John Janaro's Blog, page 134

So Much Compassion

From the Instagram site of Pope Francis:

"Survivor" (A Poem, New and Revised)

I have reworked and revised large sections of this poem, and it's enough to warrant presenting it here once again. It's not likely that many people read it previously (some two years ago, when it was first posted) — that doesn't bother me; in fact I hope not many people read it, because it was messy.

That doesn't mean it's "neat" now (or ever will be). In any case, I reserve the right to revise it further. This is my "writing workshop" (indeed, my creative workshop for a variety of media). Some of my posts are more polished than others.

After nine years, however, I have also begun to realize that a blog is a distinctive kind of "thing," a literary and multimedia artifact (or collection of artifacts) with an identity of its own, even though I'm not sure what that identity is.

I content for now to consider it a work-in-progress, and keep shaping it as I go.

Here, then, is the new and revised version of Survivor. I have come to realize that this poem, written in the first person, actually does come out of my own experience. In a sense, this poem is about me, but it's also about what is for so many people the intensity and trauma of life in these strange times. We are all the ones who are "running."

As for the ones who drive the runners on, I don't know who "They" are ... [read the poem, and you'll know what I'm talking about

Theophany: God Reveals Himself

The baptism of Jesus. The descent of the Holy Spirit. The voice of the Father. God reveals His mystery, the Trinity. 
It is the decisive "epiphany" of the Christmas season, and the initiation of Jesus's public ministry. The Byzantine tradition calls this feast "the Theophany" - where God begins in a new way to manifest Himself to the world, to reveal His inner reality as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 
We have observed on this day the beginning of the path that will lead us to the celebration of the Paschal Mystery, the ultimate outpouring of God’s love through the death and resurrection of Jesus for our salvation.
May the Lord give you joy!

We Continue to Learn From Christina Grimmie

Digital design, based on photo (credit to photo owner)


It's possible to go through life knowing about (and even writing about) certain basic dispositions and ways of acting that are proper to a mature human personality, yet still not really know how to live these things in your own daily existence.

Then one day, you encounter another person who lives rightly and deeply, not out of arrogant self-regard but in a beautiful and authentic way. You almost can't help being moved by this person, and the impact of their life has an effect on you. It begins to change you, even if only by sparking within you the desire to change and grow, to see reality the way that person sees it.

Anyone whose life has been touched by Christina Grimmie knows what I'm talking about.

I have learned from her. There is no question about that. Indeed, I'm still learning from her, and I think people will continue to learn from her for generations to come. On this 10th day in the month of January 2020, I wanted to reflect a little on this point.

We can learn from her... not because she was always perfect, or totally coherent, or never did anything wrong. Not because we totally understand and agree with everything she ever said or did. Rather, we learn from the way she perceived life and the way she returned, consistently, to this awareness as the foundation of her actions and of the way she followed her own vocation.

Here are just a few examples of what Christina Grimmie has taught me to want for my life in a more concrete way, because of the way she perceived the value of these qualities and endeavored to live them. Many points could be cited here, but I will give three examples:

(1) Gratitude : How magnificent and real and human it is to be grateful. Be grateful for all you've been given, every day.

(2) Share the Credit: Celebrate the people who hold you up, help you, and support you in whatever you achieve; let them (and others) know that they share credit for whatever good you've done, and that they're beautiful and you love them.

(3) This is a very hard one... Don't Speak Badly About Any Person : Christina never spoke negatively about people (except maybe the guy in "Liar, Liar," and even there she turned it into a funny story and a great song). She never badmouthed people or put anyone down, even in general references. She spoke well about every person, and if they had troubles she encouraged them and challenged them.

I'm not very good at acting according to these examples, but I'm trying, and I want to be different in these ways more than ever.

For that, dear Christina, I will always be grateful to you.

The Sacraments: Jesus is Always With Us

The Sacraments are at the heart of the Church. Above all there is Jesus Himself really and substantially present in the Eucharist, always with us, giving Himself to us.

It is the same Jesus who acts to bring healing through the sacrament of Reconciliation, where we bring our fractured selves and He floods us with His mercy. In this sacrament He restores the grace of God lost by grave sin; indeed there is no sin that is too great for His mercy.

And there is also strength to be found here for shaping living Christian hearts. There is abundant grace in this sacrament that renews us and draws us beyond the narrowness of soul constrained by all those “venial sins” that hinder (even if they do not break) our relationship with Jesus.

These are the sins that we acknowledge at Mass: "I have greatly sinned...through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault." Even venial sins are “great” and “grievous” - though they don’t separate us from God, they fall short of God’s wisdom and glory, and they distract and delay us from becoming our true selves and attaining the happiness for which God created us.

We are indeed afflicted by these "daily sins" - the fact that they are not grave sins does not mean we should ignore them. They damage us, distort us, and render our witness opaque. They wound and cripple us; how can we recover and grow? The sacraments are remedies for our wounds, and through sacramental confession, Christ's grace renders a gradual but effective service to the health of our souls.

We need to let Jesus draw us close to His heart. Confession is not a burden. It is a blessing. Bring your troubled, anxious hearts to the fountain of mercy and healing. Go to Confession! Just go. Make it part of your life!

It's a tremendous thing to realize that we don't have to "do" the work of Christian living alone, all by ourselves. Jesus is here for us. That's what the sacraments mean. We don't have to conjure up an imaginary Jesus in our minds so that we can "feel" His forgiveness and His strength. Jesus is here. He acts. He gets involved with our lives and makes things happen.

I often express my struggles with anxieties, frustration, and sometimes with a loneliness where it is difficult to recognize the hand of God at work. But this is not the central, determining experience of myself. At the center is Jesus, who has taken hold of my life through the Holy Spirit, Jesus who I first encountered in the sacrament of Baptism, and who continues to engage my life continually in my personal vocation and especially through the healing and renewal He offers in the sacraments.
Above all, in the Eucharist I have been given gratitude; I have had a taste of the thanksgiving that is so much more than a polite acknowledgement, the thanksgiving that wells up in the center of life, with the awareness that I exist as a gift, in the image of God. And that Eternal Love is calling me to His embrace through concrete moments and gestures and words. I am not defined by my faults and limits (although, so often, it seems that way). The meaning of my life is this gentle calling, and the grace and mercy it contains.

It is not a one way relationship that I construct. In the Eucharist He gives Himself to me. If I allow Him to work in me, He will open my soul, and create in me the capacity to love Him.

By grace, God enables me to love Him. This is completely, radically, and entirely the work of God. To Him be all the glory. But what makes the saving work of Jesus eminently and clearly divine is that He makes me - as a whole person - a new creation in Himself, a person-in-relationship to Him and the Father and the Holy Spirit. It is my own personal love and my own personal life that Jesus gives to me, sustains in me, and perfects in me as I journey in hope toward the promise of God’s kingdom.

In the sacraments Jesus accompanies us concretely, walks with us, and makes our steps firm and secure.

Keeping the Christmas Lights On Through January

Here are some pictures of our Christmas tree, which is still standing in all the glory of its electric lights and polyvinyl chloride branches! I always like to give special attention to some of the hand-crafted wooden Christmas ornaments from Germany that continue to brighten up this time of year in our house. Our tree stays up through Epiphany week and beyond, because...

(1) ...we continue to celebrate the wonderful truth that God has come to dwell among us, and to reveal and give Himself to us. 
(2) January is dark and brutal enough to endure without having to kill the lights and dismantle our ersatz greenery. It perks up the house and our spirits during the cold month. There's no need to go through "post-Christmas withdrawal." 
(3) Our tree may be a cheap plastic imitation (aside from these nice ornaments) but it still carries our little family history and is an image of hope for the new “Tree of Life” in the eternal garden of a resurrected, transcendent Paradise for which we yearn. And we just put it up Christmas Eve. Why rush?
(4) February 2nd marks the “40 days” from Jesus’s birth to the rituals of the temple, the sacrifice of turtle doves, the joy of Simeon and Anna in seeing the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s promises to His people (see Luke 2:22-38). It remains a cultural tradition in some places to mark the full 40 days as the season of Christmas and Epiphany, and the old form of the Roman liturgy marks “Sundays after Epiphany” for these weeks (n.b. we follow the current “ordinary form” of the Roman rite where, liturgically speaking, the Christmas Season ends after this Sunday’s feast of Jesus’s baptism... but we can still keep up decorations and cheer through Candlemas). We also grab all the clearance-sale Pannetone and Stollen we can.
(5) When Ash Wednesday is approaching and we’re finally putting stuff away, we only feel like we’ve procrastinated for a few weeks instead of a month and a half. By that time we’ve had enough of the tree, and are

Vistas of Winter

A camera can capture hints of the subdued beauty of January.

Here with my zoom lens, I try to glimpse how the late afternoon sun, with its peculiar angle this time of year, brightens the bare trees. And it's striking how the mountains are everywhere visible through the leafless branches. Of course, "late afternoon" this time of year starts between 3:30 and 4:00 PM heading into a sunset just after 5 PM. But the days are slowly starting to get longer.

These are vistas that only Winter gives us.

Light of Nations

"Christ is the light of Nations." Happy Epiphany!!⭐

Christmas and the Presence that Saves Us

I spend a lot of time "inside my head." I have always been this way. I ponder things, or I worry about them. I become preoccupied with my own insecurity and anxieties to a point that hinders me from decisive action, or robs me of the opportunities for silence and peace.

Nothing is ever simple inside my head.

I would get stuck there, perpetually trying to figure things out, were it not for the fact that there are other people in my life who call me out of myself. They require me to live in the vital space of relationship, with its surprises, problems, requirements for action and empathy, joys, sorrows, moments of time, and all the features of a concrete otherness that continually provokes me to "go beyond myself."
I can be immersed in my own thoughts or worries and suddenly Josefina comes bouncing into the room (as she often does) with a question about school or with stories about what she did that day, or Eileen needs to talk about a work situation, or someone else in the house has a need for help or a gift to share. This changes the moment, and introduces something new from outside myself.
I can no longer pretend that I construct my life alone, by myself. These other people are here. They are concretely, irreducibly here, in my history, in this moment. 
This particular relationality in daily existence is basic to the experience of being human. It is necessary if we are to remain sane. It is also a sign of a greater, deeper, historical presence that comes from outside ourselves and saves us definitively.
Jesus is here.

I can't "hold myself together" with a comprehensive understanding of myself, or with the accumulation of stuff, or with anything that I try to capture with my conniving and my worrying.

Instead something happens. Someone comes. Someone Else is here.

This is what Christmas teaches me. Of all the billions of people born in human history, there is one who -- right now -- says to me, "I am the meaning of your life."

"I am what you are searching for," Jesus says. "I am the one who comes to transform your life into a relationship with me, which is the real way of living yourself. You can't 'make yourself' although you keep trying to, in an effort that leads to desperation again and again, because what you're looking for is beyond all your thinking and understanding and expression; really, you know it's out of your reach...."

"But don't be anxious. I have come to dwell with you. I am here, right now, right where you are. And I love you."

Whatever darkness you suffer, remember that He is here.

Whatever sorrow, confusion, guilt: He is here.

He wants to bring you through. He loves you.

"I have come into the world to be its light" (John 12:46).

Rejoice! It's still the Christmas season. Happy Christmas Season!

The Forty Year CHALLENGE

January 2 was Happy Birthday number 57 for me. It seems like I just turned 50 a little while ago! But much has happened in these years besides my getting older, stiffer, and whiter-in-the-beard.
I have lived these years, and I am grateful for them.
As I grow older, I feel "closer" to my whole life. I have a better understanding and appreciation of the not only the limits and naiveté of my teenage years, but also the aspirations, work, and achievements of that time.
So here I did a “Forty Year Challenge” (how’s that, young folks?)... well, forty-ish — close enough.