seemed like she was having a burst of temper about issues and people who bothered her. But she was cooling off. It was clear that, really, she was a nice lady.

She was just a human person.

I was someone who gave out literature for the pregnancy center. I didn't work there. I was someone who read (and occasionally wrote) articles, and voted pro-life. I also prayed and carried signs. I'd prayed at many clinic buildings, but someone else was almost always giving out literature, trying to communicate with the women, the mothers. All of these were worthwhile activities.
I knew the issues. I had read many things. I certainly had empathy for the poor women, in a kind of abstract way. 

But I had no experience whatsoever to prepare me for what was about to happen. I had no idea.... 

"All we want to do is to love both the mother and her child."

The falling water came suddenly, like the bursting of a dam. The water gushed. Suddenly this woman was crying and sobbing, crying with a deep sadness, weeping, sobbing. I was stunned. What was happening? I had never in my life seen a person weep with such desperation and pain and sorrow.

I said nothing, but I found that I was not "uncomfortable" or embarrassed. I simply stayed there with her, present to her, a companion to her anguish. At some point I had begun to realize that grace was at work. This was grace. I was a stupid sinner, but it didn't matter. The Holy Spirit wasn't being picky. God wanted this woman to know that she was loved.

She slowly struggled, attempting to regain the control that she had practiced for so long. She struggled, kept weeping, then breathed and tried to speak to me.

"When I was... ... ... in high school... ... ... ... ... I had... ... ... ... I had an abortion."

And she wept more. And with the tears she continued, "my parents... I was so afraid... I just couldn't tell my parents... I couldn't...."

Then she looked at me with her great wet eyes and asked, "What can I do?"

I didn't know anything about the beautiful ministries that help women to find healing after abortion (see links below). This was many years ago; I'm not sure what was even available for something like this. I certainly didn't know about it. I stood in front of the unimaginable pain of another person who was seeking something from me. Where had it all come from?

"Love the mother and the child."

Love. Was it really so powerful, after all? Was this what was at the root of everything: this terrible, marvelous, desperate hunger for real love? What would we discover if we could all see behind the faces of one another for a moment? How poor we are in front of each other. We want to love and be loved, but the hunger seems overwhelming. We grasp at whatever is at hand in life, knowing that it's not enough, misusing it, ruining it, trying to satisfy our hunger and finding no food. It's not surprising that we are so afraid of life, so afraid of love, so afraid of one another. Such a vast hunger. How can we be fed? What do we have to give?

"Ask God to forgive you," I said, "pray to God and ask Him for forgiveness."

The words came very simply. Ask God.

And then I suddenly remembered. The little Hispanic lady. She gave a card with the image of Divine Mercy. The image of Jesus. It was in my back pocket. I grabbed it.

"Here," I said. "Take this. Pray to Jesus. Ask Jesus to forgive you."

"I will," she answered, looking at the card, at that Face. "Thank you."

"I'll pray for you," I said.

"Thank you." And she drove away. I don't remember, but its possible that the motor had been running all along.

She drove off into the enormous city, so many years ago. I never saw her or heard anything about her again. I am ashamed to say that, over these many years, I have too often forgotten to pray for her, for this woman, this broken mother whose name I never knew. I pray for her now.

Since then I've come to know quite a few women who have had abortions. They are among my friends and family. I probably know many more than I realize, because there are so many, and it remains such a secret pain in a society where "everything is permitted but nothing is forgiven."

I've also learned about the tremendous healing work done by ministries such as Project Rachel and Rachel's Vineyard (please click these links, look at them, and go to them if you or someone you know has need). Forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing really can happen for mothers, and also for their husbands or boyfriends (i.e. fathers), or anyone else who has shared in this kind of trauma.

Please pray for my friend in the parking lot on that day long ago, and for all mothers who weep for their children.

The Mothers of Anguish

Relationships are fundamental to the identity of the human person. Each of us is made to love and to be loved, and this reality is inscribed in our humanity. Even as we come forth from the hand of God, we are conceived in flesh and blood drawn forth from our ancestors.

We are made for love, and so we are given our very existence within the context of a human relationship.

We come into the world in a state of complete dependence and reliance upon another person to whom we have been entrusted in the most intimate and fundamental way. That person, in turn, is invested with an ineradicable and unique responsibility for each one of us, a responsibility that she will never be able to separate from her own self.

This is the radical bond that unites the child with his or her mother.

Some would have us believe that this bond can be cast aside or terminated by a procedure that in reality is a terrible act of violence. This act, known as abortion, succeeds in killing an innocent human being.

But it fails, utterly, to break the bond between the mother and child, a bond that is more profound than physical death.

This is not a case in which the child ceases to live due to some undesired, tragic accident. Rather, here the mother seeks to put aside the very existence of her child; this is true to some degree even when she does not fully understand what she doing, or when she is acting under extreme distress. Nevertheless, there is a profound sense in which what she seeks is impossible. Even if her child dies by a procured abortion, the woman remains a mother, and she lives with this fact no matter how much she may deny it, and even if no one else knows about it.

The relationship remains; it is greater than any human power, and it cannot be unmade by any human power.

So often these mothers find themselves in frightening, awful circumstances, enduring abuse, hounded by the pressure and manipulation of others. But in being separated from their children by abortion, they find not freedom, but a weight of emptiness. They become the mothers of anguish.

These mothers are everywhere; they live on your street, they pass you on the sidewalk or in the aisles of the grocery story, they are your co-workers, they are sitting in the subways you ride, they are at the gym, the restaurant, the tennis court, the pool. They are in every crowded room, in the building where you work, they are your doctors, lawyers, teachers, classmates, they are members of your church, they are your friends.

They are often accomplished women; they may be full of warmth, genuine affection, and empathy. They may be social, outgoing, witty, expressive and full of laughter and smiles. They hide from us their haunted dreams and their tears. Sometimes they succeed in burying their anguish, blocking it from their own awareness even for years. But it never goes away.

Millions of these people wander through all the world. We hear statistics about abortion, and we should remember that behind every one of those numbers there is a mother who has failed, and who carries the weight of that failure. It has become her awful burden. But it also remains as a possibility for hope.

The relationship between mother and child remains, and so there is the possibility for reconciliation and healing. Still, the mother needs help. She needs others who are willing to listen to the agony and sorrow that pour out of her soul. She needs to know that she is loved, not in a condescending way, but in a humble companionship that affirms that we all depend on an ineffable and inexhaustible mercy.

So many mothers hide from their pain, distract themselves, and pass through life with a dark sense that their loss is forever, that they carry a deep and excruciating wound that must remain hidden, that the world refuses to recognize, and that they cannot speak about even to themselves.

But there are roads to healing, and places of healing. We must all do what we can to help people find the way. We must invite them to be with us and to walk with us on the path of love. But there is no place on this path for the self-righteous, for we all stumble, and we all fail in our responsibility to accept and bring to fruition the gifts that have been given to us.

We cannot "help" anyone except out of the awareness that we ourselves need forgiveness and healing for so many things. Our task is not to put ourselves forward as superior to others, but rather to indicate -- in poverty and humility, but also with unshakable conviction -- where hope can be found.

Who am I to speak of any of this? I'm just a poor man with a blog, a disabled man, still crushed by the fact that he is incapable of doing the job he loves. What do I have to offer? I've tasted the bitterness of life, but I have been healed and wounded (in a different way) by mercy; I have a heart, I can listen, I am not shocked or surprised by anything, and I condemn no one.

I know that every person I meet is broken and yet loved by an Infinite Love. I haven't always known this. I've had to learn it, and I continue to learn it every day. I know that the road of mercy opens up before me, and I know that I must share it with others. I must share with them this unconquerable hope that is greater than all our failures.

Mothers (and fathers) who are in anguish for children lost through abortion can find hope and healing through programs such as Project Rachel and Rachel's Vineyard Ministries. Never give up hope.

"The Janaro Family" Turns Sixteen Years Old

John Paul at maybe three or four months old.

So do you have a little baby in the house? On June 1, 1997 we had our first little baby at three o'clock in the morning. I guess I'm supposed to say something like, "Gee, it feels like it just happened yesterday!"

Actually, no. It doesn't feel that way at all. It was, in fact, sixteen years ago. Since then, I've lived half my adult life (note, I said "adult" life, which was preceded by 18 years of "pre-adult" life... you don't need to do the math). Four daughters have come after him, and many things have happened since then.

Sometimes I'll come across a book and realize that its been 16 years since the last time I read it. That feels unusual. Light in August by William Faulkner... I just read that recently, didn't I? No, actually, I was reading it while we were waiting for John Paul to be born. That seems like "yesterday."

John Paul at the age of sixteen.

But with my son there is a relationship. There has been a certain intersubjectivity* (n.b. *large philosophical word) between father and son, and with the other members of the family. It is the history of a relationship and a larger context of relationships that has grown and changed from year to year. My own childhood years seem very long in my memory. In a way, his years seem long too, at least when I think of the time in terms of our relationship and the subsequent development of our family up until the present.

John Paul was born like a little boxer, shaking his fists and wailing but also looking me straight in the eye with what appeared to be a sense of awareness and intelligence. Smart little feller.

He was the beginning of our family. He was the one who made me look at myself for the first time and say, "I'm a father." It put fear and trembling into me.

We're all growing together. At every point, I feel a more profound sense of helplessness: "How am I going to be a father to this (these) child (children)?" Somehow, Eileen and I have found the resources for every stage thus far. We are flawed parents raising flawed children, but we are also blessed and lifted up by grace and carried all along the way.

What does a father do? I don't have a clear "formula;" its a gift that keeps unveiling itself. A father loves his wife, and is grateful for her. He spends a lot of time on his knees begging God for help. He tries to teach and love and discipline with a trust in the grace of vocation and the providence that makes a family, as well as a healthy awareness of the "organic" reality that nurtures, in time, both interrelationships and the individual uniqueness of each person in a family. He never gives up on paternal tenderness, even when he fails every day. He prays together with the family. He prays alone, for the family. He prays and works with his wife, and trusts above all in the grace of Jesus present through the sacrament they share in marriage.

He is aware of the failures of his children, he is patient, he instructs, he corrects, but always he forgives. He does his best to be a man, but doesn't try to prove his manhood in some artificial way, and doesn't get insecure about his own weaknesses, because everyone is weak... (and fathers will be confronted with their human weaknesses in so many ways). He doesn't withdraw or hide. He just keeps getting up again, and keeps working on it.

Oscar Romero: Stop the Repression...of Any Human Life!

The Servant of God Oscar Romero

On the evening of March 24, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot and killed as he began the offertory of the Mass in the chapel of Divine Providence hospital in San Salvador. For three years he had preached fearlessly against the growing violence in his archdiocese and in his homeland of El Salvador.

There is a bravery about the basic story line of Romero that is deeply inspiring, that resonates powerfully in the human soul. In the years after his death his heroic image has been used to promote all sorts of political agendas. He is widely admired in the affluent secularized Western culture, which nevertheless keeps his true figure at a safe distance. But the poor still love him, and have an instinctive sense of the real value of his life.

Oscar Romero always said that his desire was to do God's will in the particular circumstances that had been entrusted to him. He wanted to follow Christ. He was a Catholic bishop immersed in what was the beginning of a long and horrible civil war. He was a Latin American bishop. His lifelong commitment was to be faithful to Christ and to the Church. He defended the dignity of every human person, not simply for the sake of "civil rights" or as the leader of an NGO, but because he loved Jesus Christ.

He served the poor and the defenseless, recognizing that Jesus gives transcendent value to every effort to relieve suffering and render the conditions of life more human, even as He transforms from within the inescapable suffering that must be borne. In loving the poor Romero loved Jesus, incarnate, God made man at the center of history, Jesus living, transfigured, crucified and risen forever.

He truly loved human dignity and fought for real justice against real forces of evil, and it was precisely his recognition of Christ's humanity that empowered him to do so. It was not his own courage, or his sentiments, or his ideology. It was Christ. This is why he could hear the voice of Christ in the cries of his people and in the teaching authority of the Church to which he adhered with unwavering fidelity.

It is also what made him prophetic. For those who want to listen, his voice speaks with consistency about all kinds of human repression. Romero had a clear and simple vision, because it was the Church's vision, which sees that the commitment to real social justice and the defense of the preciousness of human life cannot be separated.

He remains relevant for post-modern Latin America, where the dictators of old are gone but the dictatorship of relativism is growing stronger. He remains relevant for bishops in Latin America and throughout the world, who are still called to defend with their very lives the dignity of every human person, created by God, redeemed by Christ, and destined to be transfigured by His glory.

In this 33rd anniversary of his heroic death, I want to present a few texts of Archbishop Romero. The final text is familiar (along with so much of his great testimony), but the others are not so well known. But they too are the words of a courageous man of faith, a man of the Church, and a man who really loved his people.


I. Notes from the day of his priestly ordination, April 4, 1942:

Yes, Christ!
By your Sacred Heart
I promise to give myself entirely for your glory ...
I want to die this way:
in the middle of work,
fatigued by the journey
 tired and weary ...
I will recall your toils
and they will be the price of redemption.

II. Life, Marriage, and Family:

One of evils of public life in El Salvador was the "discreditable propaganda for, and imposition of, anti-birth policies that are practically castrating our people and are undermining their reserves of morality" (Fourth Pastoral Letter, 1979 #19).

From a sermon: "As one medical student said and, forgive me for saying this: they are castrating our people. There is massive sterilization of women and men. Contraception materials are freely and shamelessly distributed with no fear of punishment. I implore you to reflect seriously on this matter because the source of life is as sacred as life itself and the relationship between woman and man, sanctified in matrimony, has a dual objective: to love one another and to enter into full and complete intimacy with one another not only for pleasure but also for procreation. Therefore the principle of the Church states that every conjugal act has to remain open to life and anything that disrupts life at its very source is a sin against nature" (Sermon, June 17, 1979).

Regarding abortion: "My sisters and brothers, this is a crime. If we experience repression when young women and men as well as adults are killed, then the same must also occur when life is removed from the womb of a woman. The life that is destroyed in a woman’s womb is the same that occurs when a person is assassinated or when the Minister of Education is assassinated. When the child is aborted from the mother’s womb, that child is also assassinated [emphasis mine]. If life is deprived of coming into existence because one is simply seeking pleasure, then this is also an assault on nature" (Sermon, June 17, 1979).

III. Stop the Repression:

A direct appeal to the military and the police: "No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order. The Church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be carried out at the cost of so much blood. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression" (Homily, March 23, 1980).

The following evening, on the Vigil of the Feast of the Annunciation, a single bullet pierced his heart as he began the offertory prayer of the Mass. His journals and other evidence show clearly that he had offered his life to Christ, although he considered himself unworthy of it. But he died as he had prayed from the beginning, as a priest:

I want to die this way:
in the middle of work.... 

Family Is An Ongoing Adventure

We had a happy celebration of John Paul's 15th birthday. He also celebrated the last day of school at Chelsea Academy, where he had an excellent freshman year of high school. We are very proud of him.

Fifteen years. It just doesn't seem possible. In my memory, I feel like I can just walk right into those days when he was born. I can close my eyes and practically inhabit that time, remembering the sights and sounds and smells: He was very late in coming. Eileen and I kept watching videos, and sitting on our old futon couch in the first house, waiting days and days for something to happen. We read our books (I was reading a Faulkner's Light in August, which I finished before he was born). We went out to Washington D.C. to the art museum, hoping that perhaps Beauty might encourage the kid to get moving (by then he was over a week late). We went to an Ethiopian restaurant in Georgetown, mainly because we loved the food, but also joking about our hope that the ancient wisdom and tangy spices of the descendents of King Solomon might be medicinal (Gosh! It's been fifteen years since we've been to an Ethiopian restaurant?? Now that just won't do at all!).

And then, finally, seeing him for the first time, crying and clenching his fists like a little boxer. It's all there in my memory, in a way that is more vital and supple than anything could be on any media device of human invention. It's internal to me, as are all the years that followed--years of being a father (a status that once seemed so strange and new, but that has become fundamental to my character as a human being).

These past fifteen years have been rich with experience and joy and suffering. John Paul has four sisters, Eileen and I have learned much about each other, and marriage, and that Jesus is worthy of our trust even in (especially in) the dark places. We have also learned that being a family is an ongoing adventure. As our kids move into adolescence, we feel like we're becoming parents again for the first time.

In a sense, John Paul is being "born" into adulthood in these years. His physical growth is obvious, but a more profound development is taking place in the soul, the mind, the heart--in his "self-awareness." We have done what we can so that John Paul could grow up knowing that he is loved. We have been far from perfect in this, and we can only trust in the mercy of God to bring good even out of our weakness.

And now we are doing our best to guide him, and to foster an environment in which he can begin to take the first steps of mature freedom.

Fr. Carron recently put it this way: "youth is the time of the You." It is the time for the person to discover that he or she belongs to Another, and to begin to hear the call of that Other. The great energy of freedom awakens to its dramatic possibilities.

For me as a father, it means learning new ways of being present for my child. It means a greater commitment to struggle against the sloth that continually creeps in and inclines me to treat my children as appendages of myself. It means growing in my own awareness of my dependence on the One who has given me this vocation. Day by day, I place my trust in His grace.

A Day Of Penance

What can I say to reflect on the events of this day, and on the meaning of the profound and pervasive violence that afflicts our culture?

Abortion.

No one wants to think about it. Yet it's an epidemic. Violence against a defenseless child in the womb of his or her mother. Violence against a woman, who is so often left alone and desperate in a time when she is most in need of help. A kind of secret violence against this most intimate and fundamental relationship between human beings that cries out for love, support, and protection. Why is this happening in the world? We know it's not just America. Contemporary Western culture spreads this epidemic wherever it goes. Nevertheless, earnest and sincere people, who affirm the importance of human dignity, who deplore wars and conflicts between nations, seem to go blind when it comes to this fact.

There are many particular ways to approach this silent catastrophe, to work to extend legal protection to the life of every human being, and to support mothers and sustain the necessary and precious bond between mothers and their children in the womb. I agree with the way these things are addressed by many dedicated, compassionate, and articulate people. What can I add to everything that they have said? I am struck by a fundamental problem. It is the problem that strikes me again and again.

To put it very simply: What is the foundation of the dignity of the human person? The foundation is very important. It's what keeps something from blowing away when the wind gets rough. We live in a world in which there is a strong intuition, inclination, and sentiment in favor of this dignity. But that awareness and that sentiment can be uprooted in frightening ways, in the face even of compelling scientific evidence, when there is no foundation.

The dignity of the human person is founded upon--indeed consists in--his or her being created in the image of God, and his or her eternal destiny in God. The human person is the image of God. Whatever condition he or she may be in, the human person is always a someone, and therefore can never be reduced to the status of a mere thing.

The image of God. Dwell on this for a moment. The only appropriate response to the image of God is love.

God has become obscure for contemporary Western culture. And with the loss of the sense of God comes this strange paradox: even as we become more sensitive to various aspects of the dignity and value of the person, we have no way of bringing them together, and no criteria for how to apply them in complicated and difficult situations.

We would like to think we are building a kinder and gentler world. But violence pours in upon us from every side. Even as we become more attentive and more skilled in the art of saving lives in some places, we completely disregard the value of human life in others. We are divided against ourselves: wanting peace but waging war, wanting community but building walls of isolation, seeking healing yet constantly hurting one another. We want to build something beautiful and what emerges from our hands is a grand and spectacular monstrosity.

Such is the world in which God is obscured, and even the most sincere and ardent assertions and feelings about human dignity lose their bearings and cannot engage real life, real human situations, sufferings, and frailty.

I look at myself, and I see how hard it is for me to love my own children. It is not enough to acknowledge God. We must open our hearts and let ourselves be loved by Him, and love Him in return. And still the path is narrow, the path that leads to God and passes through the relationships He gives me with the real human persons who are in my life. Yet I know that here is His gift; here is where I find His face.

With all of this, my life is still full of violence, full of the daily failure to recognize the dignity of the human person in the faces of my own children, full of the forgetfulness of God.

On a day of penance, I must first of all beg forgiveness for my own sins, and resolve to take up once again the arduous struggle for healing and renewal. I do so, however, with confidence, because He offers Himself to me in His mercy. My hope and my strength is in Him.

But people try to build the world while pretending that God does not exist. How can anyone expect such a world to respect human life?

Still there is in the confused hearts of people this desire for a better world, and a better, truer life for themselves. People carry this desire in them along with all their violence that weighs them down; it endures, perhaps as a cry for help, a cry that recognizes the need for something else. In the spirit of a "day of penance," we must also take this cry into our own hearts and turn it toward the love of God: "Have mercy on us and on the whole world!"

Far From Home, Near to My Heart

Well, the weekend is over and Eileen is back in Baltimore. We had a nice (inexpensive) dinner and a walk down Main Street in the twilight to celebrate our Anniversary. And we had thoughtful, uninterrupted conversation, which is never something to be taken for granted in a house of five kids who are always expressing themselves.

I love my time with my wife. We were good friends for five years before--how can I put this?--the "opportunity" was given for us to discover that we loved each other. For a short period of that time (when we first met), we both lived in the Washington D.C. area, but then she went to Texas to pursue graduate studies at the University of Dallas (where she eventually earned her first Masters Degree in English Literature). I lived for a year in Italy. We continued to be friends even as we pursued (what appeared to be) diverse paths thousands of miles away. During the whole time we corresponded, by that ancient form of technology known as "the letter."

The New Media are great, and I know many long term relationships that have been sustained by email, and now even Skype, but this was 1990-1995, at the very end of the Age of the Handwritten Letter. And I must say that I am very glad. Eileen and I have a stack of handwritten letters from each other, which we can still read and laugh over, and the very ink and paper and handwriting bring back the times of our youth, and the words are written with a personal care that reveals a closeness that we shared but did not as yet understand.

I was a young man studying theology, with no money and no idea even of what continent I was going to live on. She was dedicated to literature and then teaching, at a school in Texas to which she seemed very committed. Then in 1995, after my first year as a professor at Christendom, Eileen's situation in Texas changed, and she decided to move to Virginia. I had a job and she was here and it took only a week for us to realize that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

Eileen and I have been specially blessed, in that we love many things in common besides each other. We love to share things together, to look at things together, and to discuss the significance of things. We love art and literature and good food and the task of education, to which we are both devoted, and which we feel responsible to carry out in some way together. Obviously, this entails first the education of our own children, but also the profession we share leads us to look outward toward the work of forming other young minds and hearts.

Marriage is a beautiful thing, because it is more than just the grand romance of loving each other, but also the vocation of loving and building up the world together. The family is the immediate experience of this; the amazing realization that God has brought you together not just for each other, but also for the sake of these other persons who he has willed and loved for all eternity. The life of children! What a miracle!

To share an educational mission that encompasses our children and also reaches out into the community and society is a special grace and a particular path; thus, as Eileen pursues tasks in Baltimore necessary to our journey on that path, I feel--in spite of the physical distance--especially close to her.

Mothers Day

I hope everyone had a Happy Mothers Day. We certainly did. There is a happy Mommy with some of her girls (and, yes, "Uncle Walter" in the background). There is also a picture to prove that I bought flowers for my wife. We also got some for my own dear mother (my parents came over for the day), and they got some for Eileen. It was a nice circle of exchanging gifts of flowers.

Mothers Day is a very happy day for many people. It is a day to celebrate family life, rejoice in its blessings, and be grateful to those who embrace its burdens with generous hearts.

But for others it may be difficult. Some mothers and children are estranged from one another because of discord or misunderstanding. Some mothers have passed beyond this world, and are deeply missed. Some are reminded by this day of their desire to be mothers, and of the frustration of that desire by circumstances. Some are pained by the memory of children they lost, or of children never born because of the tragedy of miscarriage.

Nor can we forget mothers who have lost their spouses or children to the devastation of war, or the many disasters that we read about in the news or watch on TV or the internet with a certain dispassion. No one knows the fragility of life more intimately than a mother whose child's life has been cut off by the seemingly implacable forces of natural or human violence. Their grief appears inconsolable.

And then there are some who carry the awful burden of having chosen to end the life within them, of having chosen to deny their own motherhood. Whatever the world says, they know in their hearts that this desperate choice has left an open wound that cries out for healing and forgiveness. They too are mothers. Their bodies have nurtured human beings, persons loved by God, but some confusion or fear or selfishness drove them to end that nurturing relationship in the womb. This violence haunts their souls. Even if they have completely suppressed the memory of it, still it cannot fail to puncture their awareness in hidden moments. It cannot fail to bring moments of sadness that reveal the anguish that lies deep within.

These are the poorest and saddest mothers in the world.

They need forgiveness. And the good news is that there is forgiveness. Forgiveness has a name: Jesus. No poverty, no sadness is beyond His reach.

What alternative could there be? Begging to the Creator of all things for forgiveness, hoping that He who transcends all things might answer such a plea, and bring healing to an incurable wound? What else could a human being do, left to his or her own efforts? What else could I do?--I who presume to instruct others while my own heart is not free from the violence of denying or falsifying the realities of my daily life. After all, who am I? Another human being in need of forgiveness.

What a wonder, that Forgiveness has come into the world, that Forgiveness is present in a human way. There is a place in the world where He has promised, always, to remain. He is with us. He has risen from the dead. He has found that which was irretrievably lost; He can restore all that has been squandered by our guilt. Let us go to Him, whatever pain we may bear.

The forgiveness of God became a man, born of a woman, a mother. For all mothers, happy or sorrowful or burdened with regret, there is the tremendous sign and gift of this Mother. She knows the joys and the sorrows of every mother, and her heart is full of compassion for those who took the life of her Son. She is a vessel of forgiving love, pouring out healing on so many wounds.

Our hope becomes concrete in the recognition of that real Mother. Mary is a Mother. That means that salvation is not a dream; it is not an idea that people have invented to cope with evil and guilt and death. Salvation is a man, who entered our history because a woman said "yes" to motherhood.

This is the deep joy, and the unconquerable hope, of Mothers Day.

Wheat and Weeds

Tonight I am going to post, as my own blog entry, a comment I made on someone else's blog. This is someone who writes for the NCRegister blog; in other words, people actually read her blog posts (I know, I have some followers--and I thank you very much--but I have never gotten 45 comments). The topic of her post was posed as a question: is the world getting worse? Her answer is thought-provoking, and the comments are wide-ranging and sometimes feisty. This is what one would expect for such a broad question that can be approached from many different angles.

I don't really want to raise the question in its totality, but merely record a particular recollection that it provoked in me. This is not an answer to the question, nor is it a complete argument; indeed it's not even a fully developed thought. For those who want to debate the question (or for anyone else who is interested), I would recommend you visit the NCRegister blog: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/is-the-world-getting-worse/ These are some thoughts and impressions that I have on the strangeness of the simultaneous presence of good and evil in the world, the strange interweaving of good and evil that constitutes the society in which we live and which, in varying ways, affects each one of us. Here it is:

I wonder, is the world getting worse and better, at the same time? In Jesus's parable, the wheat and the weeds grow together until the harvest. As our power over the natural world and our awareness of our dignity as persons grows, so grows the range of our capacity for good or for evil. I am speaking of course of its social manifestation on a wide scale; not about the goodness or evil of this or that individual human being. An example from my own experience might help illustrate what I mean.

We had a premature baby who spent seven months in the neonatal intensive care unit of a large urban hospital. Our baby's life was saved and preserved by the application of human knowledge and resources and the dedication of highly trained and deeply concerned people, who were doing the same thing for hundreds of babies who had greater issues and whose lives were even more precarious than ours. The cost was immense, but beyond insurance there was a special government provision for child health care that paid every penny (to read more about our little Josefina, now four years old, see my previous post: http://johnjanaro.blogspot.com/2011/02/our-josefina.html).

I saw at work here a marvelous human goodness that was undeniable and a human capacity unimaginable in any previous era of history. But in another part of that very same large urban hospital, abortions were performed, every single day. The same government that pays millions of dollars to insure that rich and poor babies alike can receive this amazing level of care also approves and permits babies of the same age and condition to be killed. Great good and great evil, growing side by side.

Ultimately only God can measure the depths of the human condition, and the merit or the guilt of human hearts. This indeed He has already done, once for all time, on the Cross. But looking at "the world" in the only way we can, I think we shall see what we have always seen in human history: ambivalence. And the dramatic increase of human power in our times means an increase in the capacity to do wonderfully good things and in the capacity to perpetrate atrocities. The wheat and the weeds grow together.

Empress of the Americas (that means all of us)

There is much discussion about the social problems that plague our country today. Good Catholics that I know tend to agree on social issues where the moral point is clear, such as abortion and pornography. But I find many diverse opinions on more debatable issues such as how to deal with economic problems, what to do about health care, foreign policy, etc. One particularly thorny problem is that of immigration reform, and our relationship with our neighbors to the south. I don't know how to solve this problem, and I respect the diverse and difficult concerns that my Catholic friends raise on various sides of the issue. As I develop my own thoughts on this matter, however, I do find myself compelled to place it within a broader context which I believe has been indicated to us Catholics in the United States by the Universal Church.

I believe that we Anglo-American Catholics are called to a special solidarity with our southern neighbors, especially Hispanic Catholics. This conviction arises not only from historical and geographical circumstances, but also and in particular from the plea of the Pope and the bishops of this hemisphere at the Synod on America, which resulted in the publication of the Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in America (1999)--I was privileged to be present in Mexico City when this document was promulgated, and my attendance at related papal events has permanently imprinted upon me the deep significance of the need for solidarity among the peoples of "the American continent." And this solidarity is rooted in a particular way in our being placed--in common--under the patronage of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

I have made three times a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe; her presence on our soil is a special blessing that has never ceased to astonish me and fill me with hope; she is indeed the Mother of all who dwell in what she called "this land" back before there were any borders. For Americans, in my opinion, this is not just another Marian devotion (for us especially, but not only for us, because the reality at the shrine is a living miracle; as an image of Mary, nothing like it exists--it is as scientifically inexplicable as the Shroud, and the only way to describe it is to say that it is the "presence" of Mary, as she told St. Juan Diego, "build me a house," and "I will dwell there"). We Americans must come to know Our Lady of Guadalupe, we should have her image in our homes and in our hearts, we should pray to her for healing of the ills that beset our country and our continent.

What I have just said is supremely relevant to the actual social issues in our country today, and to how we approach them. To be sure, we deal hands on with specific problems. We are human beings. But God became man. He wants to live the details of our lives with us, and bring forth with us the fruits of community, solidarity, healing, and peace. He wants to build up among us the social goal we seek: a culture of life. Even more, He Himself--present, acknowledged, celebrated, and loved--is the culture of life, because "He is life" and even those who don't know Him seek Him insofar as they seek the truth about life.

If we want a culture of life, we must first of all ask Him for life. We must pray. We all think that we already know this, but I don't think we really understand what this means for how we live and think and make decisions. I don't understand it. I will forget about God within five minutes after I finish writing this. But I think it has something to do with prayer being at the center of our decisions and actions, rather than floating around the periphery. In prayer is the awareness that we depend totally on God and that He is present, now, with us in Jesus Christ. This is at the center, at the core, at the depths of every moment and every thing. This is what it is all about. How easy this is to forget.

God gives us signs to help us remember. For America, one of the great signs is Our Lady of Guadalupe. Let's face it, in the United States we know very little of her, pray very little to her, and care very little about her. This is a SHAME. She is our Mother, and she is HERE (if you go you will understand what I mean). Even if we can't visit her, we can honor her, we can recognize this extraordinary presence among us, who is closer to where we live than many of our own relatives.

Let me close with a bold statement. I do not believe that we Catholics will succeed in any of our hopes for the future of the United States unless we place Our Lady of Guadalupe at the center. She didn't come here for nothing. She has a plan. The Virgin is very concrete--she is, after all, a woman dealing with little children. Let us embrace her plan for America.

Oh, and P.S.--The first copy of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe ever to reach Europe was displayed on board the flagship of the Christian fleet that defeated the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. If you know your history, you know that the loss of that battle would have resulted in the destruction of Christian Europe. The Ottoman Empire would have ruled from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. There would have been no one to found the United States.

So who knows what kind of plans she has....

START NOW: Download and print your own color reproduction of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Go to this website--http://www.sancta.org/downloads.html

And if you want to know more about Our Lady of Guadalupe, please ask me.

Our Josefina

I think today's blog will be about Josefina. She is my youngest daughter, aged four, but she is a very special kind of child who has already overcome a few difficulties in life.

Why have I decided to write about Josefina? Because she is hanging on to me right now. Josefina is little enough to squeeze her way into my chair. I have the computer in my lap and she is holding onto my hand to "help" me. Now she is trying to use my fingers to type. Shall I let her do it and see what comes out?

BFSSFBGDVADADVBSSBD sssss FDDfDCVsG WQWWScSD1RWEREEEEEDdseqewwe There: Josefina says, "we did it. Look how many words!" She has two little books in her hands, which she is using to obstruct the screen while I write, which means that sometimes I can't see the screen. Here's Cleo the Cat. And here is Chloe the Cow. She insisted I inform you of the titles of these two important books.

Josefina was born on October 26, 2006, some seven weeks premature, with an undeveloped intestinal tract. I baptized her as soon as she was born, which means of course that there is a special bond between us. (The chaplain arrived some minutes later and administered Confirmation, which in the Latin rite is given to babies who are in danger of death). She was then transported to Fairfax Hospital for emergency surgery, where the neonatalogists amazingly connected her intestinal tract, using surgical techniques that were truly marvelous. She was then put into an incubator with a intravenous feeding tube, and given her place in the "NICU" (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit).

We were told that when the operation healed and she began digesting normally, we could bring her home. But Josefina kept having setbacks. Weeks turned into months. In March she needed another emergency surgery. There were some scary moments. There were infections, breathing complications. My mother-in-law came from California to take care of the house and kids while Eileen drove every day to Fairfax to be with Josefina (I was still working full time at the school). I went to the hospital as often as I could and took videos so that the other children could see their sister. The whole experience contributed to the subsequent ruin of my health (for more about that, go to the link to NEVER GIVE UP: MY LIFE AND GOD'S MERCY and order my book). It was an extraordinarily difficult and uncertain time for all of us.

But Josefina made it. She finally came home on May 16, 2007, almost seven months after she was born. She started out with a nasal-gastric feeding tube, but soon she was on her own. She has scars from the surgery and where the intravenous tubes were inserted--occasionally when I see them I remember all that she has been through. (Wait, a pink teddy bear is being thrown at the computer screen--STOP).

She has occasional digestive problems and a moderate asthmatic condition, but is otherwise fine. She is still on the small side, very verbal, very social, and irresistibly cute. That's why I've been letting her climb all over me (now she's off coloring--whoever invented crayons is one of my favorite SAINTS). I am, obviously, wrapped around her little finger.

The girl that is always prancing around this house is a miracle. We so wanted her. In 2006 I seemed to be getting well, and back to a regular work schedule. We prayed for another child. Josefina was specially loved from the very beginning. She got such dedicated care in the hospital; it was evidence of the possibility and the desire of people in our culture to do good, of the instinct for life that still endures and even spurs the progress of neonatal medicine. How can hospitals perform life-saving wonders for premature babies in one place, and destroy them by abortion in another?

Everything has gone crazy since 2007. My lifestyle has changed dramatically, as has Eileen's, and here is this wonderful four year old girl with dimples who rules the house. We never expected any of this. But we are doing our best to respond creatively to the circumstances and above all begging God to take care of us.

Really, you cannot plan your life. Affluence has made us forget this. Of course, one makes prudent decisions and looks toward the future as far as one is able to judge its probable course. But we are not in control. Our possession of things is fragile. Really, we hold on to God's plan, with prayer and hope, because He brings good out of everything.

I better go see what kind of mess Josefina is making....