John Janaro's Blog, page 209

Wild Swans and the Long Sorrowful Song of China

Jung Chang's memoir was one of those books that I had been "meaning to read" for a long time. Wild Swans was first published in 1991. I had an old paperback copy lying around getting dusty on top of some other books on one of many shelves.

I recently wrote an article that required me to look at 20th century China, and I remembered this book and actually found it (that doesn't always happen in our vast, uncatalogued library

Three Hundred and Sixty Two Days

My ten year old daughter and I have had a lot of deep conversations about life and death, good and evil, and the love of Jesus this past year. The other day it was just brief and simple.

Me: What music would you like to listen to?
Josefina: CHRISTINA GRIMMIE!
Me: ...ok.
Josefina: But don't cry, Daddy!
Me: ... ... Sometimes tears are good, Jojo ... ...

Christianity is a New Life of Communion With God

It is common today to view Christianity as a collection of external rules that more or less interfere with real life, that is, with the part of life that interests and engages us as human persons. What a grim business! No wonder people are not attracted to it.

We Christians must beware that we do not allow this kind of moralism to become our own view of Christianity. We must remember that Christianity is a new life, a supernatural life, a life of communion with God. Through baptism, we have been given a participation in the Divine life, and through grace this life grows within us and transforms us. God gives Himself to us; He draws us into a personal relationship with Himself; He leads us to our destiny which is to share forever in His glory, to behold and to love forever the One who is the fullness of all goodness, to belong to Him forever.

Eternal glory has already begun, secretly, in the very heart of this ordinary life, because God dwells in us, and God is at work in our lives. 

So why are we so dull, so unaware, so unresponsive to God's work in us? 

Because we need the light of the Holy Spirit to recognize the path He has laid out before us. Christianity is not external to the real concerns of our human life. It illuminates them and opens us up to their true meaning. But this only happens if we live the relationship with God that He continually desires to deepen throughout our lives.

And how can we live and grow in a relationship with Eternal Love except by asking for Him to change us, asking for Him to empower us to love Him more, asking Him to enable us to see the Church as the instrument of His love, and her teachings and sacraments as the road of love that really corresponds to our life? 

I want Him to "come" into my life, deepen my relationship with Him, and make me more aware of His presence. This is why I must ask, continually, for the gift of the Holy Spirit to be renewed within me. My heart realizes the fullness of its actual impetus for life only insofar as it becomes a living, loving, begging prayer for God's grace.

Come Holy Spirit! Transform my heart!

Come Holy Spirit!

The Solemnity of Pentecost, June 4, 2017.

"Yes, Lord, You Know That I Love You"

Jesus said to Peter, " 'Simon, son of John, do you love me?' Simon Peter answered him, 'Yes, Lord, you know that I love you'....

Luigi Giussani remarks on the event recounted in John 21 in a striking way:

" 'Yes, Lord, You know I love You.'

"All my human preference is for You, all the preference of my mind, all the preference of my heart; You are the extreme preference of life, the supreme excellence of things. I don’t know, I don’t know how, I don’t know how to say it and I don’t know how it can be but, in spite of all I have done, in spite of all I can still do, I love You.

"This yes is the birth of morality, the first breath of morality in the dry desert of instinct and pure reaction. Morality sinks its roots into this Simon’s yes, and this yes can take root in man’s soil only thanks to a dominant Presence, understood, accepted, embraced, served with all the energy of your heart; only in this way can man become a child again. Without a Presence, there is no moral act, there is no morality."

(Quoted from Luigi Giussani, Generating Traces in the History of the World. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010. See pp. 60-61.)

Agnese Graduates High School

Our oldest daughter graduated this afternoon with the Chelsea Academy Class of 2017. We are so proud of our dear Agnese, who has grown into such a lovely young lady.


I hope her grandparents see this post. They, like us, have many memories of that joyful, smiling face over the past 18-and-a-half years.

Here's just one flashback:


When she went on stage to get her diploma, I could see that she was still the same little girl.

Trust in God and Never Give Up, No Matter What!

When we are suffering, we are called to trust in God and abandon ourselves to Him, and to offer our suffering in union with Jesus on the Cross.

This can give us great consolation in our sufferings. Sometimes, however, we don't feel anything like consolation. Indeed, words like "trust," "abandonment," and "offering" can seem strange and overwhelming and remote from the crushing pain that is pressing upon us.

In truth, these things are attitudes of the heart that are not always the focus of consciousness during the actual experience of suffering. They are habits to be cultivated, with dogged persistence, by perseverance in prayer, accountability to other trusted persons, and by the sacraments. In this way we begin to develop consistent dispositions of abandonment, trust, and sacrifice, which are more important than any subjective spiritual experience of consolation or security.

One realizes this especially in mental suffering. Unlike physical suffering, which can be in some way "objectified" by the mind, psychological suffering cuts right through the mind, so that the person enduring it often is not consciously aware that their pain is "really" pain.

In mental illnesses, there are deluded perceptions of worthlessness, distorted sources of anxiety, but often also the continued (false) impression that what is in your mind is under your control. The result is that you attribute the failure to have psychological control to your own lack of character. It is easy to conclude that you have nothing worthy to offer to God in any of this, while you are actually going through it.

But abandonment and trust are real things. They grow by being lived, and (mysteriously) by enduring the stripping away of obstacles to them. Certainly living a life of abandonment to God and trust in God entails walking the path God has given us: prayer, the sacraments, adherence to God's wisdom and goodness, pastoral guidance as well as help from the perspective of others through whom He shows us His mercy, the effort to be merciful ourselves, to carry out works of mercy, and to forgive others. Stay with these things. Even if you don't have a coherent handle on all of them, do what you can and pray -- whatever prayer you can muster! -- to grow closer to God.

In mental sufferings, there is sometimes a hidden voice that whispers, "Don't try to be close to God, you hypocrite. Distance yourself from Him. You are not worthy." These are lies. Don't let them discourage you from hanging onto God even if it's by what seems like the last tenuous thread that links you to Him. When you hear that evil voice, you pray the name of Jesus and you call on Saint Michael. Don't listen to the Liar. Let Jesus and Mary and the Holy Angels drive that monster away. You just hang on!

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Prayer doesn't have to be fancy. We don't have climb some mountain of interior profundity before we can begin communicating with God. He has come to be with us. We can turn to Him with whatever we've got.

To help us get a handle on communicating with God in prayer, we have "prayers" from Scripture and the various streams of the vast Christian tradition. These are not formal speeches or magic incantations. They are the simple, small steps we can take to learn prayer as the expression of trust and abandonment, to learn the "grammar" of the language of the heart. 

I want to mention one practice in particular: the morning offering. It can take various forms, but its essence is to begin the day (as much as possible, "literally," i.e. when you first wake up) with a prayer in which you acknowledge and assent in freedom to the reality that Jesus Christ is the source, the "substance," and the fulfillment of everything that you do and everything that happens to you in the day.

Some twenty five years ago, I was at one of those unforgettable gatherings with the great Msgr Luigi Giussani, and the topic of discussion was something that sounds rather deep -- the "decision for existence." I asked Fr. Giussani how I could make the "decision for existence" in my daily life, and his response was not a philosophical discourse, but something surprisingly simple. He said, "when you wake up every morning, say the Angelus."

And so I have, for the past quarter of a century. The Angelus itself is a kind of "morning offering" (meditate on the prayer, or--in this season--on the Regina Coeli), although I usually follow it with the morning offering prayer to Jesus in His Sacred Heart and a few other prayers. I wouldn't do any of this if I did not have at least the beginnings of trust in God, and the desire to be united to Him in Christ Crucified.

And through the years, it has worked its way into my awareness during the day, in moments of trial, and even in the midst of psychological turmoil.

Prayer. Absolutely essential. No matter how you feel.

When I say "Never Give Up" I mean this: Never Give Up on God!

Jeanne La Pucelle: La Grande Fille de Dieu

15th century images of "Joan the Maid" (or "Joan of Arc" as she has come to be known in English). The one on the left is from a sketch made soon after the victory at Orleans in 1429 in the margin of a Parisian book, probably based on contemporary descriptions.

I love that stunning group of kids from every time and place and circumstance that light up history even as they continue to stir and inspire us with their beautiful courage. There is no marvel quite like the Girl God Squad.

United by an intense passion for Christ and an utter devotion to the mission He entrusted to them, these girls lived but brief lives in this world. Yet each has left an enduring, luminous mark from her own time to the present.

I think this is not just a matter of historical memory. God keeps sending these girls on missions of all kinds. As friends, helpers, little sisters, they remain very much involved in our lives even as they behold the glory of God in His kingdom.

As one of them, Thérèse of Lisieux, promised before her death in 1897, "I shall spend my heaven doing good upon earth."

Renée Falconetti's famous portrayal of the protagonist in Carl
Dreyer's classic 1928 silent film La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc.What can we say about La Pucelle, Joan "the Maid" of France, who cried out the name of Jesus as she was being consumed by the flames at the stake on May 30, 1431? She continues, nearly 600 years later, to watch over her own people, and to give hope to the renewal of faith among them that is taking place. She also inspires people everywhere who fight against evil, who defend the poor, or who answer God's call with generous hearts and persevere in the most desperate circumstances. She has been a muse for artists, sculptors, poets, filmmakers, and writers (even having an unlikely champion in the usually comic and cynical American Mark Twain).

What is the secret of this nineteen-year-old girl, and all of her sisters from the earliest martyrs to kids whose names we may not even know today, but who will be known and loved in times to come?

Let the great poet of Jeannette of Lorraine have the last word, the great Charles Peguy:

Car il y eut une si grande quantité de grâces,

qu'elle égalait le sable de la mer, 

et qu'elle ne pouvait pas même se mesurer.

 [For there was so much grace,

that it equaled the sand of the sea,

and it could not even measure itself.]

The Land of the Living

As we enter the "summer season," the weather is still on the damp side. I have been experimenting with more photo editing software and filters that produce something resembling artistic accents and flourishes.

For example, these daisies look "painted."


As does the "lonely farmhouse in the rain," below:


The software and filters provide diverse opportunities for appearance, but the final product is not simply automatically generated. It requires a good amount of creative attention. Generally, however, I find these kinds of efforts refreshing, as long as I don't go crazy and overdo things.

I also have more ways to experiment with the graphic presentation of text. These are hardly what one would call "classical" settings, but they are fun to compose. I may eventually develop more of a feeling for what "works" in graphics.

Are We Open To "God's Surprises"?

These words from a sermon several years ago are worth contem-plating as we prepare for the coming of the Holy Spirit in this season.

"Newness always makes us a bit fearful, because we feel more secure if we have everything under control. [We feel more secure] if we are the ones who build, program and plan our lives in accordance with our own ideas, our own comfort, our own preferences.
"This is also the case when it comes to God. Often we follow him, we accept him, but only up to a certain point. It is hard to abandon ourselves to him with complete trust, allowing the Holy Spirit to be the soul and guide of our lives in our every decision.
"We fear that God may force us to strike out on new paths and leave behind our all too narrow, closed and selfish horizons in order to become open to his own.
"Yet throughout the history of salvation, whenever God reveals himself, he brings newness--God always brings newness--and demands our complete trust: Noah, mocked by all, builds an ark and is saved; Abram leaves his land with only a promise in hand; Moses stands up to the might of Pharaoh and leads his people to freedom; the apostles, huddled fearfully in the Upper Room, go forth with courage to proclaim the Gospel.
"This is not a question of novelty for novelty’s sake, the search for something new to relieve our boredom, as is so often the case in our own day.
"The newness which God brings into our life is something that actually brings fulfillment, that gives true joy, true serenity, because God loves us and desires only our good.
"Let us ask ourselves today: Are we open to 'God’s surprises'? Or are we closed and fearful before the newness of the Holy Spirit?
"Do we have the courage to strike out along the new paths which God’s newness sets before us, or do we resist, barricaded in transient structures which have lost their capacity for openness to what is new?
"We would do well to ask ourselves these questions all through the day."
~Pope Francis (Homily for Pentecost, 2013)