John Janaro's Blog, page 177

For Maximilian Kolbe: An Old Poem By a Young Man

This is a poem I wrote nearly 30 years ago, to commemorate the great love of Saint Maximilian Kolbe. He offered his own life in exchange for another prisoner in a reprisal execution in Auschwitz, and died in the "starvation bunker" on August 14, 1941.

August 14th

I am the guardian

unworthy

of the flesh and blood that I command.

I stand

extended

from world's edge to windowless walls,

the quarry-block place markers 

around my becoming-all-things.

I am a mother's graceful, sweet breath

dissolving

like fine, penetrating mist

against your broken, burned skin.

I am the witness

stepping out of place

away

beyond the trembling assembly 

of bony finger-clutched this-moment,

toward the timeless returning unto dust of you

and you

and you.

Forward!

step forward...

                           ...out of place

for I am

your sacrifice.

—August 14, 1989

Things That Are 'Brewing'

As my wild partying Summer continues, Eileen and I got over to the (relatively) new Front Royal Brewery on Main Street for a meal and some live music and—of course—some true local brew.

Hey Y'all, August is Still Summer!

Here's my annual "Rant"—which is comic really, because I know this is just the way it is, and we've been doing it every year, and I also did this routine for years as a teacher, so...

The Abyss of These Days

        Silhouette of Christina Grimmie (1994-2016). Still frame from video for Stay With Me.

The Abyss of These Days

Another of these days has come.
Regular like moons they come
to mark the margin at the edge
where time plunges into a sudden gaping abyss.
It is the end, the unknown;
the implacable, all-consuming fire;
or something else,
beyond the abyss of these days.

All around me are sights and sounds,
glowing icons of life. They hold
eyes, breath, hanging hair,
swift fingers, a voice
all gathered to intense focus
by agile awareness of mind and heart, as if
a new world is about to be created.

All held in glowing visions.
Are they dreams or beginnings?

When these marked days dawn,
my ears awaken to ringing bells.
Such song as I have never known,
as though I could fly and soar on the drafts of its resonant air.

But then, a swift thunder cracks the whole sky open,
and in the oxygen-abandoned atmosphere a silence falls.
It carries me down,
and buries me in its dark soil...
a silence full of memory.
An aching silence of waiting.

And I am made deaf by stark silence boring holes through my head.
I am losing my mind in these days, these centuries,
these aeons of waiting in cold black earth without a sound.

These days are so long that I forget what I am waiting for.

But your face...I remember your face, your singular face.
I cannot forget the face that made me feel the shape of my own soul.
That face stirs a sweet fierce pain inside me,
a force deeper in me than my own life
that squeezes my heart inside my chest.

And I remember that I am only fragments of myself
waiting to be put together,
waiting for eyes that can see your face,
waiting to dance and sing in the bright fires
beyond the abyss of these days.

Edith Stein and the "Here-and-Now" of Salvation

On August 9 we remember Edith Stein, twentieth century philosopher who journeyed from her Jewish roots through atheism to the encounter with Jesus Christ in His Church that proved decisive for her life.

In the Carmelite monastery, as Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, she became a theologian, a mystic, and above all a great lover of God.

In Auschwitz, on August 9, 1942, she became a martyr out of love for Jesus and in solidarity with her own people, and His....


For all her extraordinary heroism, Edith Stein knew that the fundamental transformation and renewal of life in Jesus Christ is a mystery inserted into our ordinary daily lives:

Dolores O'Riordan and the Pope: A Striking Moment

Various YouTube channels devoted to The Cranberries have uploaded some fascinating and often previously unknown videos in recent months, as an ongoing tribute to Dolores O'Riordan, the late lead singer of the famous Irish music group who died at the beginning of this year.

I just watched a short clip of Dolores and her family meeting Pope John Paul II (from JPII's condition, I'd estimate this took place in the early 2000s). The video looks like it was originally broadcast on Irish television news. The picture above on the left is a screenshot I took from the video—a "still image" that vividly portrays the very brief but striking moment when they were face to face.

The glance they shared is scarcely noticeable in the moving video, but as I see it here in the picture it moves me to pray more ardently for the eternal rest of her poor soul.

Dear Dolores! Whatever brought your troubled life to an end, I hope that in those last moments you remembered the love of the God who knows all your suffering, weakness, failures, mental disorders, addictions, whatever difficulty. I hope you found peace in the forgiving embrace of that Love.

The video, only 30 seconds long, can be found here: VIDEO

"Rose Study, Number 4"

Rose Study, Number 4 .

The Firm Foundation of Every Thing

The Collect prayer for the current liturgical week is especially rich.

It is an abundant source for meditation on our life in this world and its relation to the One who has made us for Himself.

The good things of this world pass away. They cannot fulfill us if we try to possess them and dominate them by our own power. But we can "use" these good things rightly as signs of the wisdom and love of God, as gifts from God that lead us to Him.

Every taste of goodness, every authentic value, every beauty has its source in Him and finds its enduring fulfillment in Him. Without Him nothing has firm foundation, and only in relation to Him do things communicate their real meaning. The truth of all things reminds us of our destiny.

O God, protector of those who hope in you,
without whom nothing has firm foundation,
nothing is holy,
bestow in abundance your mercy upon us
and grant that, with you as our ruler and guide,
we may use the good things that pass
in such a way as to hold fast even now
to those that ever endure.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with youin the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

The Path of Conversion and Healing

The life of faith is a struggle, an ongoing task, an experience of learning to love in a true, Christian way.

It grows from a renewed encounter with Christ into a fuller and more thorough conversion away from the tendency of selfishness and toward the cultivated dispositions of sincere self-giving.

The Holy Spirit works within us to heal us (each according to our own history, circumstances, and unique personal vocation), to free us from ways of "loving" that are stunted by the ambivalence of our wounded humanity, by our selfish tendency to reduce other persons to mere "things," by our craving to amplify and impose on reality our distorted perceptions of self and others.

The Christian life is a path of conversion from an egocentric posture to an ever deepening habit of authentic charity--an attitude of mind and heart that truly loves God as He is in Himself, and that truly loves other persons for who they are in themselves, i.e. children of God and brothers and sisters redeemed by Jesus and called to share in His inheritance.

Our Christian vocation takes concrete shape in the Lord's call of love, addressed to us each day, which draws us into communion with Him in silence and prayer, in adoration, thanksgiving, and hope in His mercy. The same call of love permeates all aspects of our lives and human relationships: in our families, in work and social environments, in various responsibilities, in the joys of life, in play, in the beauty of things.

God shapes our lives in such a way as to draw us along the path of loving Him and loving others. Our sufferings, too, are permitted and find their "place" within this particular plan of healing and transforming love that our Father has for each of us as unique persons, embraced in His infinite wisdom.

In answering the call of the vocation to charity, we must have great trust in Jesus our Savior, for without Him we can do nothing. But He is with us, working in our lives and teaching us through His Spirit how to grow in genuine self-giving love.

We must not become discouraged by the apparent persistence of our imperfections, selfish tendencies, and fragility, but continue to work toward cooperating with God's grace and moving forward on the path of love that He opens in front of us.

How Much God Loved Humanity

In His unfathomable love for us, God reveals the mystery that He Himself is Love.
In the words of a great Father of the Church: "Anyone can grant favors, anyone can bestow gifts, any prosperous benefactor can love those who are deferential to him; but will he be comparable to Him who took the adversities of His own people onto Himself; who puts Himself forward to block dangers threatening His own; who hands Himself over to punishments for His own, who confronts death face-to-face in order to remove them from destruction and preserve them for life? Love is proved by adversities, the weight of affection is determined by the dangers endured, perfect charity is confirmed by death.... That dominion is true which commands by love, not by fear; which subjects both bodies and hearts to itself by means of affection; which by loving furnishes servants for itself who are not unwilling, but willing. [Jesus died because] He wanted it to be known how much God loved humanity, since He wanted to be loved rather than feared" (Saint Peter "Chrysologus" Archbishop of Ravenna [Fifth Century], feast day July 30th).