John Janaro's Blog, page 21

Communion and Solidarity for All of “America”

The popular elections for the President of the United States of America are over. I have carried out my very small task on behalf of the candidate of the American Solidarity Party, a political movement that represents ideals that need to grow—in my opinion—if the United States is to survive as a nation. For all its colossal wealth, power, and influence, the United States is only one of the nations on this great hemispheric continent (north, central, and south) that constitutes the proper reference point for the term “America.” In my opinion, the tumultuous and in many ways transitional times in which we live constitute a challenge for all the nations of “America” to recognize the bonds they share and to live in greater solidarity. Through such a solidarity and communion, “America”—from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego—might one day become “great” in its contribution to the long history of humanity.

Jesus Christ is the Lord of history, and His Mother Mary has taken up a unique kind of “presence” at the geographical center of this “America,” through her astonishing and scientifically inexplicable image on the hill of Tepeyac at the edge of Mexico City: Our Lady of Guadalupe.

In January 1999, I traveled to Mexico for the closing of the “Synod on America,” where Pope Saint John Paul II presented the fruit of the dialogue carried out by bishops from all over the hemispheric continent. He proposed that American solidarity had not only an evangelical significance, but also a temporal significance in its increasing interdependence and in the responsibilities of the rich nations to help their poorer neighbors. I think this event of 25 years ago was a prophetic moment. It is a light for judging the larger context of our particular circumstances, and a great encouragement for prayer. Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of America—of all of America—pray for us.

Some words from Saint John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in America (1999):

“I asked that the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops reflect on America as a single entity, by reason of all that is common to the peoples of the continent, including their shared Christian identity and their genuine attempt to strengthen the bonds of solidarity and communion between the different forms of the continent's rich cultural heritage. The decision to speak of ‘America’ in the singular was an attempt to express not only the unity which in some way already exists, but also to point to that closer bond which the peoples of the continent seek and which the Church wishes to foster as part of her own mission, as she works to promote the communion of all in the Lord...

“The Church is the place where men and women, by encountering Jesus, can come to know the love of the Father, for whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father (cf. John 14:9). After his Ascension into heaven, Jesus acts through the powerful agency of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete (cf. John 16:17), who transforms believers by giving them new life. Thus they become capable of loving with God's own love, which ‘has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’ (Romans 5:5). God's grace also enables Christians to work for the transformation of the world, in order to bring about a new civilization, … ‘the civilization of love’”

“I Shall See the Bounty of the Lord”

Jesus came to announce the coming of the Kingdom of God, and to initiate it Himself by atoning for sin and overcoming the limitations of this earthly life through His death and resurrection. Insofar as we love God’s wisdom and goodness, we will not feel entirely “at home” in this present life. 

We are called to follow Jesus, and when we work for goodness, justice, and peace in this world, we do so as instruments of His love and mercy. We are called to show forth the glory of Christ in the midst of whatever circumstances we live in—however difficult and confusing they may be—confident in the Holy Spirit that God will bring to fruition all that He has promised.

Summer in November!

Meanwhile, in "news" that has nothing to do with the U.S.A. elections, IT'S EIGHTY DEGREES today... in November... in the Northern Hemisphere!😳

To make that comprehensible to the rest of the world, we're talking about 26.7 degrees Celsius.

“Our Citizenship is in Heaven”

Four years ago, I posted this New Testament text, in which Saint Paul reminds the early Christians of Philippi that the common mentality in the society in which they live is not the source and measure of their identity. But Paul doesn’t propose merely replacing the human social mores of first century Asia Minor (which were in some ways analogous to the attitudes of the dominant culture in the USA today) with a “better” mentality—an attitude that might be less shameless and more “respectable,” but still founded on a preoccupation with “earthly things.”
Saint Paul reminds the Philippians that their identity as Christians already establishes them as citizens of the New Creation, because they are incorporated into the Risen Christ and live in the hope of His glory. Here and now they participate in the “first fruits” of the Kingdom of God by the grace of the Holy Spirit and in the “hastening” of His final coming by living and sharing the Gospel they have received. What they have received—what we Christians have received—is a gift of grace that is the truth of the destiny of every person and of the whole of creation. Our identity and the purpose of our lives every day, is to cooperate with the Lord by allowing His presence, His glory, and His mercy to shine through our whole humanity, so that He might draw others to Himself.
That is who we are. We belong to Christ on election day and on every other day. Let us not be distracted by earthly power, or drawn into forgetfulness by its idolatrous pretences. Let us not be discouraged by the inevitable disappointments and failures of earthly things, earthly societies, earthly powers.
“Our citizenship is in heaven” with Jesus Christ our Savior.
"Many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their 'shame.' Their minds are occupied with earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified Body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, in this way stand firm in the Lord, beloved" (Philippians 3:18 - 4:1).

Autumn Evenings Cut Short (But Colors Remain)

“Goodbye Evening Sunshine” (November 2, 2024). 

See you in… February, maybe? This is the weekend to set back the clocks one hour (or, in most cases, allow your digital devices to do it for you automatically). 

This means that #WinterDarkTimeBegins … and cuts off those evening hours when I like to walk. I’ll have to pay attention to the time during the day, otherwise—BOOM!—it’s dark before 5:30 P.M. The clock set-back also signals that time of year when the suns dips rapidly into shorter days leading up to the Winter Solstice. That's okay when Christmas is drawing near, but the sudden "shortening" of days in November is always a challenge to people whose moods are sensitive to the seasons (like mine).

Of course, we do have a few more weeks of colorful leaves coming up. Which reminds me that I should “dump” some other examples of Autumn vistas and impressions—in photography and/or digital art—that JJStudios has created this Fall (including the image featured above). Here are some more examples from last month, in no particular order:

The Saints and “Holy Souls” of November

Happy All Saints Day! Welcome to November 2024...

...the month in which we remember also in prayer— with confidence in the redeeming power of the death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ—all our beloved dead who live in Him while yet enduring the final purification of His mercy that will prepare them for the fulfillment of beatific communion with God.

“Eternal Rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.”

All Saints

Happy All Saints Day! Welcome to November 2024...

“I Vote, Therefore I Am?” Not Exactly, But…

Yes, I already voted last week. In fact, this past summer I made a formal commitment to stand as one of a slate of thirteen “electors” in the State of Virginia for the certified write-in candidacy of the American Solidarity Party: Peter Sonski for President and Lauren Onak for Vice-President.

I have no illusions regarding the significance of my vote for the results of this present election. Since 2016, however, I have been a member of the American Solidarity Party (ASP), and have voted for its presidential candidates and participated (virtually) in some of its events. 

The ASP is far from perfect, and at present it is very, very small. But it is a party in which the “platform” represents in detail a politics that aspires to put the dignity of every human person at the center of its concerns. It is a party that aspires to uphold the rights of persons and relationships as they are given in this wonderful mysterious reality that is our existence in this world: whether the person or persons are the poor on the margins of society who require our special concern, migrants and refugees who seek mercy from the world’s richest nation, persons who exist as frozen embryos in a laboratory, a mother and her unborn child (who both deserve protection and care that also continues after birth), families which are the organic (“given”) foundation for maturing in the experience of interpersonal communion, workers who collaborate in what is always a human enterprise, persons who make up communities and build the institutions of civil society, the sick and the elderly who need care and affirmation that their lives have meaning, and even criminals who need punishment and correction but also respect for their fundamental human dignity from a merciful society that doesn’t put them to death or subject them to cruelty. Then there are the issues involving war and peace, our responsibility for the environment entrusted to us, an economy on a human scale, and a wisdom regarding “progress” that serves the enrichment of whole human persons who have a transcendent destiny.

The ASP at least tries to be a personalist and communitarian political organization (perhaps this is a better word than “party”). In my opinion the United States of America will either develop toward a personalist and communitarian democracy or it will cease to exist as a nation.

I realize that there are many concerns in this election, and that most people who vote believe it is necessary to choose one of the two “major” candidates that have been imposed upon us by a corrupt and increasingly dysfunctional political system. They focus on concrete issues that, in their opinion, will be better served—or at least less imperiled—by electing or preventing one of these candidates from becoming president. I respect people who make this judgment regarding their own vote.

But I do believe that some of us have to begin now the preparation, organization, and procedural requirements for a new kind of politics in this country. Perhaps it’s quixotic to help build the foundations of a “new party,” but we will never know—and we will never even have a chance—unless some of us try to make a beginning. The reasonable way to make this effort is to enter the political process.

If there is to be any hope for moving in the direction of a politics that respects the dignity of every human person, a politics of solidarity, a politics of mercy, then some of us must begin to move in distinctive ways. We must try new approaches, cast votes and commit ourselves to political processes that—for now—are admittedly “symbolic.” Symbols are pedagogical for ourselves and for others. In my opinion, the ASP is making an effort to begin traveling this path, and I believe that I am called (in my own necessarily limited and very small capacity) to walk with them.

This is an important point: even if we can’t do much, we can do a little. We can take a step. We can detach ourselves a little from the pervasive delusion that we live in a basically “healthy country,” or that our endemic problems can be “fixed” by a few changes in a legal system that has become unmoored from a dependable foundation in human personal dignity and the “common good.” Those whose efforts attempt to ameliorate the dangers of the present system should not place all their hopes in work that is important, but tenuous and all-too-easily uprooted by the inevitable shifts of power politics.

All of this accounts for why I have decided, with much prayer and deliberation, to stand as one of the Virginia “electors” for the Presidential candidacy of Peter Sonski of the American Solidarity Party, and to vote for him as a write-in candidate in the general election of 2024. I have a conviction that a movement in this direction is necessary for our nation. For me this is a way to be faithful to that conviction, and to the fundamental human needs that inspire it.

"Room" For Every Person in His Heart

Here is a prayer/reflection that I’m jotting down here for my own reference (and, of course, to share with anyone who might find it helpful):

“Jesus, on the cross you wholly embraced every person. You alone have given yourself for us with a ‘totality’ and ‘intimacy’ beyond anything we could possibly deserve or expect, beyond the measure of our understanding, yet supremely “attuned” to the depths of our humanity—our origin, our destiny, and the great desire that drives us to engage with reality in search of the fullness of meaning and goodness. 

“Jesus, you alone understand the mystery of every person, because your emptying of yourself has made ‘room’ for every person in your Heart. Guide our steps, Lord. Draw us to yourself. Draw us by the inexhaustible beauty and goodness of your total gift of Love for us.”

Also, I record here more quotations from Pope Francis’s powerful new Encyclical Dilexit Nos on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as I continue to dwell on and study the text, seeking nourishment for my own seeking, begging heart—and for every human heart:

“Our hearts are not self-sufficient, but frail and wounded… We need the help of God’s love. Let us turn, then, to the heart of Christ, that core of his being, which is a blazing furnace of divine and human love and the most sublime fulfilment to which humanity can aspire. There, in that heart, we truly come at last to know ourselves and we learn how to love.

“In the end, that Sacred Heart is the unifying principle of all reality, since ‘Christ is the heart of the world, and the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection is the centre of history, which, because of him, is a history of salvation’ [John Paul II, 1998]. All creatures ‘are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things’ [Francis, Laudato Si, 2015].”

~Pope Francis, encyclical Dilexit Nos [“He Loved Us”], 30-31

Chiara Luce: “Wrapped Into a Wonderful Design”

October 29th commemorates Blessed Chiara "Luce" Badano, an Italian girl who died of osteosarcoma (bone cancer) in 1990, a few weeks short of her 19th birthday. She was declared "blessed" in 2010. 

Chiara Luce was a young person of my generation, which means she was a “modern girl” in terms of the sensibilities of this emerging new epoch, and her life has much in common with young people today. She had a great passion for life, and was full of aspirations. She loved to sing, play tennis, and swim. She enjoyed popular music, and even had an appreciation of Bruce Springsteen. She was a bright and thoughtful student who loved literature but had a hard time with math. She had a boyfriend and experienced heartbreak, like countless other teenage girls. She cherished her family and friends, and had a great heart for people going through physical or spiritual troubles. She was shocked when the pain she thought was a tennis injury turned out to be bone cancer. The possibility that she might die at such a young age was very hard for her. She wanted to live. In the long odyssey of her cancer treatments, she knew the force of her own human hopes that she might be cured. 
But Chiara Luce was also a girl of great faith. Shaped since childhood by the charism of the Focolare movement, she recognized in her illness a deeper calling from her suffering Lord. She accepted and even embraced this new, arduous, painful path, and offered her life in union with Jesus's cry of abandonment on the Cross. She said:

"I offer everything, my failures, my pains and joys to Him, starting again every time the Cross makes me feel all its weight. The important thing is to do God’s will. I might have had plans about myself but God came up with this. The sickness came to me at the right time... [and] now I feel like I am wrapped into a wonderful design that is slowly unfolding itself to me."

She was able to endure beyond her own capacity for endurance, because she trusted in Jesus, because deeper than all the very real pain was the mystery of relationship with Him.

"What a free and immense gift life is and how important it is to live every instant in the fullness of God. I feel so little and the road ahead is so arduous that I often feel overwhelmed with pain! But that’s the Spouse coming to meet me. Yes, I repeat it: 'If you want it Jesus, so do I!'"