John Janaro's Blog, page 119

Manor House and Fields in Summer

Digital Art. "Manor House and Fields in Summer." I enjoyed working on this, and it took some time. The final result, moreover, caught me a little by surprise.


Neither freehand drawing nor simple photography, art made with digital tools has its own peculiar challenges. Occasionally, after many mistakes and much dissatisfaction, things fall into place. The flaws are not unbearable, and a few "happy mistakes" result in something that exceeds what you set out to do.

During a year of so much overwhelming change, so much "information," so many careless words, I experience more urgently than ever the need to see beauty in life, to craft beautiful things, to present and share beautiful things and places.

At least, I have to try...

"PLAY [safe, socially-distant] BALL!"⚠⚾️

Mid July 2020: Baseball “Summer [Training] Camp.” I'm watching an exhibition game between Nats and Orioles. Coming from an empty ballpark. With fake “fan sounds” playing in the background. 

It’s bizarre. 

It feels like the Nationals won the 2019 World Series a hundred years ago. It seems like ages since the 2020 Season started with Spring Training, back in February. 

I posted in February about my excitement for the new season. Coronavirus sounded like a remote problem for China and East Asia to worry about (wishful thinking in retrospect, insofar as there was any thinking at all). Now, in July, COVID-19 makes the rules.

It puts some perspective on the relative significance (or insignificance) of our "games" when measured against our more fundamental needs, such as life and health. We are continuing to learn lessons about priorities, the need to care for one another, and the common good.

Even though it looks a bit "twilight-zoney," I’m just glad to see baseball BACK! (The 60 game “Season” begins end of this week.⚾️) Maybe it's crazy even to try to salvage the 2020 Season, but I'm a "fan," and it must be remembered that "fan" is short for fanatic.

Saint Camillus and Our Times

Today is the memorial day for Saint Camillus (c. 1582) whose conversion story we saw in the May edition of Magnificat and also on this blog (see link HERE). 

He dedicated his life to caring for the sick, and founded a religious order (the Camillans, officially the "Order of Ministers to the Sick") that was in many ways the prototype of "the Red Cross" and that continues to work throughout the world today. But, of course, Saint Camillus is also the patron of all healthcare workers. These dedicated people always need our prayers in carrying out their professional commitment to works of mercy. It is especially urgent that we remember them now, as they continue to face great challenges during the ongoing pandemic. 

Saint Camillus, pray for our healthcare workers and first responders in these difficult times. May the Lord continue to give them strength and compassion.

God bless them all!

Jesus Wins the Final Victory

Speaking of Carmelites... 

This is a portion of a reflection from yesterday's Magnificat. Here is another of "God's girls," who was so young and so afflicted, but who proved that Christ's love endures all things and wins the final victory. We are "more than conquerors through Him who loved us" (Romans 8:37).

What a great life we have been given!.

Oh, of course, I have many fears and if things go crazy I'll become even more anxious and afraid. I am weak. But there is encouragement here. Jesus is my friend. He understands me better than I understand myself.

Here are the words of a young woman from Latin America 100 years ago, a girl who was heroic and human. They are words that challenge us but also reassure us:

"I want Jesus to be your intimate friend, to whom you may entrust your heart, tired and filled with sorrow. Who can fathom the intensity, the torrent of worries pouring over you as can our Lord who delves into our deepest hearts, and with delicate touch can touch those painful wounds whose depths even we ourselves don't understand? Oh how your life would be transformed if you went to him often as to a friend!" 

~Saint Teresa of the Andes (1900-1920), who professed final vows in her Carmelite monastery in Chile on her deathbed.

Our Mother Mary and Mount Carmel

On this great day we honor our Mother Mary with particular emphasis on her special solicitude for those who share in the immense ecclesial charism of the Carmelite Order.

Beginning with hermits at Mount Carmel in the Holy Land, who dedicated themselves — like Elijah the prophet — to listening in faith for the “still small voice” of the Spirit of God, this charism blossomed in the Western Church during the Middle Ages and bore tremendous fruit in more recent times.

Under Mary’s special protection and care (she who pondered the mysteries of her Son in her heart), the Holy Spirit led the great Carmelites — Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Therese of Lisieux, Edith Stein, and many others — to profound and genuine mystical experiences of God’s gratuitous love and a prophetic witness that continues to enrich the whole Church.

The charism of Carmel is shared in various ways: by professed religious men and women, lay ‘third order’ members, and (in the broadest and most accessible way) all who are devoted to the “brown scapular” — the small cloth squares worn under the shirt as a symbolic “link” to the Carmelite religious habit (i.e. the special garment they wear, which, according to a venerable tradition, was given to them by Mary with the promise of her protection and special help in attaining eternal life). 
The celebration of "Our Lady of Mount Carmel" is a day of religious processions and festivals in many parts of the world, and I know that it was close to the hearts of my Italian immigrant ancestors. (My paternal grandfather, who I never knew in this life, was born on July 16, 1905, and one of his middle names was “Carmelo.” So Happy Birthday no. 115 to my father's father, my "Papa"! — I hope and pray that the whole family is celebrating this day with the Lord in eternal glory.) 

This is a joyful and colorful day for various peoples. To be clear: the many devotions to Mary in the Church are not superstitions (though, obviously, some people might have a superstitious attitude toward Mary and the saints, just as others might have a superstitious attitude about the Bible). Rather, they emerge from the vitality of Mary's very particular, very human ways of caring for the people who have been entrusted to her (who are each of us, and all of us).
The Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ our Savior reaches out to touch us physically, concretely, through many gifts she has given and inspired throughout the history of the Church. There are first of all her outstanding icons, some of which have long been regarded by the Christian people as miraculous in their origin or in other circumstances related to them; in certain cases (e.g. Guadalupe or the healings at Lourdes) popular traditions and contemporary accounts of Mary's presence and power remain inexplicable even after vigorous and careful scientific analysis. Mary is pervasively "present" in the Christian life, and has become intimate to a great spectrum of diverse peoples and cultures through a multitude of particular titles and iconographic styles that enable people all over the world to draw close to her and call her "our Mother."

Mary also enriches and give particular beauty and tenderness to Christian experience through the abundant fruits of her ongoing maternal care for all of God's children. We recognise this in the ancient hymns and liturgical services of the East (such as the Akathist or the Paraklesis), in the many religious communities specially dedicated to her (today we remember the Carmelites), in her “visitations” approved by the Church and established as places of pilgrimage for the Christian people (Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, and others), and in her many tokens of love and invitations to be united with her in prayer (the Rosary, the brown scapular and other scapulars related to different religious families, religious medals worn not out of superstition but in faith and love, etc).
Ultimately, it's a simple reality. If we are the brothers and sisters of Jesus, then we are the children of Mary. Her motherhood of all of us is the very special task entrusted to her along with the Person who is the Son of the Father, who takes our flesh in her womb, who is born of her in Bethlehem, and who dies on the Cross accompanied by her on the hill of Golgotha.
Having a mother, depending on a mother, flourishing and growing under the specific love and tenderness of a mother: these are fundamental human experiences even if they are often imperfect or broken in this fallen world. It is a wonderful fact, however, that God — in redeeming the world, calling us to be born again, and to grow to maturity in the Spirit as a new creation — has given us a redeemed motherhood through a Mother who will never fail us, who is always there for us, who already cares for us even if we don't realize it. Though, of course, she wants us to know her love. It means so much for our happiness, our confidence, the maturation of our humanity in Christ her Son. 
Mary is our Mother. She cares for us, accompanies us, clothes us, teaches us to pray, loves us, and carries us through trials so that we can attain the fullness of our destiny as God's children, as the little brothers and little sisters of Jesus. 

Saint Bonaventure on the Kindness of Christ's Heart

On this Feast of Saint Bonaventure - who was not only one of the greatest theologians of the Middle Ages but also one of the most devoted followers of Saint Francis of Assisi - let's take the opportunity to benefit from his inspired counsel.

Here, from one of his brief treatises "On Holiness of Life," he presents a concrete meditation that deserves the attention of our minds and hearts especially in times of great need.

"If ever anything sad befalls you, or anything grieves you, or...causes you weariness or bitterness of heart," Saint Bonaventure advises, "lift up immediately your eyes to your Lord hanging nailed to the Cross. 

"Look upon Him, His head crowned with thorns! Gaze upon the nails, the iron nails which fasten Him to the Cross, and upon the lance piercing His sacred side. In all trying moments, picture and contemplate the wounds in His hands and feet, picture to yourself the wounds in His most blessed head, the wound in His sacred side, the wounds of His whole body. 

"Call to mind that He was wounded for your sake, that he suffered for you and that His sufferings were so great because He loved you beyond compare."

Bonaventure assures us that turning to the Lord in this way will bring us renewal and strength. Remembering Christ's sufferings and His love for us will "change your sadness into joy. What was heavy to bear will become light. What causes your weariness will become something to love."

The incomparable love of Jesus Christ crucified gives meaning to our sufferings and transforms them. Discovering how greatly we have been loved, how compassionate and complete is God's drawing close to us, will enkindle our love for Him in whatever circumstances we face, whatever burdens we bear. Saint Bonaventure always recalls us to the Cross, where God redeems us, expresses the fathomless depths of His love for us, and raises us up by calling us and empowering us to respond and enter into a relationship with Him.

"Christ accepted these sufferings and death to gain your devoted love. Through thought on these sufferings and out of gratitude, He wishes you to love Him. He desires you to love Him with your whole heart, with your whole mind, and with your whole soul. To save a slave He became a slave. What could prove better His kindness of heart?...  

"In spite of our worthlessness, though we deserve punishment, He laid down His life for us. His kindness reached such depths and such heights that it is impossible to imagine anything more tender, more kind or more lovable. The greatness of His love becomes more evident the more we realize the abject and terrible nature of Christ's sufferings... 

"This is the way God has loved us, and has invited us to love Him and to imitate Him in His love for us."

The Elders Dream, and the Young See Visions

I'm at a time in my life in which I appreciate very much the Pope's frequent remarks on the importance of inter-generational communication. Concretely, Eileen and I still find ourselves "in the middle" of three generations of family, though this position has begun to shift in recent years.

The events of my father's illness and death initiated this shift in a rather abrupt way for me. Not only had he been my father since "forever;" he was also well established as "Papa" to his five grandchildren. I will always be grateful that he was able to be a presence in their lives, and that he received so much joy from them.

I still miss him. If anything, I miss him more, though I do believe that "the relationship continues" and that he still "helps me" and keeps me grounded.

And now, the shift also continues - at least in the sense of establishing the proximate environment for a new generation to come into the world - as our son John Paul is getting married next month. ( ! )

Above: Papa playing baseball with his six year old
grandson. Below: Papa & high school age John Paul.Eileen and I will be one step closer to being grandparents ourselves, to seeing the fulfillment of one of the blessings bestowed upon us on our own wedding day: "May they see their children's children" (a matter that seemed - on that day many years ago - only a little less remote than "traveling to other planets," as in "O yeah, maybe, way way waaay in the future...").

These relationships shape us and challenge us. I always assumed that, by the time I became "one of the elders," I would feel... well... old! And yet, as it approaches, I don't feel much older. I've been sick. I've been tired. But, no, this is a different thing. I suppose that - like most things in life - it's something you learn by going through it.

But as I said at the start of this post, "Papa" Francis often has insightful guidance on just this point. He insists on a crucial factor: the elderly are not just helpless or hindered people who need care from the younger, stronger generations. They have an essential and profound role for the future, for the fruitful movement of history. The different generations need one another, and when they are alienated from one another, society becomes dysfunctional and humanly impoverished.

Here is one recent quotation, that follows and comments on the Scripture text immediately below:

I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy,  your old men will dream dreams,  your young men will see visions (Joel 3:1).

"The elderly continue to be our roots. And they must speak to the young. This tension between young and old must always be resolved in the encounter with each other. Because the young person is bud and foliage, but without roots they cannot bear fruit. The elderly are the roots. I would say to them, today: I know you feel death is close, and you are afraid, but look elsewhere, remember your children, and do not stop dreaming. This is what God asks of you: to dream" (Joel 3:1).

"What would I say to the young people? Have the courage to look ahead, and to be prophetic. May the dreams of the old correspond to your prophecies" (also Joel 3:1).

~Pope Francis (from The Tablet interview with Austin Ivereigh, 04/08/2020)

"Return to the Right Path"

O God, who show the light of your truth 
to those who go astray, 
so that they may return to the right path, 
give all who for the faith they profess are accounted 
  Christians
the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name
  of Christ 
and to strive after all that does it honor. 
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, 
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 
one God, for ever and ever.

~Collect for Sunday, July 12, 2020

      [Detail from a mosaic by Marko Rupnik at Saint John Paul II Shrine, Washington DC, USA]

Why I Want to "Spend Time" With Christina Grimmie

I think I am beginning to understand why I do this, month after month. I make a graphic or sometimes write an article, virtually every month, on the 10th day (sometimes it spills over a day or two beyond that). Eventually, I post and share what I come up with, and some months the result is bigger and/or better than others. But ultimately the whole process is a kind of personal thing.

Once a month, over the past four years, I spend some time "visiting" with Christina Grimmie.

I go on a "journey" into the immense digital realm that still bears so many impressions and resonances of all the ways she offered herself and endeavored to be present to people all over the world. I watch, I listen, I read some words, and then - taking my own impressions or using fragments of media (words, lyrics, screenshots of momentary frames of video) as a basis for work with my own creative tools - I put together my own presentation. I hope that it has some value for others, but it always has value for me. The value above all is in the time itself, where I find that I receive so much more than I have given.

But why do I make this effort? Why do I revisit the "virtual remains" of a young woman who was taken from this world four years and one month ago - someone who I had no connection with nor even a particularly attentive interest in before she died? I don't think I can really fully explain why she matters to me, why I want to "be with her" in some meaningful way.

I have lots of other projects, ongoing research, interests, responsibilities. But I make time for Christina. The rest of the month, I might not think much about her or even listen to her music. But here's what matters: somehow Christina has worked her way into a significant place in my life. She has become "familiar" to me, in the sense that I care about her "like family." She is a reality in my life, with dimensions beyond anything I could construct by imagining or willing it myself. This would not be possible if it weren't for the fact that she is a real person. And over the past four years I have come to love this person.

Okay, I said I was "beginning to understand" what I'm doing each month. The "analogy" to family has shed a bit of light on it recently.

Since my father's death last year, I have discovered that the gesture of "spending time" with him is a very real and personal act (in this case, it includes actually visiting his grave, but also the many moments that come through so many other particular things that bring him to mind).

With my father, of course, I'm working through the mysterious experience of grief, but it's not simply a psychological exercise. It's spending time with a person. Because death - even with all its obscurity and strangeness and "distance" - is simply not the end of an interpersonal relationship. The relationship endures, not through weird conjuring tricks, but precisely the opposite: it remains woven into the course of "ordinary" life.

Part of the endurance of grief, and perhaps the way we begin to "make peace" with grief, is our growing "accustomed" (though never entirely) to this hidden continuation of the relationship with the one who has passed on - to the continuation of LOVE - which we express through simple gestures and which (occasionally) "surprises us" as something we receive from the other, something more than a past memory.

Companionship remains, and sometimes this makes it harder, but we want to bear it nonetheless. Grief does not terminate with forgetfulness of the other; it grows, slowly, into a kind of peace and humility in front of the great mystery of life and the particular mystery of that person we love. I am learning this road with my father.

But why does Christina Grimmie matter to me?

As you can see, I have been doing these posts and graphics for awhile.

I never met her, and didn't have any particular interest in her during her life or career. It was only when she died that I was really drawn to learn more about her. In time, I began to appreciate and be inspired by the beauty of her life, especially its "extraordinary-within-the-ordinary" character. I began to look upon her with a particular admiration, and I could say that I loved this young person. As everyone will say who learns about her life, it's hard not to love her. But what "surprised me" was the impression that I, myself, was being loved.

The most important thing to me about Christina is that she has befriended me. I really think this goes beyond general theological categories (such as "the communion of saints") or psychological phenomena related to her personal style of communicating which is still accessible on the Internet.

Those are all factors, certainly, but they do not satisfy me as sufficient to account for a very personal experience. I don't think I'm imagining this, because there are many other people who have only discovered Christina after her death who speak in similar terms. Others may have been frands during her lifetime, but now find (even in the midst of their sorrows) that she has become more important to them and more intimate to their lives.

Then, of course, those who knew and loved her best during her life on this earth have a different kind of experience, with a weight and depth that I can't begin to fathom. I wonder, perhaps, as time goes on whether they find some unexpected heights in the midst of the depths. Or perhaps some other ground where in some moments she walks with them, in a way we don't have words to describe.

In any case, it's personal. Even for myself, very much a latecomer to Team Grimmie, there is something personal, there is someone with whom I want to spend time. Though this friendship is very concrete, it is the opposite of exclusive! More than anything, that's why I'm moved to share it. I'm sure that other people who read this will recognize that the same kind of thing has happened for them.

I think Christina will continue to make new friends, and become more accessible to everyone even as she continues to be personally and "specially" available to each of us.

Summer Flowers "Up Close"

Summer Flowers UP CLOSE: Hibiscus bushes showed their buds less than a week ago (picture 1, top) and now they have already begun to bloom (picture 2). This matches the somewhat more "tropical" weather we've been having recently.