John Janaro's Blog, page 102

The Simplicity of "Papa Benedict"

On this day, eight years ago, we said goodbye to Pope Benedict XVI as his retirement took effect. We watched him take a helicopter from Saint Peter's Square after a moving final encounter with people there and all over the world via television and the internet.

Eventually, after a time at Castel Gandalfo, Benedict would move into the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican to begin a new phase of his own personal vocation, taking up a life of prayer and solitude which continues even to this day. It is a genuinely hidden life, entirely detached from the office and active ministry of his successor Pope Francis, yet enduring as another special way of "serving the Church."

And we still benefit so much from the treasury of wisdom Benedict XVI gave us in the teachings of his papacy. Even with all his learning and erudition, his aim was always simple: to point to Jesus, to encourage us to trust in God's immense love for us, and to allow God to transform us in Jesus and raise us up to the measure of our vocation to eternal life.

Confucius Remarks on the Stages of Life

Lately, a notable passage of Confucius - found near the beginning of the Analects (in "Part 2" of a common editorial presentation in 20 parts) - has made a fresh and unexpected impression on me. For the sake of (over)simplification [cheap thinking?] I refer to this passage as his "remarks on the 'stages of life.'" Though I am for the most part decidedly not "caught up" with Confucius's indicated age-levels (no "perplexities" by age 40? seriously?), I am provoked by his characterization of the decade of life that I have nearly finished (having reached the age of 58 last month). It may touch on the peculiar struggles and challenges of this transition from "middle age" to "seniorhood." Here is the whole quotation, beginning with the age of 15:

"At fifteen I set my heart upon learning. 

"At thirty, I had planted my feet firm upon the ground. 

"At forty, I no longer suffered from perplexities.

"At fifty, I knew what were the biddings of Heaven.

"At sixty, I heard them with a docile ear. 

"At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart;
for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right."

When I turned 50, I thought it was a big deal (read the post from 2013😉). I wasn't entirely wrong. It was supposed to be the age where people finally begin to get a vital, "naturally experiential" grasp of the larger perspectives of life. It's almost inevitable, because by age fifty we have lived a good chunk of life, and we finally start to "see" what our grandparents were always talking about (and what our parents may still be talking about).

Speaking as a philosopher, this might be what the Master is getting at when he says, "at fifty, I knew what were the biddings of Heaven."

But it was not until age sixty, Confucius says, that he "heard them with a docile ear." It's one thing to start seeing what your life is all about, but another thing entirely to say "yes" to that understanding, to be at peace with how your life has worked out and what remains to aspire to (in terms of life in this world, with its relative concerns, which are real even if they are incomplete in themselves).

It is a challenge, emotionally and psychologically, to arrive at "docility" without veering off into cynicism and narrowing of the heart.

And how am I doing with all of this? Well, of course, the mercy of God in Jesus Christ brings a new and more radically hopeful dimension to everything, even our failures and weaknesses and disappointments. I am learning more and more how much I really depend on Christ's healing presence in my life.

Looking at things from the perspective of humanistic and psychological maturity (as well as the mysterious, deeper realities of life) proposed by Confucius, however, I would say that I have to develop a whole lot more docility in the next two years. I shall do my best...

Knock and the Door Will be Opened

What could more worth reading and pondering on this blog post than the Gospel passage from the liturgy of February 25th?

"Jesus said to his disciples:
'Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives;  
and the one who seeks, finds; 
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 

" 'Which one of you would hand his son a stone
when he asked for a loaf of bread,
or a snake when he asked for a fish?
If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father give good things
to those who ask him.

" 'Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. 
This is the law and the prophets.' "

~Matthew 7:7-12

There is also the Collect from the week, where we recognize once again that everything - even our good works - are founded on, sustained, and brought to fruition by the gift of God.

Melting and Moonlight

Here is some of my digital artwork from these sudden warmer days of thaw flowing into the creek, later setting suns, and the rise of February's full moon.

 

The Chair of Saint Peter

HAPPY FEAST OF THE "CATHEDRA" OF SAINT PETER.

Today we celebrate in a special way the unique Apostolic ministry bestowed by Jesus on Simon, to whom He gave the name "Peter." 

"You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18).

From ancient times, the bishop's church in every local Catholic Christian community has been called "the Cathedral," not because it's especially large or fancy, but because it has the bishop's "chair" ("cathedra") from which he presides at the liturgy and which representes his ministry and the responsibilities of his office. Like many of the terms and archetectural features of the early Church, it was adapted from styles and practices of imperial Rome in late antiquity (such as the "chair" where officials heard and judged cases, which had practical as well as symbolic value).

What is essential is the bishop's vocation to the service of authority passed down to them from the Apostles and established by Jesus so that His followers would be united in faith and charity in every place and time. Of course, the Bishop of Rome (i.e. "the Pope") has the central responsibility for the whole Church as the successor of Saint Peter (who was the first bishop of the originally small and beleaguered Christian community in Rome and who was martyred on Vatican hill in the year 64).

[The actual, physical chair(s) have a long history. Pictured here is ancient relic in a byzantine/early medieval setting, kept within Bernini's famous reliquary in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.]

Bright Skies, Frozen Ground

It's still pretty frosty around here. And cold! But evenings are getting "longer."

I'm staying warm (when I'm not out taking pictures) by keeping busy in my digital art "studio." I have been working on various things, including these two stylistically (and technically) diverse renditions of different perspectives on a dramatic 5:30-ish PM late February sky.

Lent 2021: May God's Love Convert Our Hearts

Once again the great season of Lent has begun.
As we embark upon our journey toward Easter, we are charged with the task of calling to mind our sins with sincere repentence and taking up afresh the invitation to follow Jesus with renewed conversion of heart.
Christians claim that through the encounter and embrace of Jesus Christ we have come to know the love of God himself. If this is really true, why do we keep "forgetting" God's love and going back to selfishness, egoism, distraction, envy, and strife?
Every day we fail. Even those who aim the highest find that they fall short again and again. Should this be a cause for discouragement? Certainly not.
It should be cause for humility, for prayer, for turning and returning to the sources of grace, the places where Jesus "touches" us. Our faith makes especially clear the fragility of our humanity, our immense poverty, our utter dependence on God for everything.

The "good news" is that God's goodness and mercy are infinitely greater than our weakness, and that he has totally embraced our lives in Jesus. We must not give up, but on the contrary cling ever more fully to him.

Moreover - knowing the depths of God's love and our own frailty - we have all the more reason to look upon the struggles of every human person with compassion. Knowing God's generosity and our own vulnerability, we have every reason to forgive others when they hurt us.

We cannot be complacent. We must always strive to say "yes" to the love that God our Father pours out over our lives each day through the heart of Jesus in the Holy Spirit. Let us praise and worship our God who is Love, and beg for his love to change us, to turn us into lovers, and to show the wonder of his beauty through us on the roads of this world.

Fashioned By His Grace...

I love this prayer for today, from the "Sixth Week in Ordinary Time" in the Roman liturgy, so I want to share it before the Lenten Season begins tomorrow. 

Once again there is the emphasis on GRACE in this prayer. We ask God to "grant" the gift of being "fashioned by his grace" into a worthy dwelling place for him - with "hearts that are just and true" - and we ask for this gift of healing and transformation, as always "through our Lord Jesus Christ..."

Prayer and "The Beloved"

Here are two different "digital designs" for a text from Pope Francis's Angelus message of February 14. Obviously, the words are much more important than my experiments in presentation.😉

And here are some roses!

Your Will Corresponds To My Destiny

Lord God, Creator of all that exists,
Infinite Mystery who gives meaning and purpose and fulfillment to reality,
I ask You to show me Your will,
and to give me the grace to do Your will.
You, my God, are the absolute perfection of Truth, and Goodness, and Beauty. 
Your will is Your Glory, the radiance of You who are worthy of all my love,
and Your will is entirely "for" my life, my true identity,to shape me into the unique person You have created me to be.
Your will corresponds to my destiny, to the real "me" and there is no other possibility for me to be happy, fully human, truly fulfilled
except through free obedience to Your will.
And what do You will for me?Yourself,
You, the Infinite Mystery, who are infinite inexhaustible Love:
Your will is to give Yourself to me,
pouring Yourself out in the gratuitous freedom of love,
revealing Your Glory by reaching down to me in my lowliness.
God who is Love,
Holy Trinity, One God.
Father, You sent Your only Son to dwell with us and save us.
Jesus, you took our humanity to Yourself.You became our brother,
so that, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we might be transformed
as Your brothers and sisters, into children of the Father,
called and destined to share forever in the Glory of Eternal Love.
My God, I adore You, I give thanks to You, I love You, I trust in You. Jesus, I trust in You.