John Janaro's Blog, page 11

Catherine of Sienna: A Fire Whose Embers Still Glow

The wonderful Caterina Benincasa, born into that wild, corrupt, belligerent fourteenth century Italian city-state called Sienna, has her feast day April 29th.

Tomb of Saint Catherine in RomeShe was one of the most amazing women who ever lived, the youngest of 25 children, chosen to experience and communicate to the world the astonishing, relentless, mad love of God for every human being.

She spoke fearlessly to those in power, to the wealthy, the clergy, to anyone who would listen. She moved the hearts of popes, brought reconciliation to warring factions, served the poor and the sick, and left testimony to her experiences of the mysterious embrace of Christ the Bridegroom of her soul. His love burned through her and made her 33 years of life an unforgettable fire whose embers still glow, warming us and giving us hope even today.

She was a vital presence for me when I lived in Rome, from her repose under the main altar at Santa Maria Sopra Minerva and out into the church piazza, into the streets, into the air. Catherine, from Sienna, from the Tuscan hills she came to be the friend of the bishop and the people of Rome for nearly 700 years.

She held the fires of divine love in her heart and in her hands, and helped us to draw near to Him, this humble woman, this familiar friend, who still looks after me even when I forget to ask her. She knows the “mad hope” that cries out to God from my own heart. She knows my long and often obscure journey of hope, the journey of my life, of my vocation. She reminds me of the Light and Love of the One who draws me to my destiny.

It is a joy to encounter Saint Catherine of Sienna in the liturgy during this Easter Season, the continuing celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus who transformed her whole existence. She witnesses to the Risen Jesus who is working through the Holy Spirit to change us, and who invites every person to the embrace of the Mystery who has created them to share in His infinite fulfillment, His glory which is the Happiness that every heart desires.

"You are a mystery as deep as the sea;the more I search, the more I find,and the more I find the more I search for you.But I can never be satisfied;what I receive will ever leave me desiring more.When you fill my soul I have an even greater hunger,and I grow more famished for your light.I desire above all to see you,the true light,as you really are."

~Saint Catherine of Siena

Divine Mercy Sunday, 2025

“For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” Jesus, I trust in You!

Mourning Pope Francis With Hearts Full of Gratitude and Joy

I don’t yet know how to “say goodbye” to Pope Francis (to his presence in this world). I find in this time of mourning that follows for nine days after his burial an intensely personal space for my own grief. On some level, I feel once again an “orphan” even as I struggle with being “reborn” in the elder years of my life and my vocation. Yet the sense of “loss” is simultaneously full of gratitude for the fulfillment of his life and ministry, and expectation that his witness will continue to bear fruit in the Church and the world — and in my own life — as God’s great design for all of creation continues to unfold through Jesus Christ in the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Though I have no new words in these days, I think the tribute I wrote two years ago — on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his papacy — could be reproduced here with a few changes in style that indicate his mission is now completed. Now is the time to pray that God grant him the eternal reward of his labors, but also to thank the Lord and to thank Pope Francis for accompanying us during this stretch of our journey toward our destiny in the fullness of Christ Risen and Glorified. Thus, I shall adapt the words I wrote two years ago into a conclusive (though inadequate) effort to express my thanks, and the joy that has been born and continues to grow in my soul:

Dear Pope Francis, thank you for the twelve years of fidelity to the office to which God called you — to be Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, Servant of the Servants of God, and a shepherd and father to us all.

You reminded us every day of the loving presence of Jesus in our lives, and challenged us to share the joy of the Gospel with the whole world, to live with responsibility and gratitude for the beauty and value of all of God’s creation, and to cherish and support the irreplaceable, lifelong mutual love of husbands and wives as the essential foundation of family life. You encouraged young people and—by word and example—taught us how to embrace growing old, and the mysterious value of the sufferings that we are called to endure. You emphasized the special human gift of dialogue and mutual enrichment in the relationship of grandparents and grandchildren, of the elderly with the younger generations. This interaction is an important part of God’s providence: in this way life and history are informed by the union of wisdom and innocence, by experience of the past and hope for the future. 

You always emphasized the special love of Jesus for the poor, the forgotten, the marginalized. Attention to their material needs (including their very real need for justice, mercy, and equity) is not motivated by utopian schemes but by fidelity to Jesus who calls us to recognize him and serve him concretely in the poor: “I was hungry and you gave me food… I was sick and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me… I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” You exhorted us to work in the ways we can to build a more just, loving, fraternal society — to foster the “revolution of tenderness” that Jesus is working even in the midst of this temporal world, as the glowing light of his glory on the horizon of earthly life that has already begun to illuminate everything, as the foretaste of eternal life that sustains us on our historical journey with the promise of fulfillment. It is worthwhile, therefore, to glorify God through works of mercy, and even to work for the “civilization of love” (Saint Paul VI), the social vitality of Christ’s saving love that “already”—even NOW—embraces the whole human person and every aspect of human life. 

We are called to adore, worship, and live in gratitude and joy as children of God our Father, and to serve Jesus our brother in one another and especially in the poor, the abandoned, the lonely—because it is particularly through them that Jesus cries out to us and yearns for our love. God loves everyone, which means that his Catholic Christian disciples cannot rest in any form of self-satisfaction, but must always seek the face of Christ who has united himself to the fulfillment — the destiny — of every person.

In these past twelve years this was the wisdom — the heart and soul — of your Petrine ministry. What you proposed to us is often difficult, but it is the way of the Gospel, the truth we need to hear, the guidance and correction of a merciful father who is called to help us mature in Christ. It requires us to face our own weakness and incoherence, which humbles us. But it is good for us to be humble. Your Papacy was an ongoing work of Christian love and service for which I am truly grateful.

Thank you, Pope Francis, for being a “father” to me in Christ in these past twelve years. You consoled me, instructed me, provoked me to look more deeply at things I thought I already knew, helped me to be patient while living in the midst of an often-confusing and sometimes-terrifying society—to listen to the Holy Spirit and follow Jesus, to resist temptations to resentment, wounded vanity, grudges, gossip, or forgetting Christ’s lordship over history and trusting instead worldly ideologies that promise easy security (and revenge) if I am willing to sell my soul. 

I am so grateful for your paternal solicitude by word and example that has been a light for me during a period filled with pain in my own life, unstable health, much sorrow and grief, so many changes in the passage of time, and — of course — many surprising and profound joys too. (The older I get, the more I find that sorrow and joy often come together in circumstances and events, because they are so full of the Mystery to whom they point, of whom they speak—the fulfillment that has already begun, and that hastens us onward.)

Dear Pope Francis, in your ministry you accompanied me and encouraged me in so many ways, through so many words and gestures. I prayed for you as you bore the enormous sufferings that weigh upon individuals and peoples in the Church and in the world, I will continue to pray for you, that the Father will soon bring you into the fullness of His beatifying presence, through His Son Jesus in the communion of the Holy Spirit.

Pope Francis and the Words of Hope and Mercy

He preached the Gospel until his final day, which was the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Pope Francis spoke and lived and, finally, died as a pastor and a witness to the love and mercy of God. Right to the end, with his last breaths, he gave us hope.

Scenes of April Spring.

Scenes of April Spring:

Thank You, Pope Francis

Pope Francis was called home to the Father’s House this morning at 7:35 AM Rome time. After a beautiful Easter Sunday, in which he was able to visit the faithful in Saint Peter’s Square and give the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” blessing, Francis surrendered his soul to the embrace of God’s mercy on the morning of Easter Monday. May the Lord grant him eternal rest and an abundant reward for his faithfulness and all his labors.

Jesus Christ Has Triumphed Over Death

Alleluia! Christ has triumphed over death.

“The light of the Resurrection illumines our path one step at a time; quietly, it breaks through the darkness of history and shines in our hearts, calling for the response of a humble faith, devoid of all triumphalism. The Lord’s passage from death to life is not a spectacular event by which God shows his power and compels us to believe in him. For Jesus, it was not the end of an easy journey that bypassed Calvary. Nor should we experience it as such, casually and unthinkingly. On the contrary, the Resurrection is like little seeds of light that slowly and silently come to take root in our hearts, at times still prey to darkness and unbelief.

“…we cannot celebrate Easter without continuing to deal with the nights that dwell in our hearts and the shadows of death that so often loom over our world. Christ indeed conquered sin and destroyed death, yet in our earthly history the power of his Resurrection is still being brought to fulfilment. And that fulfilment, like a small seed of light, has been entrusted to us, to protect it and to make it grow.

“When the thought of death lies heavy on our hearts, when we see the dark shadows of evil advancing in our world, when we feel the wounds of selfishness or violence festering in our flesh and in our society, let us not lose heart, but return to the message of this night. The light quietly shines forth, even though we are in darkness; the promise of new life and a world finally set free awaits us; and a new beginning, however impossible it might seem, can take us by surprise, for Christ has triumphed over death.

“This message fills our hearts with renewed hope. For in the risen Jesus we have the certainty that our personal history and that of our human family, albeit still immersed in a dark night where lights seem distant and dim, are nonetheless in God’s hands. In his great love, he will not let us falter, or allow evil to have the last word. At the same time, this hope, already fulfilled in Christ, remains for us a goal to be attained. Yet it has been entrusted to us so that we can bear credible witness to it, so that the Kingdom of God may find its way into the hearts of the women and men of our time.”

~Pope Francis, from text of Easter Vigil Homily, April 19, 2025

Holy Cross

“We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You,
because by Your Holy Cross You have redeemed the world.”

Image: William Congdon, “Crucifix” series (1960s).

The Banquet of His Love

Here is the Collect Prayer for Holy Thursday. 

This prayer encourages us to "draw...the fullness of charity [agape] and of life" from the One Sacrifice, a "sacrifice new for all eternity" that is the Paschal Mystery accomplished by Jesus and "entrusted to the Church." As Saint Thomas Aquinas expresses it: “O sacred banquet in which Christ becomes our food, the memory of His Passion is celebrated, the soul is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.” Jesus gives Himself, in the "banquet of His Love" in which we can participate wherever we are in the world today, through the ministry of the Church in the offering the Eucharistic Liturgy. Wherever we are, Jesus loves us and wants to stay with us, draw close to us, raise us up new life as God's children:

“O God, who have called us to participate in this most sacred Supper, in which your Only Begotten Son, when about to hand himself over to death, entrusted to the Church a sacrifice new for all eternity, the banquet of his love, grant, we pray, that we may draw from so great a mystery, the fullness of charity and of life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.”

Holy Week Begins in the Vatican

Although he was unable to say the Mass in public, the still-convalescing Pope Francis prepared and published the text of the homily for the beginning of Holy Week celebrations at Saint Peter's Basilica. 

The Pope's text was read aloud by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri during the Palm Sunday Mass. Here are some excerpts from Francis's text that can help us prepare in the coming days:

"Jesus comes to meet everyone, in every situation. When we see the great crowds of men and women whom hatred and violence are compelling to walk the road to Calvary, let us remember that God has made this road a place of redemption, for he walked it himself, giving his life for us... In our own day, [many people are] bearing the cross of Christ on their shoulders! Can we recognize them? Can we see the Lord in their faces, marred by the burden of war and deprivation? Faced with the appalling injustice of evil, we never carry the cross of Christ in vain; on the contrary, it is the most tangible way for us to share in his redemptive love.

"Jesus’ passion becomes compassion whenever we hold out our hand to those who feel they cannot go on, when we lift up those who have fallen, when we embrace those who are discouraged. Brothers and sisters, in order to experience this great miracle of mercy, let us decide how we are meant to carry our own cross during this Holy Week: if not on our shoulders, in our hearts. And not only our cross, but also the cross of those who suffer all around us; perhaps even the cross of some unknown person whom chance — but is it really chance? — has placed on our way."