"The Girls" (My Granddaughters)

Look at this little "chipmunk," Anna Janaro, who just turned two months old the other day. Chubby cheeks and dimples too! And, of course, it's clear from the second picture that she loves her big sister Maria.😊

💕 Yay, grandchildren!!🙂

“RoboJJ” Writes the Blog? What Does This Mean??!!

Oh my, this post marks the thirteenth anniversary of the launching of this blog. And I am marking it with an experiment. I’m turning things over to “RoboJJ”… aaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!

Not really. These words are being written by me, as an introduction to my “virtual secretary/editor,” an AI app that allows me to verbally dictate my thoughts and then arranges them into an organized text. Actually it offers a variety of format options. Then, of course, I can go back and edit personally, add, change, rearrange, and do whatever I want with the words on the page. I am also given a direct transcript of my spoken words which I can also refer to.

RoboJJ (my term for this technological assistance) does not have “intelligence” in the proper sense of the term, nor will it ever have such intelligence. AI technology doesn’t even have the organic “sense cognition” that higher animals possess, by which they perceive and respond to their environment according to the path of their instincts and also “spontaneously” toward realities that accord with their natures.

Nope.

AI is a highly refined mechanism for data organization. I think that this kind of “organization” could be useful to me here on this blog, which is my “writing (and artistic) workshop.” Let’s see how it works. The first segment of text (in brown type) is the transcript of my spoken words that I “recorded” while laying in my bed as I began to recover from a flare-up of ill health—there was some flu involved, I think. Then, in blue type, I present one of RoboJJ’s condensed versions (the one most suited to a blog post). I am far from satisfied with it, but it might be useful for drafting and organizing a written text. I have lots of things I can be prompted to gab about, but I find it hard to put them in writing.

First, this is the real me, talking in my own words. Here is the transcript [lightly edited] of my verbal ramble:

My name is John Janaro. I am 61 years old. As long as I can remember, I have been communicating my thoughts through writing, starting as a child with pencil and pen and typewriter, moving on to working on the editorial team of my high school newspaper, literally cutting and pasting, then writing my first book…

First, actually, then going to college, writing a lot of term papers and a senior thesis, two senior theses, actually, and then going to graduate school, writing more papers and eventually writing a dissertation, and then along the way, writing my first book. 

All that gets me up to around 1992. Then I began teaching, and I was involved with teaching until my illness, which forced me into retirement from the classroom in 2008. Because of ill health, I have a hard time making public lectures and having the stamina for all of that preparation and consideration and organization and intensity of presentation that I require for my classroom environment. Actually, I have a hard time doing much of anything that requires sustained, consistent effort. So I “retired” (also, by then I had published my second book in 2003). 

Then I published my third book about my illness and difficulties and struggles, and how my faith in Christ sustained me. That was in 2010. The book is called Never Give Up: My Life and God’s Mercy. For the past decade, I have also published a monthly column in Magnificat called “Great Conversion Stories.”

In 2011, I started to keep a blog. This very blog that you're reading now was begun, golly, 13 years ago. It's kind of mind-blowing. Of course, you've seen everything in this blog. If you've had the patience to follow this blog from the beginning, you've seen my life change in many ways. You’ve seen the kids grow up. You’ve seen marriages and grandchildren. You’ve seen me grieve the deaths of both my parents.

You’ve also seen me hammering out ideas in various forms, in a not-always-felicitous writing style. I'm a good writer, but I tend to stretch sentences on, have too many subordinate clauses, have three or four adjectives instead of one. Basically, I have never encountered a simple thought that I was not capable of turning into a complex expression of lots of things. It may be very interesting, maybe full of fruitful possibilities, but often it’s very wordy. 

Sometimes I just feel too tired to write now. I feel like I don't have the energy to put my ideas together. I've kind of gotten less involved, and have slowed down in writing. Nevertheless, sometimes I'll sit down and I'll write a very long post. Sometimes, I'll work for days on a post where there's important ideas that I want to hammer out. And I get stuck and go back. I just keep writing until I think, well, this is good enough to put out there because it's just a blog post. That's the way it goes. Sometimes, I revisit old posts, hammer them into better shape, and continue refining the same ideas. 

You reach a point in a life of philosophical reflection when you realize that you have a few ideas that are interesting. Then, basically, you just keep refining them more and more. That's all you can manage in the course of a single human life. I'm at this point now. I want to give my “two small coins”…which are very small indeed.

Of course, I've been witnessing revolutions in technological media since I was a child. Like I say, I went from pencil to typewriter, to word processor, to internet. I went from submitting articles to newspapers, magazines, whatever, to being successfully published, and then, finally, not having to depend on anybody but just “publishing myself” in this blog. But I would like to organize a lot of the thoughts from these 13 years into something more digestible, topically or in terms of what's most insightful. 

Again, this is a big job. How can I put that all together by myself? 

Most recently, we've seen, most recently, of course, in the last few years, this technology of, I don't know, I guess I would call it artificial data coordination. It doesn’t rise to the philosophical meaning of intelligence, neither in a proper spiritual sense, which is the human intellect, nor even the sense-cogitational capacity of higher animals. You're just dealing with very sophisticated technology that works with language and associations and connections and coordinates things together, not really knowing what it's doing, of course. That's the artificial feature, as is also the vocal process, which is the method I'm using right now by speaking. The vocal process is data, which is translated into written data, which is coordinated and shuffled around and represented. 

But the taking of observations, articulating them into ideas which crystallize real experience, and in turn, moving forward through judgments, intellectual judgments, to new understanding: that’s the process that I know that the new technology cannot do for me. It cannot replace the human mind. But what I'm testing today, in this late hour of my life, relatively speaking, is whether or not this new technology can be useful as a kind of “secretary.” This is the first blog post I've ever done in this manner. I'll have to decide whether or not I want to show you a transcript of the original audio rumination and compare it to the resulting artificially polished version. Although, of course, I'll probably go and polish the polished version, edit it, make it read better. On the other hand, that's part of what the program proposes to do for you, so it will be interesting to see if that would work. 

I tend to “think around” things. I tend to have a topic in mind, and I look at it from different perspectives, examining different aspects of it. I go around it. I analyze it from various points of view, according to certain features, and then according to other features. I’m searching for the unity and harmony of things. I look at something like writing, and I think, oh, writing is a work in which you try to organize your ideas and communicate them. You try to do so in a manner which is clear, convincing, and also beautiful in its prose style. As far as anybody cares about that anymore, a beautiful prose style is something that I would at least aspire to, and I have been able to achieve beautiful style in the past. That's one way of looking at writing. 

Another way is to say, how can writing be made easier for me in a time in which I have less energy and I need more assistance at work? I wish I had a secretary who would just take notes on all my ruminations and organize them, or, at least, get them back to me in some more coherent form. It's like, well, hello, now we have technology that claims to be able to fill that sort of role, so here it is. I'm able to do as much as 20 minutes of talking in one note. I’m thinking about whether I should just run this thing all through 20 minutes and see what it sounds like, looks like, whatever. 

It would be a tremendous thing if this works well. I have so many things in my head, so many things I think about. If I could just “think out loud” and get organized, that would be an extremely helpful tool. I hope that it would always remain a tool for me, that it would not become a substitute for real writing. I know something of the power of AI, of these various forms of data manipulation technology. I've seen how they work with graphics. You guys who read the blog, you also see the “artistic workshop” that has developed here. The basis is photography, usually using my own photographs, and then I work with the digital technology that allows artistic changes to be made and introduces various—sometimes surprising—possibilities. 

Imagery just becomes a more “plastic” kind of material. That's why I have often referred to my digital artworks as “sculpture,” rather than as painting (because no matter what the apps say, there's no real painting involved). There is, however, matter involved. It is sometimes remarkable, things just come from the material itself that I'm working with. For example, a certain application allows you to give the image a rough exterior look, so you can integrate that in. Maybe I wasn't originally planning for that kind of look, but now that I see it, I like it. I like what it does for the picture that I'm working on, which is maybe a view of the mountains. I integrate that into my “sculpture.” It's a process of discovery as well as creative expression: finding many ways to portray this extensive piece of imagery, allowing the technology to expand the material element that I'm working with. 

I tend to keep working on it forever. I can make 100 different versions of the same picture. Often, I can't decide which one I prefer. As a result, my storage is full of pictures that have never been finished. But some of them do get finished. As you know, some of them end up on the blog. Well, this is a long way of saying that I am familiar with how this AI technology works: this power of manipulating digital data, this mixing and mashing up and organizing of visual media. How it works with the written word is a question that remains to be explored. 

In the beginning of 2024, in my 62nd year of life, I'm going to launch out into this brave new world. Well, maybe there’s another way of putting it, but using this phrase indicates that I am aware of the dangers on this path. But—asking the Lord for poverty of spirit—I'm going to launch out into these possibilities and see what can be done with them. I mean, I can sit here and talk about China or East Asia or media technology or theological thought and speculation or political or cultural philosophy or some of my dearest ideas that I have in various areas. I could talk about those and turn them into something that would be useful that could be communicated to other people in a coherent way. That'd be great. 

That's obviously what a teacher always wants to do. It's sort of the dead end I ran into as a teacher in a lecture hall at a certain point in my life. You know, if this were a 20-minute lecture, I don't know how interesting it would be (once upon a time, it probably would have been a lot clearer). But the fact is, my lectures were always best when they were in text form, which I could then read from in an engaged manner and digress from when I felt inclined. 

This technological tool/method could be very helpful in many ways at this point in my life. Hopefully, I can get a lot of the stuff out of my head while I'm still around to do it, so that it can benefit other people.

Okay, I did tinker with the transcript more than I thought I would, but it retains its spoken, off-the-cuff form. Now, in blue type, here is what RoboJJ came up with (again with some light editing). It’s “concise” for sure, but I still feel the need for more detail. A lot of my “thinking around” things is left out, and I do want to keep some of that.

But you can read it yourself and see what you think:

My name is John Janaro and I have always expressed my thoughts through writing. From childhood with pencil and typewriter, to working on my high school newspaper, to writing books and academic papers. Teaching was my passion until my illness forced me into retirement in 2008. Due to my health, I struggle with public lectures and the preparation required for my classroom environment. I retired after publishing my second book in 2003 and wrote a book about my illness and how my faith sustained me in 2010. 

In 2011, I started this blog, which you are reading now. It's been 13 years and life has changed in many ways: you've witnessed the growth of my children, marriages, grandchildren, and the deaths of my parents. You’ve also seen the ongoing evolution of my writing style. I tend to be wordy and sometimes lack simplicity. Lately, I've been feeling tired and lacking the energy to put my ideas together. I've slowed down in writing, but occasionally I'll write a long post after days of working on it. Sometimes I revisit and refine my ideas. As I've grown older, I've realized that I have a few interesting ideas that I continue to refine. 

Throughout my life, I've witnessed technological advancements in media, from pencil to typewriter to the internet. Now, I'm testing whether this new AI technology can be useful as a kind of secretary. This is my first blog post using this method and I'm curious to see if it can help me organize my thoughts. Writing is about organizing ideas and communicating them clearly and beautifully. I aspire to achieve a beautiful prose style. I wish I had a secretary to take notes on my ruminations and organize them for me. Now, this technology claims to be able to fill that role. I can speak for up to 20 minutes and have it transcribed. It could be a tremendous tool to help me organize my thoughts. I hope it remains a tool and doesn't replace real writing. I'm familiar with how digital technology works with graphics and have seen the artistic possibilities it offers. I integrate digital elements into my image-based “virtual sculptures,” often creating multiple versions of the same picture without being satisfied with any of them. Some get finished and end up on the blog. 

Now, I want to explore how this technology can work with the written word. In 2024, at the age of 61, entrusting myself to the Lord, I'm going to venture into this new world of word-tech and see what can be done with it. I can talk about various topics and turn them into coherent pieces that can be communicated to others. This tool could be very helpful at this point in my life. I hope to get all the thoughts out of my head while I still can, so that they can benefit others.

Eh, so? The app offers other “versions” (longer or—believe it or not—shorter) to the point of being maybe a little creepy. Yikes, what am I doing? What if RoboJJ takes over my mind? What if AI takes over…the world? Aren’t we supposed to worry about that?

AI is technological power, developed for many complex reasons by human beings with all their mysterious seeking of greatness and their confused desires and their ambivalence. It is like everything else in the world, like every human invention, like the technologies we are surrounded with every day. We can’t run away. But we must be aware, we must attend to ourselves (and our neighbors) as irreplaceable persons, and we must beg for wisdom. Power brings possibilities for terrible evils, but also possibilities for great goods.

This AI tech is a possibility that I should explore in this world that I have been given, in these circumstances of life in 2024. So I say, “Veni Sancte Spiritus / Veni Per Mariam.” Come Holy Spirit. Everything for your glory, Jesus, through Mary. Then I move forward, with eyes open, in the communion of the Church and with the help of my friends, with the new mentality through which the Holy Spirit enables me to seek the value of all human things according to the glorified humanity of Jesus. He has taken hold of my life and is transforming my heart.

Whatever storms may come, He is here. So I can go forward with confidence and hope, remaining with Him, trusting in Him.

Taking the Lowest Place

.

"Practical activity will always be insufficient, unless it visibly expresses a love for man, a love nourished by an encounter with Christ. My deep personal sharing in the needs and sufferings of others [thus] becomes a sharing of my very self with them: if my gift is not to prove a source of humiliation, I must give to others not only something that is my own, but my very self; I must be personally present in my gift. This proper way of serving others also leads to humility. The one who serves does not consider himself superior to the one served, however miserable his situation at the moment may be. Christ took the lowest place in the world—the Cross—and by this radical humility he redeemed us and constantly comes to our aid."

~Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est 34-35

Prayer, Non-Violence, and the Protection of Human Life

As Christians, our politics must be shaped by the non-violence of the Gospel, which fights against evil while also loving the perpetrators of evil as human persons, made in God’s image, sinners like us in need of experiencing an encounter with Jesus Christ. As I have indicated elsewhere, Christian non-violence is not incompatible with physical force used in necessary defense against violent crime or military aggression. It struggles, however, against the tendency of human adversarial relationships to be defined by the inherent dynamic of material power which seeks its “efficiency” in the reduction of human persons to things. The adversary, the “other,” in every battle against evil remains a person, who as such is worthy of love and our ardent desire that they might be converted and separated from the evils they are perpetrating.

This is a difficult, indeed a heroic disposition of our selves, rooted in the new life we receive through Christ in the Holy Spirit. It’s not a partial life that we can “set aside” when we engage in politics. Human political struggles in this world are inevitably “bent” toward violence because they absolutize the success of a political program even if it requires the degradation of human persons. In defending the common good against widespread injustice, we may sometimes conclude that it is necessary to work temporarily in coalition with political movements that are obscure or that fail in some ways to recognize the full measure of human dignity and instead prioritize the success of their faction. But in such circumstances, we must always be clear about who we are, and not allow our social presence to be reduced by the “logic” or the strategic machinations of any faction. We must resist being “caught up” in the enthusiasm of political idolatries of any kind. We must distinguish ourselves, we must make no compromises with violence, we must always be known by our love.

This in no way diminishes our active struggle, opposition, and resistance to the evils we fight against against in society, and our determination to build up structures that protect human life and human dignity. In today’s world there are abundant social injustices and evils that we cannot ignore. The Catholic Bishops of the United States, with good reason, draw our attention to the sin of abortion in our society. Objectively speaking, the violence of abortion is directed against the most invisible and defenseless of human persons, and it brings division to one of the most vulnerable and essential of human relationships: the relationship between mother and child.

This is why Pope Francis, speaking in particular about the dignity of unborn human persons, insists that "a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defense of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be" (Pope Francis).

So we are invited to prayer and penance, today and every day. It is a good reminder for us of the fundamental significance of own interior life, of this hidden, grace-empowered dimension of our humanity.

Prayer and penance are the irreplaceable means that we possess, as sharers in Christ's royal priesthood through baptism, in the struggle against our own sins and the sins of the world. They are the means whereby Jesus's redeeming sacrifice "extends" its human proximity through all space and time, to transform the world. And these means are always available within that immediate and specific piece of the world—of history—that has been entrusted to us.

Through our prayer and sacrifice, God's love draws closer to the anguish and destruction of human violence, to initiate and nurture (often in unseen and unheralded ways) the process of conversion, of the change of hearts, of forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing. Here, then, is the soul of whatever other kind of political or social activism we judge to be prudent and necessary or helpful to build up the common good, to work toward protecting the dignity of every human person and healing the wounds of every kind of violence.

Prayer and sacrifice (which can be a voluntary penance or even the embrace, in faith and love, of the unavoidable sufferings of the present moment) are "activity" that anyone can carry out. They do not replace our specific social and personal responsibilities toward our brothers and sisters in justice and charity. Rather, prayer and sacrifice remain always the vivifying center of the love with which we carry out all our other actions—because we are thus united in our own hearts (which are the origin of our freedom and love) to Christ's crucified love.

We must not allow our actions and our hearts to lose this focus, because the love of Jesus is the only hope for humanity.

Prayer and sacrifice are also a kind of "power" that cannot be taken away from us, no matter how poor and oppressed we are, regardless of sickness, pain, or weakness, in whatever limitations we find ourselves.

This does not, however, give any excuse to those who hold human power to neglect their responsibilities toward those in need. Not only charity, but also justice and the proper use of political power are the concern of all of us and require our vigilance. We are all responsible for cultivating justice, peace, generosity, and community among the persons and in the places we find ourselves, within our particular circumstances with their demands and possibilities, and as members of a larger society. We must always do what we can to love those who have been entrusted to us, and each of us is responsible before God for discerning the concrete ways he calls us to be involved in the various levels of political and social life. Prayer is not a substitute for the more "external" work of seeking justice and mercy in human law and civil affairs, protecting the weak, or building up our families, communities, living environments, peoples, nations, and the international community. But prayer is what carries forward all these good works, and it is also what always remains possible even when no other kind of work is possible.

Prayer and sacrificial abandonment of ourselves to the transforming power of Christ are essential elements of the path of grace through which we fulfill our Christian vocation. They also constitute the foundation of Christian Non-violence as a “force” (the supernatural “soul force” of redeeming love) that can impact, change, and enliven from within the course of temporal structures and events according to God’s will. 

Prayer, of course, is more profound than the whole of this world. But because the Incarnation touches everything human, we can say in a sense that prayer is the most fundamental political action. It is also the most "democratic" in that it is always available to everyone, because the Spirit of Jesus is at work in every person's heart. Prayer has the highest aim, in that it directs itself to the One who can do all things, the God of mercy who loves us.

Why Do We Live in This CRAZY-COLD Place?!

When I was very young I used to wonder, “Why do ‘old people’ all move to Florida after they retire?” Seriously, this was (is?) a phenomenon well-known in the immigrant communities of New York City, where I was born and my parents were born. It seemed like whole neighborhoods of Italians and Jews just transplanted themselves from the Bronx to Fort Lauderdale when people reached a certain age. They brought with them bakeries and restaurants, delis (kosher, of course, with those inimitable all-beef frankfurters), the “New Yawwk” accent, fresh Parmesan cheese (long before it became a popular fad), bagels and lox, and even the Yankees, who did Spring Training in Fort Lauderdale. Why did they all go to South Florida?

Why? Very simple explanation, really. It stays warm in the winter. The snow and frigid temperatures we had this past week were really hard on arthritic bodily joints, hard on the immune system, hard on the whole structure of anyone who has logged up lots of “personal high mileage.”

Florida, though… too humid in the summer. Arizona has dry heat, which is easier on the body. Lots of retirees have been heading to Arizona in more recent generations. There's plenty of inexpensive real estate, the cost-of-living is reasonable, the environment is beautiful, and you've got the freakin' Grand Canyon. I'm sure there are many interesting activities. As the southwest has grown as a retirement hub, baseball teams have built up the “Cactus League” for Spring Training. The thing about Arizona, of course, is that it is an actual DESERT. You really can fry eggs on the roof of your car in the summer. It’s no surprise if the temperature tops 110 degrees, which is just too hot even if there’s no humidity. And [other than the already-noted Grand Canyon] it seems awfully far away from… everything (at least, if you’re an East Coast person). Where’s the beach?

Virginia is not far-enough South to stay warm all year round, but we usually have fairly mild winters. Usually…

Not this year, however. This past week, the cold was embellished by snow: only a few inches, but it hasn’t gotten warm enough to melt.

January isn’t going to get any better as we grow older. Hmm…Caribbean Islands are looking really good right now. But who am I kidding? I’m not going to leave this beautiful Valley!

Sun. Snow. Freezing Cold. Shenandoah Valley, January 2024.

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Importance of Non-Violence

As the USA honors the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we would do well to remember that “non-violence” is as necessary today as ever. In the face of much opposition, tension, and misunderstanding, Dr. King and the African-Americans of the southern United States generated an effective non-violent social movement for racial equality and justice that had a real historical impact, not only in the USA (where much yet remains to be done), but throughout the world. Political practices of nonviolent direct action—boycotts, marches, protests, sit-ins, and suchlike—have become almost “commonplace” in the world of recent history. Perhaps most memorably, the tenaciousness and perseverance of the Polish labor movement Solidarity—inspired in part by Dr. King’s nonviolent witness—began the process that led to the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1980s.

Various types of popular-protest-driven “peaceful revolutions” have toppled or modified corrupt dictatorial regimes all over the world. Some have been unsuccessful or have been co-opted by extremist groups. Others (e.g. Ukraine’s Euromaidan movement in 2014) have had success, but have been followed by military invasion by powers that claimed to be threatened by them. From the Philippines to South Africa to Central America to China and Hong Kong, movements of nonviolent inspiration have caught the attention of the world. External “results” might appear to be small, imperiled, or overwhelmed by new crises (or—as in the cases of Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989 and Hong Kong’s 2014-2019 “Umbrella Revolution”—plowed under entirely by the institutionalized violence of a relentless bureaucratic PartyState). 

Nevertheless, under God’s loving providence that works on all levels of human history, every genuinely upright action aimed at the recognition of the dignity of the human person is destined to bear fruit for the good. The human aspiration that “hunger[s] and thirst[s] after justice” (Matthew 5:6) is a promise written on the human heart that begs for fulfillment, and that is filled to overflowing by God Himself through the death and resurrection of Jesus. But the victory of Christ is present already in this world, and His mercy is glorified when we permit it to give shape to our individual and social lives as we journey toward our final destiny. 

The term “non-violence” itself is hard to define precisely, and I remain convinced that it is compatible with the necessary use of “physical force” in self-defense (which bares no hatred for the aggressor but aims to protect human dignity and human persons who have been entrusted to our care). Using physical (military) force to stop an aggressor involves grave risks, but communities and nations may have no other reasonable course of action in circumstances in which they are subjected to ruthless invasion. Nevertheless, here especially a nonviolent mentality is crucial not only for limiting to a minimum the dangers and destructiveness of military escalation, but also for governing the interior disposition that remains at the heart of the distinction between “force” and “violence” as such. A nonviolent mentality also counters the tendency of war to result in mutual resentments and multigenerational “cycles of violence” that frustrate efforts of constructive dialogue and reconciliation.

Non-violence is a difficult but noble standard which encompasses “loving our enemies even while resisting the evils they perpetrate” and “the ‘power’ that comes from accepting the suffering our enemies inflict upon us without seeking revenge.”

The redemptive love of Christ is the power that changes the human heart, that brings about my conversion-of-heart and your conversion-of-heart, the conversion-of-hearts in our communities, and the conversion of our adversaries’ hearts. Conversion is the ever-deepening foundation in human society of the real efficacy of non-violence, the measure of the emergence of that “power”—in society, among peoples, and nations—of nonviolent loving-of-enemies and suffering-affliction-without-hatred; a spiritual power that also extends in significant ways through solidarity with those who suffer unjustly. In such vicarious solidarity we find the fundamentally interrelated value of everyone’s effort—offered with love—to assist those involved in non-violent struggles, and in the efforts to build pathways of understanding and endeavor that can shape a new civil society of peace and gratitude, a new culture of life and encounter, a new civilization of love. 

In the ensuing days when many in the United States will march, pray, fast, and recommit themselves to the need for our society to recognize, protect, and foster the dignity of pre-born human persons and their mothers, it is important to reflect on the tremendously delicate yet crucial and pervasive role of non-violence in meeting the great challenges such recognition entails. It calls for the protection of both human persons, the devotion of respect, affirmation, and care for both human persons, the unconditional love that meets the needs of both human persons, and the sustenance of the wider familial and local communion-of-persons that provides primary support for mothers and children after birth as well as before. There is much needed here in the way of prayer, mercy, solidarity, and active love, but there is no place whatsoever for violence, hatred, or any spirit of vengeance. 

Non-violence, as understood and practiced by Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and those who came after them, doesn’t fit into the framework of ideological individualism, with its factions, its pretenses, it’s resistance to the integral human vocation. It is based on the recognition that human persons created in the image of God are created to love and to be loved, that persons are fulfilled only in communion. This challenges our self-assertiveness and self-indulgence, but if we are followers of Jesus we know that it’s true. We know that He calls us on this path, that His grace will give us the power to follow Him, and that all our struggles against one another and all the sufferings we impose upon one another are not as strong as the power of His saving love and mercy. Those who do not know Christ explicitly as Savior still draw on this power through the implicit bond with Him that exists through their service and recognition of His afflicted brothers and sisters.

And His redemptive love is necessary if we are to even begin to understand how non-violence is possible to our human weakness, or why we should continually return to it and take it up afresh in every circumstance of conflict, no matter how often we fall short. We must persevere in humble love and service. We must pray always and never lose heart.

Winter Windy Cold and Gray

“Winter Windy Cold and Gray, January 2024” (#JJStudios)

And they say that the snow is coming soon...

Christina Grimmie Gave Her Whole Self “With Love”

On January 10, we remembered Christina Grimmie after seven years and seven months…

There are several “anniversaries” coming up this year for Christina. March 12, 2024 will be the 30th anniversary of her birth, and Team Grimmie frands all over the world are undoubtedly planning special celebrations. 

This coming February 24 will mark ten years since NBC broadcast Christina’s legendary “blind audition” for Season 6 of The Voice. It ranks as one of the highest moments in the whole history of televised music competitions, and Christina’s splendid voice, engaging stage presence, and personal charisma would go on to make a powerful impact on television viewers, and carry her all the way to the finals.

I have written so much about this singular young woman, her strong faith, her beautiful soul, and the sense she had of her musical vocation and her relationship with her frands as a giving-of-herself, an unconditional love poured out “for the glory of Christ” and for the people He had “given to her.” And Christ gave her people in so many ways: first of all, in her family, friends, and collaborators, but also at concerts and meet-and-greets, or “on the other side” of social media interactions or her innovative YouTube creations in the early days of interactive audiovisual media. 

Christina suffered from a particular vulnerability in following her path through the mainstream music industry, but she also had an “inspired audacity” in the way she reached out to people who struggled with disabilities, had problems with self-worth, or otherwise felt marginalized. When she encouraged them, it was with a sense of loving “authority” far beyond her years.

She would say, “Jesus loves you so much… as do I.” She said this on occasion, when the circumstances called for it, but she lived it every day with a grace-given gift of compassion and hospitality—she welcomed people into the sphere of her life, she risked taking the position of letting God’s love for others pour through her life, personality, and gestures. 

In the end, perhaps we shouldn’t say that some awful man took her life on June 10, 2016. Christina Grimmie had already given her life to God and to others—her friends, her frands, and—finally—her enemies, with love.

This love is greater than death. Like the grain of wheat, it is buried deep in the earth. But it bears abundant fruit.

Top Nine of 2023

Better late than never: LAST YEAR’S TOP NINE posts on my Instagram. Mostly family: Four generations of family. My parents, although they have gone home to the Lord, sometimes seem very close, especially when all of us get together (their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren). 

Family is a sign of the perseverance of love in history.

"God Takes on a Human Face"

There is nothing about "ordinary time" in the Roman Calendar that implies that it means "unimportant, insignificant, boring time." It's not just "filler" dispersed "in between" the great liturgical seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and all the feasts spread throughout the liturgical year. .

Rather, the “order” of the Church year underlies and directs our day-  to-day Christian worship and life.  “Ordinary time” represents the consistency of Christ's presence with us on the whole of our earthly pilgrimage. His presence is expressed in the liturgy through the proper prayers for the weeks of the year, and the designated Scripture readings for each day, which are spread out in a three year cycle that offers to those who are attentive an abundance of nourishment from the sacred texts, and from the Holy Spirit who inspired them and who touches our hearts through them.

Above all, Christ the High Priest, who offered Himself in the sacrifice of the Cross for the salvation of the world, becomes accessible to us and invites our participation in His love through the Eucharist. Jesus has humbled Himself and poured Himself out inexhaustibly in His crucified love so as to "reach" every place and time and give Himself concretely to us in the Eucharist every day. What we celebrate in the liturgical seasons are the foundational events that shape our vocation as believers today. We can never become too familiar with the love of Christ: the God who takes our nature to manifest and glorify Divine Love in the world, and to seek us relentlessly, to heal us and draw us to Himself, to awaken, fulfill, and overflow the human heart—the heart that He created in each of us so that we might belong freely and totally to Him and His Father in the Spirit.

He who makes us, who sustains us in being in this very moment, has taken flesh to be with us and give Himself to us every day in a manner beyond all our hopes and imaginings. He desires so much to be received with love and gratitude by our freedom. He begs for our love from the Cross, in the Eucharist, in our brothers and sisters who gather with us in adoration, worship, and thanksgiving, and then in the world of human beings whom He wants (with burning ardor) to encounter Him through our witness. He wants to be seen and loved by the whole world through the way Christians love one another as well as by the words of our testimony to Him, which are a witness to the Infinite Love that He pours out on those who place their trust in Him.

There is nothing "commonplace" about this "ordinary time" in the liturgical year. We live by the Spirit, in Christ's Body, and are "sent" into the times and places that have been given to us, bringing the "news" that God our Father loves us so much that He wants to share His glory with us, make us His children, brothers and sisters of His Son—and brothers and sisters of one another—in His everlasting Kingdom.

The memory of our celebration of Christmas and Epiphany remains with us, continues to enlighten our path, and fills us with astonishment at the One who dwells with us and gives His life for us.

"In the incarnation of the Son of God we see forged the enduring and definitive synthesis which the human mind of itself could not even have imagined: the Eternal enters time, the Whole lies hidden in the part, God takes on a human face" (John Paul II, Fides et Ratio 12).

Theophany: The Glory of God Made Manifest

The culmination of the Christmas Season is the Great Feast of the Theophany, known in the West as the "Baptism of the Lord."

The Byzantine tradition especially emphasizes that the events commemorated on this day involving Jesus's ritual immersion in the Jordan river at the hands of John the Baptist are a public "manifestation of God" ("Theophany") in a hitherto unprecedented way. Today the Holy Trinity—the One God who is an ineffable communion of persons, the God who is Absolute Love—begins to be revealed and glorified in Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate, the Beloved Son of the Father anointed in the Spirit. The great mission of God’s self-giving love is proclaimed.

Here are the antiphons from Morning Prayer in the Roman Rite:

(1) The soldier baptizes his king, the servant his Lord, John his Savior; the waters of the Jordan tremble, a dove hovers as a sign of witness, and the voice of the Father is heard: This is my Son.

(2) Springs of water were made holy as Christ revealed his glory to the world. Draw water from the fountain of the Savior, for Christ our God has hallowed all creation.

(3) You burned away man’s guilt by fire and the Holy Spirit. We give praise to you, our God and Redeemer.

The Christmas Season Continues

We continue to celebrate the Christmas Season in these days approaching Epiphany. 

Christ is God’s light shining upon us in the darkness. He has revealed the love of God to the world, through the mystery of His birth, to the shepherds led to Him by angels, to the wise men by a star, to John the Baptist and those among the people of Israel who were making themselves ready for His coming, when He emerged from the waters of the Jordan—when they saw the Spirit descend upon Him in the form of a dove, and heard the Father’s voice.

Saint John the Evangelist was one of those who was led by the ministry of John the Baptist to follow Jesus. In these days we read from his first epistle in the liturgy.

“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

Getting Younger?

Happy January 2 birthday to me. 

Did I grow older? But I LOOK younger!😉 (Thanks to a haircut and beard trim from Eileen, I’ve traded in my “wild man” look for something more “civil” — heh heh, of course it’s only a disguise...😜)

Christmas Octave: “He Was Named Jesus”

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! [Image: Fra Angelico, 15th century]

Today marks the Eighth Day of Christmas, the culminating day in the “Octave” of the Christmas celebration, which the current Roman liturgical calendar dedicates especially to Mary as Theotokos—Mother of God. As today’s gospel reading indicates, the eighth day was the day of circumcision for all male children of Israel, the “sons of Abraham.” During this past week—while also marking other traditional saints’ days—we have “remained” to ponder the mystery of the birth of Jesus, Son of the Father, true God and true man, coming forth from the womb of His Virgin Mother. We remain with the shepherds, and with those who heard the news from them—the simple people, humble people, poor people who were among the first to look upon the face the the Word-made-flesh.

Like them, we too should be amazed. The presence of Jesus here and now fills us with wonder and gratitude. And Mary, “who kept all these things” and “reflect[ed] on them” keeps us too “in her Heart,” bringing us closer to her son Jesus.

“The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them. When eight days were completed for his ­circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb” (Luke 2:16-21).

Pope Benedict XVI and “The Face of Jesus”

One year ago today, Josef Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI reached the end of his long earthly pilgrimage. He spoke and wrote many words over many decades, and they all had one ultimate purpose: to seek the face of Jesus, to look at the face of Jesus, to behold the face of God in the face of Jesus, to listen to Jesus, to follow Jesus. 

Today let us not be torn apart by forgetting the face of Jesus and grasping instead for our own abstract hypotheses.✝️

Last Scenes of 2023 From JJStudios

With photographs and digital tools, I have sculpted and dappled my way through the year 2023. The last digital art creations of the “JJStudios 2023 Exhibition” draw their inspiration (or lack thereof) from these last weeks of what has felt (at least physically) to be a “gloomy December.”

I had more than the ordinary difficulties in getting outside much this month, as cold air and humidity have weighed upon me more than usual.

I am grateful, however, to have enjoyed much company from the family, with granddaughter Anna’s birth and baptism earlier in the month, and the special joy of all of us being together to celebrate a happy Christmas week.

Christmas Week: Jesus Wants to Stay With Us

It’s the FIFTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS!⭐️

“Christmas Day” is a great festival that lasts for a whole week, and the season continues into January. The liturgy continues to mark the glorious event of God’s coming to dwell with us. Keep celebrating the joy of the birth of Jesus in your hearts and homes. 

This is the joy mysteriously at work deep within us, the joy of the redemption of our humanity that is stronger than all our sorrows and frustrations, all our disappointments and regrets, all our sins. Let us make room for Him, for His joy, for His inexhaustible love that draws near to each of us with tenderness and “longs for us” to welcome Him into our lives. 

His presence changes us, saves us, fulfills us and gives meaning to everything. He reveals the Mystery that is the source of our very selves, that sustains us and all things, that draws our hearts as the end of all our searching. He reveals the Mystery that remains what-we-NEED, what we long for, what we cry out for in our anguish, our dissatisfaction, our loneliness, our guilt, and in front of our own death which we cannot escape, which seems to imprison us in its implacable limits, and cut us off from everything that is true, good, beautiful, and enduring. 

He reveals that the Mystery that whispers “forever” in the depths of our hearts is not lying to us. He reveals that this Mystery is Eternal Love, and He comes to reveal that we are called to share in the life of this Love that never ends, the life of the One-Who-Is-LOVE, the God who is eternally Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, One God in Three Persons, One God who is eternally a Communion of Love. 

Jesus Christ is born! He comes, the Eternal Word through whom all things are made, through whom the “I” of each one of us—our very selves and the root of our freedom—exists in this moment. He comes to share our humanity, to become “one of us,” so that we might become His brothers and sisters, so that we might share in His life as sons and daughters of His Father, filled with the Holy Spirit, children of God and heirs to eternal life. He becomes like us so that we might become like Him, so that we might become alive in the Love of God who fulfills and overflows every aspiration and promise of our humanity, and who overcomes the greatest afflictions of our lives and all the most horrible, incomprehensible evils of human history.

It is too much for our minds to fathom. It seems to make us “dizzy.” How can we understand this? How can we bear it?

But then again, consider our own hearts. Aren’t our hearts too much for us to understand and too much for us to bear?

Here is Jesus, the Word made flesh. He does not want to overwhelm us. He comes as a child. He comes as a gift of Love. He takes our flesh to dwell among us, to be with us, to save us. “For God so loved the world that He gave us His Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16). We are not called to comprehend and control something unfathomable, but to say “yes” to the Gift of Infinite Love. 

Christmas is a sign that God will give us this “yes,” that His Holy Spirit will invest the depths of our freedom with a “yes” that is truly our own… if we let Him. Jesus wants so much that we might “let Him” transform our lives. He has come to dwell with us, to stay with us, because He loves us.

We live in hard times, tumultuous times. The near future may seem fraught with perils. We may feel like strangers in a strange world, far from home, perplexed by the brokenness of our lives, estranged from ourselves. But He has come to be with us, and He is our hope! 

⭐️Merry Christmas.⭐️

Pope Francis: Christ is Born, Prince of Peace in Times of War

In his 2023 Christmas message Urbi et Orbi (to the City [Rome] and to the World), Pope Francis addresses specifically the various (and changing) conflicts in what he has consistently called “World War III being fought piecemeal” all over the earth. This Christmas, the world of war has a new and terrible “front”—it rages in the land of Jesus’s birth, His historical human life, His public ministry, His redeeming death and resurrection. It involves a terrorist faction embedded within Palestinian Gaza that ruthlessly attacked Israeli citizens on October 7, killing 1500+ people in cold blood, and kidnapping hundreds of hostages, many of whom remain in captivity. But it also involves an extreme and disproportionate response by Israel’s immense armed forces to crush Gaza, to bring the chaos of war to an entire population of some two million people in order to eliminate the terrorists. Francis pleads for “an end to the military operations with their appalling harvest of innocent civilian victims,” and “for a solution to the desperate humanitarian situation by an opening to the provision of humanitarian aid” for the millions of Palestinian people trapped in Gaza, many of whom are children. 

The Pope asks us to pray for peace, justice,  and the resolution of conflicts in Israel and Palestine, as well as in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, and in Ukraine—renewing again his ardent prayer for those he has called a ‘martyred people’ and his commitment to co-suffer with then and beg the Lord to ‘empower them’ with His love: “Contemplating the Baby Jesus, I implore peace for Ukraine. Let us renew our spiritual and human closeness to its embattled people, so that through the support of each of us, they may feel the concrete reality of God’s love.” He also prays for Armenia and Azerbaijan, and, in Africa, the region of the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and Sudan, as well as Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. Then, with an awareness of a dangerous division that none of us should take for granted, he prays for “fraternal bonds” to grow among to people of the Korean peninsula and lead to “lasting peace” there. 

I would add that there is no historical or ethnic basis for the division of Korea into two countries, but that “North Korea” remains only as a client state of China, with an enormously disproportionate military force and an active nuclear weapons program, and with seemingly unfathomable ambitions and fears. Francis’s call for “processes of dialogue and reconciliation” is not an empty expression, but an insistence that Korean people take up again and again a great work of mercy, a dialogue that seeks not temporary compromises but that aspires to a more profound common language, and that perseveres even through failures and misunderstandings—a dialogue that is above all a prayer for a new unity and reconciliation as a gift from God, a gift of a new possibility beyond all the impossibilities of a broken human situation. 

Finally, Francis prays for “political authorities and all persons of good will in the Americas to devise suitable ways to resolve social and political conflicts, to combat forms of poverty that offend the dignity of persons, to reduce inequality and to address the troubling phenomenon of migration movements.” This is a realistic set of goals that, once again, call for works of mercy that embody justice while also transforming and transcending justice. Mercy is a form of love that becomes, in specific situations, a responsibility for individuals and societies. Countries can adopt reasonable immigration policies, but the terrible suffering that prompts and accompanies “migration movements” in the Western Hemisphere confronts every nation in the region. It is not only wrong; it is impossible for the people of any nation to isolate themselves, to ‘seal themselves off’ from the fundamental human responsibility to love our neighbors and help them in distress—neighbors, moreover, whom Jesus has identified with Himself.

Below are further, more general reflections from Pope Francis’s Christmas message, wherein he makes clear that our concern for those who are sufferings, and our work for peace and reconciliation even in this world, are not a naturalistic reduction of the Gospel (contrary to certain rash claims). Rather, the central focus of all our prayer and effort is eternal life: “an unprecedented gift: the hope of being born for heaven” through Jesus the Word made flesh, “the Only-Begotten Son of the Father” who “gives us power to become children of God” in His Kingdom which will have no end. Still, it is in this world—which is the road we journey upon toward eternal life—that we encounter Jesus incarnate, who calls us to follow Him, love Him, and share “the tender love of God” with the least of His brothers and sisters. For their sake too (at not only them) we are called to reject sin, oppose sin, and—as God’s grace enables us—to unmask sin. Sin has many hiding places, some of which are very subtle. Sometimes prophetic denunciation is necessary. In this respect, the prophetic consistency of the Popes over the course of my entire life (of nearly 61 years) deserves the most serious attention.

There is a specific realm of human activity that is has been denounced, repeatedly, by every Pope since Saint John XXIII. Pope Francis mentions it again here: “arms production, sales, and trade.” This immense system, this international endeavor mired in obscurity, this devourer of immeasurable profits and ‘servant’ of so many violent ‘interests’ from terrorists and insurgents to enormous mercenary armed forces (the ‘Wagner Group’ is just one of who-knows-how-many) to crime syndicates to governments with technologically advanced weapons and huge financial resources … we humans in the 21st century world have created this monster, and we continue to feed it with flabbergasting amounts of money.

There is something wrong with this whole business. Whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword. Of course, we have the right (and duty) of defense against unjust aggression. But is the “arms race,” “the arms trade,” the hoarding of immense weapons of death and destruction the only way for humans to live together safely in this world? Many people say, “yes, it’s the only way.” But I am not satisfied with such conditions. This is not how humans are supposed to live.

But is there another way? We have to pray and beg Jesus to come, to show us other ways to seek peace, to live as peacemakers (even in the midst of war) because fostering healing and reconciliation involves the works of mercy that serve the glory of Jesus Christ in the world. Mercy reflects the light of God’s kingdom even in darkness of an ambivalent world. And mercy witnesses to Christ’s presence here and now, drawing us and all things to Himself. It was for mercy that He came to dwell with us, to be with us through every storm, to open our hearts to our suffering neighbors, to love them, to love even our enemies, to forgive, to be humble, to be peacemakers, to be children of God.

Here are more excerpts from Pope Francis’s message:

“We are full of hope and trust as we realize that the Lord has been born for us; that the eternal Word of the Father, the infinite God, has made his home among us. He became flesh; he came ‘to dwell among us’ (John 1:14). This is the good news that changed the course of history!

“The message of Bethlehem is indeed ‘good news of great joy’ (Luke 2:10). What kind of joy? Not the passing happiness of this world, not the glee of entertainment but a joy that is ‘great’ because it makes us great. For today, all of us, with all our shortcomings, embrace the sure promise of an unprecedented gift: the hope of being born for heaven. Yes, Jesus our brother has come to make his Father our Father; a small child, he reveals to us the tender love of God, and much more. He, the Only-Begotten Son of the Father, gives us ‘power to become children of God’ (John 1:12). This is the joy that consoles hearts, renews hope and bestows peace. It is the joy of the Holy Spirit: the joy born of being God’s beloved sons and daughters.

“Brothers and sisters, today in Bethlehem, amid the deep shadows covering the land, an undying flame has been lighted. Today the world’s darkness has been overcome by the light of God, which ‘enlightens every man and woman’ (John 1:9). Brothers and sisters, let us exult in this gift of grace! Rejoice, you who have lost confidence in your certitudes, for you are not alone: Christ is born for you! Rejoice, you who have abandoned all hope, for God offers you his outstretched hand; he does not point a finger at you, but offers you his little baby hand, in order to set you free from your fears, to relieve you of your burdens and to show you that, in his eyes, you are more valuable than anything else. Rejoice, you who find no peace of heart, for the ancient prophecy of Isaiah has been fulfilled for your sake: ‘a child has been born for us, a son given to us, and he is named… Prince of Peace’ (9:6). Scripture reveals that his peace, his kingdom, ‘will have no end’ (9:7).

“In the Scriptures, the Prince of Peace is opposed by the ‘Prince of this world’ (John 12:31), who, by sowing the seeds of death, plots against the Lord, ‘the lover of life’ (cf. Wisdom 11:26). We see this played out in Bethlehem, where the birth of the Saviour is followed by the slaughter of the innocents. How many innocents are being slaughtered in our world! In their mothers’ wombs, in odysseys undertaken in desperation and in search of hope, in the lives of all those little ones whose childhood has been devastated by war. They are the little Jesuses of today, these little ones whose childhood has been devastated by war.

“To say ‘yes’ to the Prince of Peace, then, means saying ‘no’ to war, to every war and to do so with courage, to the very mindset of war, an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly. To say ‘no’ to war means saying ‘no’ to weaponry. The human heart is weak and impulsive; if we find instruments of death in our hands, sooner or later we will use them. And how can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise? Today, as at the time of Herod, the evil that opposes God’s light hatches its plots in the shadows of hypocrisy and concealment. How much violence and killing takes place amid deafening silence, unbeknownst to many! People, who desire not weapons but bread, who struggle to make ends meet and desire only peace, have no idea how many public funds are being spent on arms. Yet that is something they ought to know! It should be talked about and written about, so as to bring to light the interests and the profits that move the puppet-strings of war.

“Isaiah, who prophesied the Prince of Peace, looked forward to a day when ‘nation shall not lift up sword against nation’, a day when men ‘will not learn war any more’, but instead ‘beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks’ (2:4). With God’s help, let us make every effort to work for the coming of that day!….

“From the manger, the Child Jesus asks us to be the voice of those who have no voice. The voice of the innocent children who have died for lack of bread and water; the voice of those who cannot find work or who have lost their jobs; the voice of those forced to flee their lands in search of a better future, risking their lives in grueling journeys and prey to unscrupulous traffickers.

“Brothers and sisters, we are approaching the season of grace and hope that is the Jubilee [year 2025], due to begin a year from now. May this time of preparation for the Holy Year be an opportunity for the conversion of hearts, for the rejection of war and the embrace of peace, and for joyfully responding to the Lord’s call, in the words of Isaiah’s prophecy, ‘to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners’ (61:1).

“Those words were fulfilled in Jesus (cf. Luke 4:18), who is born today in Bethlehem. Let us welcome him! Let us open our hearts to him, who is the Saviour, the Prince of Peace!”