John Janaro's Blog, page 213

I Have Carried You

The Lord says to his people:
"I have carried [you] from your infancy.
Even to your old age I am the same,
even when your hair is gray I will bear you;
It is I who have done this, 
I who will continue,
and I who will carry you to safety"
(Isaiah 46:3-4).  

Eileen's Treat: TWO Hockey Games!

Caps fans enjoying the game.Earlier this month, when I wrote about Eileen's birthday celebration, I noted that we planned to continue the fun by a family outing to see a Washington Capitals hockey game. Needless to say, John Paul and I are hockey fans, but people are often surprised to find out that "sweet, patient, mild-mannered Eileen" is the biggest fan in the family.

In fact, it's not surprising at all that this energetic, intensely focused, dedicated, hard-working lady appreciates competitive sports, and especially hockey, with its combination of graceful skill, toughness, speed, teamwork, and crazy luck.

So for her birthday present John Paul, Teresa, Josefina, and I got tickets to a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets (a key division rival) for March 23. What I didn't know, however, was that Eileen's friends had another plan: they got two very nice seats on the second level and a parking pass for Eileen and I to go to the Caps game against the Arizona Coyotes on March 25!

Two hockey games in forty eight hours? A dream come true for my wife. A somewhat more daunting project for me: trips to the city really wear me out. But I knew that both evenings would be special in different ways, and I was determined to pace myself and save up enough energy to do it.

There was only one thing (or "two things" I suppose) that we couldn't plan or guarantee for this double birthday gift: the Capitals actually winning both games.

Hockey is a fickle friend. There was some risk involved here.

The Caps will probably finish with the best record in the NHL this year, but they can still lose. Their most frustrating losses in the past have been playoff games, and I tend to be more "philosophical" than my wife about regular season games. But even I would have been disappointed by anything less than two wins here.

"Big Brother Time"Thankfully, the Capitals delivered splendidly on their part of the birthday celebration. On Thursday night we were on the edge of our seats with great goaltending and a 1-1 tie taken all the way to the tie-breaking one-on-one shootout.

It's very gut wrenching when everything comes down to the shootout (similar to the soccer experience of "penalty kicks" to end an elimination game). The Caps scored the only goal of the shootout, however, and pulled out an exciting victory. We all had a great time.

It was fun going for an adventure with three of the five kids, as they don't get so many chances to be together and bounce off one another these days, now that some are growing up and having adventures of their own. I know Josefina enjoyed her "big brother time."

On Friday, I rested.

Saturday was a lovely day that proceeded at a leisurely pace. We had plenty of time to get into the city again, get lost and have Google Maps GPS lead us through the labyrinth of Washington DC, and still arrive in time to park and stroll through Chinatown and have a nice dinner.

Below on the right is the Peking Duck. Delicious dipping sauce and moist tasty meat all the way through:


Then we strolled over to the Verizon Center for the game, got a couple of draft beers and settled into our seats. They were terrific, just to the left of center ice on the second level, at a perfect angle to see all the action of the game.

Our view to our left looked like this:


It was another low scoring game for the first 50+ minutes, with the Caps taking a 1-0 lead well into the third period. But then Arizona tied the score with 7 minutes left to play, and we began to wonder if we were not headed toward another regulation tie, with another harrowing overtime period followed by a shootout.

Caps fans were summoned to rally the team with the customary third period multimedia-led roaring of "UNLEASH THE FURY!" I was thinking to myself, "Well that was spirited and a little silly." But then the Capitals scored three goals in less than five minutes in an explosive, dominating display of ... fury. I have never seen the fury quite so thoroughly unleashed. Let's just hope that "The Fury" won't be shy when it's needed during the playoffs!

Making Space for One Who Loves Me

"To have faith is to make space for God’s love, 
to make space for his power, for God’s power. Not for the power of a powerful person, but for the power of one who loves me, who is in love with me and who wants to rejoice with me. This is faith. This is believing: making space for the Lord so that he can come and change me." 
~Pope Francis

Mary's Unique Name: The "Grace-Filled One"

Today is the wonderful feast of the Annunciation. In the midst of Lent, we pause to remember that the foundation of the value of any penance we do is the gratuitous gift of God who comes to dwell among us. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the only-begotten Son of the Father has become incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

This is the astonishing, inexhaustibly new "news" that the angel Gabriel announces to a young girl in Nazareth, and to the whole world through her and the witness of St. Luke's gospel.

Inseparable from this revelation, however, is something else that the angel makes known. God has prepared a "place" for himself and his coming. The power of the Incarnation and Redemption "already" brings about in a perfect way the new reality, the new life that God wills to share with the world in giving his only Son.

For the announcement we celebrate today begins with the "angelic salutation" that we know so well. When we pray, "Hail Mary, full of grace" (cf. Luke 1:28) we echo those words. The original Greek text is "Chaire, kecharitomene," and many English language Bibles translate this as "Rejoice, O favored one." Indeed, the Greek "chaire" is well rendered as "rejoice," which is evocative of the messianic joy of "Daughter Zion" in the prophets (see Zephaniah 3:14). Perhaps from the Ave of the Latin Vulgate to the "Hail" of our classic Marian prayer something of the jubilant connotation is not so directly conveyed to us. It is present nonetheless, and it is worth remembering this moment of Mary's joy when we pray the "Hail Mary."

The term that follows, however, is quite precise and unique, even if those translations that use the term "favor" would appear to weaken its force or render its significance vague. The entire content of the Annunciation makes it clear that this is no ordinary "favor" of God. Mary is destined to carry the Holy One, to be "overshadowed" by the presence of God's glory, the Shekinah of the cloud and the fire that descended upon the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies, the sanctuary of Israel reserved to the high priest in the ritual of atonement, the place where Moses spoke with God.

Moreover, "kecharitomene" is not a mere adjective but a substantive term, like a name. Mary is not just "favored" in a relative sense; she is "the favored one." And what kind of a "name" is this, and what more does it convey? Gabriel calls Mary kecharitomene. No one else in the Bible is identified with this term. No one. Translations can try to "tone that down" all they want; they can't take away the fact that the "chari" in "kecharitomene" is the "charis" of St. Paul, by which we are redeemed and justified and set free from sin and sanctified. Grace.

The new life. Mary not only "has" it; it totally penetrates her identity. She is the one who is graced. St. Jerome, who's Greek was pretty good, rendered this in Latin as gratia plena. Mary is "full of grace"--if anything the original Greek is stronger and more emphatic than this. It indicates a reality unique to Mary, that entirely encompasses who she is.

Mary is The Graced One; she is nothing else but this gift of grace, perfected by God from the beginning in view of the One who would take flesh in her womb, and with whom she would cooperate by her loving, grace-filled yes all the way to the Cross and to our redemption.

The angelic salutation and Mary's free response are mutual components of the mystery of the new covenant revealed on this day, the truth of human destiny, the full unveiling of the plan of God that already illuminates the joyful heart of Mary full of grace.

The Blood of a Martyr: Blessed Oscar Romero's Witness

Today is the commemoration of Blessed Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, and the 37th anniversary of his martyrdom. August 15 of this year will be the centenary of his birth.

Romero is still remembered as a fearless champion of social justice in El Salvador, who denounced the ruthless oppression of the poor in his country in the chaotic years leading up to its long civil war. He stood with the poor, with forgotten and suffering people, and gave them a voice and an awareness of their own dignity as human beings.

But Romero was always more than a "civil rights advocate." He placed the defense of the dignity of every human person and the denunciation of those who perpetrated injustice squarely within the context of an integral witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He envisaged the human search for freedom and a more just and loving social order as included within the content of a human existence destined for a transcendent fulfillment in relation to God, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, in eternal glory.

Romero preached that all the good that humans accomplish in union with Christ in this present world -- including all the efforts to build up society through politics, education, and cultural and social commitments -- would be transfigured, perfected, and fulfilled in eternity. In this he applied the Church's perennial witness to the gospel, specified by social teachings that are drawn from the gospel and applied to shed light on the concrete exigencies of solidarity and the great commandment to "love your neighbor."

This love is directed also to justice and human flourishing in the goods of the temporal world, where we are called to live in communion with all our brothers and sisters and "work out our salvation" together with them. Thus we obtain "the unfading crown of glory."

Blessed Romero, faithful to Jesus and the Church, called on his flock to convert from sin and to serve the Lord not simply with their lips or with formalistic gestures but also by recognizing Him especially in those who are in need. Romero was not afraid to indicate these needs and call his people to fulfill concrete responsibilities toward one another and the poor, and to refrain from violence.

Sadly, too many of those who held power in El Salvador preferred the way of violence. Romero shed his blood, and thousands of others would follow in a twelve year long civil war. Today there is a fragile political peace, but new kinds of social problems plague El Salvador and many other parts of Central America, new kinds of violence, division, and struggles for power.

As Christians, however, we know that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. I am certain that Blessed Oscar Romero's sacrifice will bear fruit among his people and has already begun something new for all of us on this American continent.

"May this Body immolated and this Blood sacrificed for mankind nourish us also, that we may give our body and our blood over to suffering and pain, like Christ -- not for self, but to give harvests of peace and justice to our people."

~The final words of the homily of Archbishop Oscar Romero, moments before he was shot dead during the offertory of the Mass, March 24, 1980.

More "Amazing" [

Those of you who are not linked to my social media accounts haven't seen some of these most recent fun and/or interesting photos and graphics I have posted there.

It's really a kind of visual therapy for me to take pictures and learn how to use different kinds of software for presentation and graphics. I think it's doing something to reroute those neuropathways in the brain that can lead to obsessions. Or, at least, it employs them and keeps them out of mischief.

That's my opinion or "hunch" that I present with zero scientific evidence. But, hey, now you can say that you "read it on the internet"! 

More "Amazing" [

Those of you who are not linked to my social media accounts haven't seen some of these most recent fun and/or interesting photos and graphics I have posted there.

It's really a kind of visual therapy for me to take pictures and learn how to use different kinds of software for presentation and graphics. I think it's doing something to reroute those neuropathways in the brain that can lead to obsessions. Or, at least, it employs them and keeps them out of mischief.

That's my opinion or "hunch" that I present with zero scientific evidence. But, hey, now you can say that you "read it on the internet"! 

More "Amazing" [

Those of you who are not linked to my social media accounts haven't seen some of these most recent fun and/or interesting photos and graphics I have posted there.

It's really a kind of visual therapy for me to take pictures and learn how to use different kinds of software for presentation and graphics. I think it's doing something to reroute those neuropathways in the brain that can lead to obsessions. Or, at least, it employs them and keeps them out of mischief.

That's my opinion or "hunch" that I present with zero scientific evidence. But, hey, now you can say that you "read it on the internet"! 

More "Amazing" [

Those of you who are not linked to my social media accounts haven't seen some of these most recent fun and/or interesting photos and graphics I have posted there.

It's really a kind of visual therapy for me to take pictures and learn how to use different kinds of software for presentation and graphics. I think it's doing something to reroute those neuropathways in the brain that can lead to obsessions. Or, at least, it employs them and keeps them out of mischief.

That's my opinion or "hunch" that I present with zero scientific evidence. But, hey, now you can say that you "read it on the internet"! 

More "Amazing" [

Those of you who are not linked to my social media accounts haven't seen some of these most recent fun and/or interesting photos and graphics I have posted there.

It's really a kind of visual therapy for me to take pictures and learn how to use different kinds of software for presentation and graphics. I think it's doing something to reroute those neuropathways in the brain that can lead to obsessions. Or, at least, it employs them and keeps them out of mischief.

That's my opinion or "hunch" that I present with zero scientific evidence. But, hey, now you can say that you "read it on the internet"!