John Janaro's Blog, page 144

Buona Festa Della Famiglia di San Gennaro (Janaro)

Today is the Feast Day of the Great Ancestor of the Janaro Clan, the original Saint Januarius, fourth century bishop and martyr.

I'm sure he must, somehow, be related to us, what with the "Naples" tradition and all. Surely my Neapolitan ancestors participated in the 1500-year-old devotion to him. Indeed, according to Legend (and I should know, because I made up the legend) he is the special patron saint of the Janaros.

After all, why not? The spelling difference is not such a big deal. No doubt both names are rooted in the Latin "Janus," the god of the gateways, after whom the first month of the year takes its name ("January"). 

So Happy Janaro Family Feast Day!

Buena Festa Della Famiglia di San Gennaro (Janaro)

Today is the Feast Day of the Great Ancestor of the Janaro Clan, the original Saint Januarius, fourth century bishop and martyr.

I'm sure he must, somehow, be related to us, what with the "Naples" tradition and all. Surely my Neapolitan ancestors participated in the 1500-year-old devotion to him. Indeed, according to Legend (and I should know, because I made up the legend) he is the special patron saint of the Janaros.

After all, why not? The spelling difference is not such a big deal. No doubt both names are rooted in the Latin "Janus," the god of the gateways, after whom the first month of the year takes its name ("January"). 

So Happy Janaro Family Feast Day!

"This Saying is Trustworthy..."

Why Do I "Teach"? What Keeps Me Motivated?

In a recent post ("On My Work" - see here) I considered the status of my "work," my temporal vocation, my ongoing engagement in academic life and the teaching profession.

The exercise of my profession is hindered and limited by disability, but it remains important to me. The energy that I have is focused on doing what I can to fulfill the task I took up 25 years ago (after many years spent in preparation for it). Forced now to live "in retirement" (and often in bed), I can't work a job nor predict how I will feel from day to day. This is frustrating, and yet I am determined to do what I can and to "keep going."

Why do I teach? For that matter, why do I study, why do I try to learn, to understand reality? What is the motivation that sustains it?

I have always pondered the great questions of life, the mysteries of being human, and the Mystery who holds us and all things in existence and calls our hearts to seek the "ever-greater," the "Infinite." I also wanted to help others on this path.

I am a Catholic Christian who has been drawn into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ in the Church. By calling and circumstances, I carry out my human vocation with a more explicit and direct service to my brothers and sisters in Christ. I also find through faith an openness to every person, a passion for the humanity of every person and a light that illuminates the whole of reality. Faith requires me to recognize the preciousness of all human things and all of creation, and to find hope and meaning in every circumstance.

Hope searches for truth, goodness, and beauty wherever they can be found, and perseveres even in suffering and in the endurance of evil and violence. The vitality of hope is sustained by a loving adherence to the One who is Love, who has endured all things and reveals Love's infinite mystery by "being-with-us" to the end, beyond our limits and even our rejection of Love and our struggle against it. ("Love your enemies..." "Father, forgive them...")

I studied theology and also philosophy and history, and I remain a professor ("emeritus") at a university that takes a Christocentric, "Catholic" integrated humanities approach to learning. As I said before, health problems restrict me from active teaching (which I miss a lot), but I'm engaged in research, writing, and creative projects in various ways, depending on my fluctuating condition.

Notwithstanding the many possibilities new media technology has opened up for connecting with people, I often feel very lonely. (This is a form of suffering - and I wrote a whole book about suffering and its value known through the eyes of faith, which makes a difference even to people like me who are weak in faith and low on patience.)

I often feel very lonely.

However, it gives a certain kind of perspective. So many people are lonely, or confused, or stressed out. We are desperately searching for solutions to our problems and/or distractions and ways to kill the pain. I certainly do plenty of this, but it's never adequate to escape the desire that burns in me to share so many things that I have learned and continue to learn.

It's not just my big ego (though that's part of it, of course - my life is such a mess). I don't know if I ever have a perfect, pure intention for anything I do. I spend my days subconsciously (sometimes even consciously) trying to make deals with God. I'm definitely a sinner, but the Lord has still entrusted me with a mission, and it continues to draw me through these days, as it has since my youth.

This mission has to do with communicating what I "see and hear" along the whole journey of this life, whatever experience and understanding I gain about what it means to be human. I suppose this is what being "a humanities teacher" is all about. And how or when this communication "succeeds" is not something I can measure in the brief scope of my own time in this world.

I'm called to be faithful to this vocation, even if I feel like I'm not saying it very well, or no one is listening, and the hairs of my beard just grow whiter as the days pass by. I'm called to be faithful. So I pray for the grace to keep trying, and doing what I can, entrusting the fruition to God.

The Cross of Love and Salvation

September 14. "Exaltation of the Cross," which is God's love for the world.
.

A Song for Hong Kong

The newly-composed, virally-learned anthem of the Hong Kong Protest Movement has been sung openly by large crowds of people peacefully gathered in public places all over the region in the past two days.
This is a historic moment. People have begun calling it "Hong Kong's National Anthem."
A musician who uses the pseudonym "Thomas" or "T" began circulating a "marching anthem" with words on the Protesters' Internet. Individuals and groups recorded vocals, and their contributions were "mixed" the way many songs are made today in music studios (but with production software that is accessible to anyone; you probably have it pre-installed on your iPhone).
The result was the first video linked below. The 2 million views since August 31 are just on this anonymous YouTube channel; it has circulated in various ways. For once, something has "gone viral" that really does deserve widespread attention.
I don't know who did the English "translation" (or rather "versification") in the subtitles; it's clumsy and wordy compared to the original, but it does give us English-only-speakers an idea of what they are singing. The language, by the way, is NOT Mandarin. It is Cantonese, which is the popular language in Hong Kong and in that whole area of South China.
I don't know either of these languages, but I know that this distinction is very important to the people - among the many things that Beijing wants to impose on HK is the "standardized language" of Mandarin (at least, this is what people fear).
Watch and listen to the original video here:


This first video is remarkable enough in itself. But the truly amazing story is exemplified by the second video linked at the end of this post. In less than two weeks, thousands of people have learned to sing this anthem and are singing it in public.

People have gathered in streets, parks, and shopping malls to sing this song. Ensembles and soloists have performed it or posted videos. At a local FIFA soccer match on September 12, not only did the crowd boo the Communist Chinese National Anthem (which was recently imposed on them "by law"). They sang this anthem, "Glory to Hong Kong."

At halftime, they sang it again, just to make sure Beijing heard it loud and clear.

Hong Kong has a peculiar history (I'm boning up on it, don't worry). The region was barely inhabited when the British established the colony as a sort of military/mercantile base there in the 19th century. Cantonese immigrants came, did the grunt work of building the town for the British, and thereafter constituted the vast majority of its population.

After the Communist victory on the mainland, people fled from all parts of China to British Hong Kong. Then they were passed back to China in 1997, under an agreement they had no say in making.

Hong Kong has always been a distinctive place - a meeting point "between East and West" - and if they have not always been a distinctive "people," they are being forged into a new people by the events of this past decade. These events are an organic rising up to meet the challenge of a repression that is trying to subvert and destroy the natural evolution of local political, juridical, and social institutions.

The Hong Kong people call this their "revolution," but it's not a revolution in the destructive or ideologically imposing sense of that term. The people do not want to tear down what they have already built; rather, they want the defense of persons and communities, and the reasonable reform and development of already-existing institutions that mediate a common life lived in an open human space, a place where freedom is possible.

I can't argue with people who think that's worth defending - who take risks in order to be free to tend their own garden. This is what makes history. And after hearing this anthem and seeing and hearing these people, I have hope for them, that - whether now or in a future that is beginning now - they will prevail. The world will be enriched by a new, vital contribution from the Hong Kong people. It already has been.

And none of these people will forget what has begun in these days. They have more than a movement now. They have a song. A crowd can be dispersed and a movement suppressed. It's nearly impossible, however, to remove music from people's hearts. 

The Flaming City

"The Flaming City" #NeverForget911 #DigitalArt Eighteen years ago, Manhattan was burning.

It's a bit mind boggling to think that kids in the USA turning 18 after today weren't even born when the terrorist attacks of "9-11" took place. For a Young Senior like me, it's hard to wrap the mind around this generation-and-a-half GAP in the adult world.

When I think about it, I realize that I was around 8 months old when Kennedy was assassinated. For today's newly minted legal adults, "September 11, 2001" has a similar kind of whole-life-epoch-defining significance that "November 22, 1963" had for my generation growing up (the date rolls right up in my head effortlessly, even though I have a hard time remembering people's names or why I left the room five minutes ago).

Obviously these are two different events, with different implications, but both were national catastrophes that deeply marked the experience of political and social life for the generation that grew up in their shadows.

I'm trying to get some perspective for myself, to epathize with what 9-11 "feels like" for kids today ... including my own kids (John Paul is the only one who has any memory of it).

On another, more basic level, 9-11 was a moment of brazen, unmasked evil that killed thousands of people, brought terrible suffering to families and friends that continues to this day, directly impacted countless people (some of whom I know personally) and our whole nation, and indeed shocked every human being on the planet who hadn't entirely lost their conscience.

Then (like now) there was an 80+ year old man in Rome who had seen many brazen evils in his life. The next day, he spoke according to his profound human experience and in the manner befitting his office. He knew well that nothing he could say would "make the suffering go away," but he also knew that it was necessary to remember that evil - for all its terrifying and totalitarian pretenses that seem to overwhelm history - does not have the last word.

Here is what Pope John Paul II said the next day:

"To the President of the United States and to all American citizens I express my heartfelt sorrow. In the face of such unspeakable horror we cannot but be deeply disturbed. I add my voice to all the voices raised in these hours to express indignant condemnation, and I strongly reiterate that the ways of violence will never lead to genuine solutions to humanity’s problems.

"Yesterday was a dark day in the history of humanity, a terrible affront to human dignity. After receiving the news, I followed with intense concern the developing situation, with heartfelt prayers to the Lord. How is it possible to commit acts of such savage cruelty? The human heart has depths from which schemes of unheard-of ferocity sometimes emerge, capable of destroying in a moment the normal daily life of a people. But faith comes to our aid at these times when words seem to fail. Christ’s word is the only one that can give a response to the questions which trouble our spirit. Even if the forces of darkness appear to prevail, those who believe in God know that evil and death do not have the final say. Christian hope is based on this truth; at this time our prayerful trust draws strength from it."

"Rose Study, Number 10"

Number ten in my "Rose Study" digital art series. I have been puttering away at several "rose study" pieces, so they should be finished soon. 

This one is fun:

We Become Our True Selves By "Asking"

God of might, giver of every good gift,
put into our hearts the love of your name, so that, by deepening our sense of reverence, you may nurture in us what is good and, by your watchful care, keep safe what you have nurtured. 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. Amen.

The Collect Prayer of this past week once again turns us to God, who is the source of all reality in its being and goodness, the source of our hearts and of the very freedom by which we enter into relationship with Him and are brought to fulfillment in Him.

We can pray this prayer of grateful dependence, which is not an enslavement because God is the One who gives us our very existence as persons, our uniqueness, our dignity. We remember that dependence on God is the only real freedom, the only liberation from our indigence and apparent insignificance that leads to wisdom and enduring life.

He who is the giver of every good gift has given us a promise. He will awaken, sustain, and protect our freedom as He guides us to the realization of our true and definitive selves as persons in relation to Him and one another, sharing in His infinite life, infinite goodness, infinite love.

Why would we want to paralyze ourselves in a powerless mistrust of the all-Good God? What would that leave us with? O harrowing loneliness!

No. Let us ask with boundless trust: "Put into my heart love for You, deepen my awareness of You as the real center of my existence, nurture my adherence to You and all things in the goodness they have from You, and keep me safe until the fulfillment of Your promise."

"Ask and you shall receive," the Lord has promised. So let's ask, keep asking, return to asking again, never stop asking through all the darkness, the obscurity, the failures, the pain, the distractions, and the solitude of this life's journey.

Ask . 

Never give up asking God to give you His love. His grace empowers the "asking" itself, opening up our freedom and enabling us to adhere to Him.

"A Meek and Humble Heart..."

Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997. 22 years later, we celebrate another feast of Saint Teresa of Kolkata.


She'll always be 'Mother Teresa' to me. I'm a long way from humility, and I read too many books. But I'm learning to smile. 

"Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing."
.