John Janaro's Blog, page 162

"Father Benedict": The 'Thirst for the Infinite' Continues

I recently came across this text (see below) from Benedict XVI among notes taken some time ago. Gosh, it's nearly six years since those earth-shaking days of early 2013 when Benedict resigned the papacy and entered into the secluded life of prayer that he continues to this day.

Josef Ratzinger has lived a vast life of service to Christ and the Church, as priest and theologian, bishop, cardinal, pope, and now as the nonagenarian hermit who remains in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in Vatican City.   .

His long thirst for God still burns in silence and hiddenness, and still participates (in ways beyond our imagining) in the inner vitality of the Church's life, and in the often anguished search of human beings for the face of the Mystery who gives meaning and purpose to their existence. Though "Father Benedict" (as he prefers to be called today) rarely communicates publicly and no longer exercises an active teaching mission in the world, he has left us many profound words from his years as Pope. They remain as a precious legacy within the Church, still offering nourishment for meditation on our faith and for living our relationship with God through an encounter with Jesus that enables us to pray with all the depths of our humanity.

As our current Pope Francis continues to carry the burden of the Petrine ministry in his 83rd year of life—with all its responsibilities and its many sufferings—he is no doubt encouraged by the fraternal presence of his predecessor. It is a unique situation, which I don't think anyone expected to last this long, and which is so idiosyncratic that it's not likely to become a custom in the Church.

In these tumultuous times, however, it continues to serve purposes ultimately known only to God.

Here is the text from a homily in 2011, when the decade now drawing to a close was still young. But the truth they express is not bound by time, and speaks the very heart of the person:

"Man bears within himself a thirst for the infinite, a nostalgia for eternity, a search for beauty, a desire for love, a need for light and truth, which drive him toward the Absolute; man bears within himself the desire for God. And man knows, in some way, that he can address himself to God, that he can pray to him. Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest theologians of history, defines prayer as the 'expression of man's desire for God.' This attraction toward God, which God himself has placed in man, is the soul of prayer, which is cloaked in many forms and modalities according to the history, time, moment, grace and finally the sin of each one of those who pray" (Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience of May 11, 2011).

Thirst for the Infinite

I recently came across this text (see below) from Benedict XVI among notes taken some time ago. Gosh, it's nearly six years since those earth-shaking days of early 2013 when Benedict resigned the papacy and entered into the secluded life of prayer that he continues to this day.

Josef Ratzinger: priest and theologian, bishop, cardinal, pope, and now the nonagenarian hermit who remains in Vatican City and whose long thirst for God still burns in silence and hiddenness—though he no longer speaks to the world, he has left us many words to ponder, that still offer nourishment for faith and prayer.

As current Pope Francis continues to teach and suffer many things, he is no doubt encouraged by the fraternal presence of his predecessor. It is a unique situation, which I don't think anyone expected to last this long, and which is not likely to become a custom in the Church.

In these tumultuous times, however, it continues to serve purposes known only to God.

Here is the text from a homily in 2011, when the decade now drawing to a close was still young. But the truth they express is not bound by time, and speaks the very heart of the person:

"Man bears within himself a thirst for the infinite, a nostalgia for eternity, a search for beauty, a desire for love, a need for light and truth, which drive him toward the Absolute; man bears within himself the desire for God. And man knows, in some way, that he can address himself to God, that he can pray to him. Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest theologians of history, defines prayer as the 'expression of man's desire for God.' This attraction toward God, which God himself has placed in man, is the soul of prayer, which is cloaked in many forms and modalities according to the history, time, moment, grace and finally the sin of each one of those who pray" (Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience of May 11, 2011).

Together

"It is essential to the weakest members of our community that those who care for them do so together. These members say to us, 'For me to live, you must love not just me, but each other, too.'"
~Henri Nouwen

Water and the Holy Spirit

Wine Study Number 2 (2019 edition)

Christmas Ornaments and Stuff, Part 2

As the official liturgical season of Christmas draws to a close on Sunday, we will finish up the ornaments show here with this photo-dumping post.  .

The tree, of course, will stay up because we are too lazy because we like to keep the decorations around for the "forty days" until the Feast of the Presentation and the traditional day of blessing candles ("Candlemas") on February 2. More importantly, we will keep the Nativity scene in place just like they do in Saint Peter's Square in Rome.  .

This time is also usually the pre-Lenten season of Carnevale in Mediterranean and Latino cultures (perhaps best known in the USA as the season leading up to Mardi Gras in New Orleans). In 2019, however, "Fat Tuesday" is not until March 5 ... so, (who knows?) the tree's artificial life might be extended even further.  .

Before you know it, "Daylight Savings Time" will be back.

Christina Grimmie's Great Love is a Sign for Us

Credit to original, in Philippines, 2014Another Christmas season has been "different" this year, because it has sent us to the Internet to listen to the spectacular voice of Christina Grimmie.

How often I find myself thinking that I know what I'm going to hear, only to listen and get blown away all over again. What character, nuance, power, drive, tenacity, softness, sweetness, and fluidity are in that voice! And what ardor, what soul....

It amazes me, and breaks my heart.

In so many ways, it breaks. my. human. heart. 

It breaks my heart... as someone who hates violence, cares about young people, and mourns over the sheer catastrophe of this senseless murder of a beautiful human being...

As a trained musician of nearly 50 years who follows the ambivalent and too often corrupt trends of popular culture, who remains astounded by this singular musical talent, this unparalleled voice, this powerful creative energy of musical arrangement and composition, with all the immense possibilities for further maturity and development that will never be realized (sometimes the artist in me, inescapably aware of what 'might have been,' wants to bang my head against the wall!!!)...

As a professional scholar and philosopher of communications media who even now scarcely believes that today's barrage of endless fleeting images and words can carry the weight of an authentic human encounter and the serious self-gift of a person (and yet she accomplished this and continues to do so, and I cannot deny it even if the only explanation is that it's a kind of miracle)...

As a father of teenage and young adult children, with a father's heart and hopes, who can only empathize as best I can with the overwhelming sorrow of another father (and now also a widower) who has borne it all with such quiet dignity... And as a fellow Christian who knows that the merciful and saving love of Jesus is not a cheap escape from tragedy and suffering and death but the reality that gives meaning to our own mysterious and awful passage through every darkness.

I am filled with sorrow.

But even within that sorrow there is a light that grows brighter, a great beauty... though it's a kind of "unbearable beauty," at least for our weak human nature.

Recently I saw these words again in another one of Christina's tweets: "I would reach out and hug every one of you." She said things like this so often, and really meant them. What might sound cliché coming from someone else has an ardor and genuineness when she says it.

I do not think she was a naive person. She knew that this kind of unconditional love carried a risk, that this level of openness entailed a readiness for utter vulnerability.

But she lived this openness as a vocation from God, for Jesus and "for His glory." She spent her life to bear witness to the love of Christ: not by being a preacher or a theologian, but within in her own human circumstances, letting Him suffuse her talents and aspirations and then being a shining light of His love in a secular environment that so often seems hostile to Him.

Her vocation was not cultural criticism, however; it was the living out of a human-yet-transformed existence right in the midst of the contemporary popular music scene. Christina did so many things "just like other people" while somehow being "different" in a way that woke up people's hearts. She didn't do everything perfectly. She made mistakes. But she sought to remain faithful to her relationship with Jesus, and to let His beauty shine through the gestures of her music and her openness to the people given to her through that music.

"I would reach out and hug every one of you," she said to her frands. She was powerful in kindness and gratitude, and the fact that it was all for the glory of Christ did not diminish its specific focus: she loved her frands, the people given to her. She valued them, celebrated them, cherished them, expressed wonder over them, and made sacrifices for them. She didn't always articulate her own deep awareness of the bond between Jesus and the least of His brothers and sisters. She spoke of it from time to time, simply, gently, and discreetly. But it was an awareness that formed her way of seeing everyone and everything.

She followed Jesus in this humble but radical way of loving, and she died on June 10, 2016 "reaching out to hug" someone "with love."

This is a very remarkable fact, and I do not think it is a coincidence.

The God who died on the cross for us calls us to follow Him, but He does not play games with the our lives. As Christina once noted in another tweet, God "allows terrible things to happen" and He wants us to "trust Him" even when we don't understand how He can possibly bring good out of these things. But trust needs something to grab hold of, and so God gives us various kinds of help, that in diverse ways constitute signs that His love triumphs over evil.

Christina's love "all the way to the end" is a sign, I am convinced. "I won't be diminished, eclipsed, or hidden. You're gonna see my light blaze back to life like the Phoenix rise," she sings in the posthumously released song "Invisible." The Phoenix, for Christians, is a symbol of the Resurrection.

I'm not making any of this up. I'm not even trying with any great effort to notice it. It just keeps striking me over and over, even as I am preoccupied with so many other concerns. It strikes me too when I remember, and will not leave me alone within the boundaries of my own sorrow.

It keeps surprising me, it moves me... and I think the reason is because it's there, it's real, as real as her irreducibly unique face. She is a sign of God's love for us in Christ that is greater than death.

A sign is not an explanation, nor does it necessariy make us feel better. The point of the sign is for us to follow it - and I want to point out that one doesn't have to be a Christian to be struck by it. The concrete sign, accessible to anyone through her music and the images and videos on the Internet, is the gift she has given of herself, which even now becomes vital and personal--gently and over the course of time--to anyone who takes her unique legacy seriously. It is her great love, that "somehow" endures...

The tenderness of this face can speak to any person and we can all let our hearts be drawn by it.

Christmas Ornaments and Stuff, Part 1

It's time for me to just post some photos here that have already gone up on other social media platforms.

Included here are some of Eileen's old hand-crafted wooden ornaments from her high school days living in Germany, some views of our Nativity Scene, pictures of our unusually tidy and decorated living room, and other curiosities.

We love to take full advantage of this season of light!

Wine Study Number 1 (2019 edition)

Let's see what kind of art we might be able to fashion digitally from glasses of wine on our table during the holiday season.

The Light that Shines is HIS LOVE

God has come into the world to give Himself to us. He who is Love created us, who are nothing without Him, because He wanted to raise us up to a share in His life, into a relationship of communion with Him who is eternally inexhaustible love, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

God loves me. What does this mean?

It means He gives me my life, my self, everything. He is the Source of everything. I am "His-gift-of-me-to-myself" in every moment, as it is He who sustains me in being, because He loves me.

But this is only the beginning. His love means so much more!

God loves me. In creating and sustaining me, He gives me myself. But in Jesus, He gives me Himself. God is the Great Lover. In Jesus He comes to win my heart for Himself!

My dear friends, in knowing this truth we are so blessed! Yes, our lives are very hard. But we have hope in Him. This world is full of people who do not know Him. This world is full of people who are just "lost"—who have seen nothing but violence and darkness, and know nothing of the beauty of life.

They know nothing of how or why they exist.

Still, God has created them out of Love and for Love. He has come for them as much as for us, and He seeks them.

Look how much we have been given! Why us? By faith, we know that the Infinite Mystery beyond all human searching has revealed Himself and wants to draw us into a new life. We know that He is our Father and that He loves each one of us. But we are unruly children who don't seem very grateful. Indeed, we barely show Him any attention at all. Yet God has given us the gift of believing in His Son Jesus and living by His Spirit so that we can participate in His love for the whole world, so that we can witness to His love and be instruments through whom He reaches others, especially the most broken and helpless of people (and there are always such people in our lives, within our reach).

God wants us to share His love by our witness, which is above all embodied in our gift of ourselves to others in Him and by the power He bestows upon us in the Holy Spirit. He who is the Great Lover wants to make us lovers. He wants to transform all of human history into a love story where the glory of His love prevails, shining His light into every darkness.

And so in this Christmas season and beyond, let us be grateful for the amazing gift of God's love, but let us also look for ways to witness to Him by giving ourselves.

We have been made for love. We're all aching to give ourselves away. Let us help one another to cultivate a passion to give more, to love more.