John Janaro's Blog, page 225

Chiara Luce and the Young Faces of the Communion of Saints

People are starting to recognize this beautiful young woman.

On this day which is her memorial on particular church calendars and which would have been her 45th birthday, I have been thinking about and talking to my friend Blessed Chiara Luce Badano.
I have only met her "in faith," a generation after her death in 1990 at the age of 18 and about a year and a half after her beatification. But I cherish her as a very real companion in the Lord, and I don't credit any initiative on my part to discovering her. The Communion of Saints is deeply mysterious, brilliantly awesome, gently intimate, and entirely human. She introduced herself to me, discretely, with something like a tap on the shoulder.
She is close to me and to many others, helping us from her special place within the heart of Jesus.
But I think she wants us to know that she is not the only "modern" teenager or young adult who is with Jesus now in the Father's house, and who prays for the rest of us. There is a cloud of young witnesses, a multitude of kids whose lives and sacrifices are not well known to us, whose days were very ordinary and hidden, or who may have been known to some but appreciated by very few. But they are no less heroic in their love for God, their willingness to embrace Christ.
They may not all have the kind of remarkable "coherence" that marks the Catholic saint, but the Lord made them ready to come to Him, bravely, in answer to His call, in circumstances that often seem to us to be "too soon" and perhaps even incomprehensible.
But their young lives were not wasted. Quite the contrary. The Lord has a plan, and the young people who have gone before us in love are especially vigilant in leading the way and being a light to the elders they have left behind. They strengthen our hope in the midst of all our struggles in this poor world.
Thank you, dear Chiara Luce for "tapping me on the shoulder" a few years ago and offering to be my friend. Thank you for praying for me, listening to me, helping me to see the goodness and share the suffering of others, introducing me to new friends in places I never would have looked, and for the surprises: when you tap me on the shoulder and say, "Look. There! There is the light of Christ. There is the love greater than death!"
Thank you.
Some words of Blessed Chiara Luce Badano (1971-1990):

His Peace

Jesus said to his disciples,"Peace I leave with you;my peace I give to you.Not as the world gives do I give it to you.Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid."
~John 14:27

Josefina: What A Decade It Has Been!

Same kid in the top row and the bottom row.


I just can't wrap my head around the whole thing. It's been ten years. TEN YEARS!!!

If someone had come up to me on October 25, 2006 and told me what the next ten years of my life were going to be like, I would have gone bonkers!

Actually I did go "bonkers" during this past decade, but that's only part of the story. (And "bonkers" is not an accurate term, but I'll let it pass since I'm making a joke at my own expense.) I have told most of the story elsewhere on this blog. Indeed, Jojo was only a bit over four years old when I began writing this blog. She has been one of my most consistently popular topics, for reasons that are obvious.

Josefina with her Birthday "loot"She is still small for her age, though she can fill the entire room with her personality. She is still wacky and fun loving and likes to sing while she does things around the house. She is great company and has a generous heart.

She has a great imagination, and is fascinated by people and places. She doesn't like math but she loves history. Her mind is growing in so many ways that she keeps surprising me with how she looks at things, with the questions she asks, and with how much she is able to understand when she puts her mind to it.

She is utterly devoted to her mother, and I don't blame her. She is very good to me, and especially kind when I don't feel well. She is such a joy. And she can also be such a pain in the neck, haha! But so lovable.

I know there's no way I can imagine the next ten years. For all the many struggles, it's a marvelous life. There is joy when kids grow, but a kind of sorrow too because you have to "let them go," but only to discover them again in new ways.

Happy Birthday, Josefina. God bless you!

Josefina with Mommy, opening presents. One thing she wanted was a Capitals jersey so she could be Mommy's hockey pal.

Like a Watered Garden

"Their life shall become like a watered garden,
and they shall never languish again.
I will turn their mourning into joy [says the Lord],
I will console and gladden them after their sorrows."

~Jeremiah 31:12,13

Love and the Road of Sorrow and Hope

God has revealed His love for us. God is Love.

God has revealed that Love is His infinite glory, His infinite mystery. But after 20 centuries of Christianity, the words "God is Love" can sound sentimental. We want "love" to be trivial, and so we make God trivial. We consign Him to the superficial places, to the margins of life. We keep His love at a distance, as though it were some vague comforting story.

We do not want to think about real love, because it is so fundamental and mysterious, because it encompasses sacrifice, and because our human experience of love is so often one of failure, limitations, and disappointment. And love is so often for us the road to sorrow.

We love someone, and then they die.

How can we bear this? We envision a hazy "afterlife," strange and inaccessible, or else we allow them to disappear into a supercosmic nirvana. But in life we knew a human person, someone we could walk with, with real feet firmly meeting the ground beside us. Here is our great sorrow: we want to walk again with the person we love. We want to see two pairs of feet, and instead we only see one. We walk alone.

And then, a stranger appears.

He walks with us. We don't know who the stranger is, but hope is awakened within our hearts. Are we willing to follow that hope, and take the stranger into the home of our hearts? Or will we let him pass by?

Only if we let the stranger in will he open our eyes. He will show us that he has all the deep wounds of our sorrows. He has them.

But there is no easy way to learn this. We have to let the stranger in. We have to let Him show us His humanity and let the fire of hope burn in us.

A House Full of "Family Pictures"

The other day I posted an Instagram photo of part of a bookshelf in our house in which a five volume English edition of St Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae and other books have a framed picture of St Mother Teresa plunked against them casually, almost haphazardly.
Next to my bed, the Mexican holy water font, Our Lady of Guadalupeand Jesus with his Sacred Heart (also from Mexico), Jesus in the DivineMercy icon, the papal crucifix, an icon of the Last Supper, St John Paul, St Joseph (image of our home statue), and then the words of Edith Stein(St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) that so often give me strength. I can see this shelf even when lying in bed. It helps to focus my heart each day.

I noted that the reason we have saints' pictures all around the house is not because we are fanatics or idol worshipers (we don't worship the saints) but because they are our friends, indeed they are "family" -- members of God's family who are alive in the Church in glory and who care for us, inspire us, and pray for us.
Soon after that came St John Paul II's feast day and I posted our "personal" JPII pic, from our honeymoon journey to Rome in 1996. That is, of course, a very special picture because it is a kind of memorial of a real meeting that took place (I also met and spoke with Mother Teresa in 1993, but no one was around taking pictures of that event, nor do I feel the need of one).
The picture of JPII, however, is always there to evoke a memory for both of us. That encounter, our brief conversation, and his blessing of our marriage will always be precious to us. In those moments, we were struck by his amazing capacity to give of himself, his humanity, and also his vulnerability, his frailty, his own need to be loved. I think that, for a moment, we consoled him too.
It is an important memory of an event that has very much to do with the history of our journey as a couple and a family. It helps us remember that even now his prayers continue to accompany us. That intense interpersonal moment, I am confident, remains present in the glorified awareness of St John Paul and gives shape to the mysterious but close affection with which he cares for us and helps us to remember Jesus Christ.
And we keep that picture, in a frame, in a very ordinary place in the corner of the dining room.
Well trafficked though otherwise ordinary corner, next to the family Apostolic Blessing that was obtained for us by friend.


*Of course, you don't have to meet a saint during their earthly life in order to develop a deep and fruitful companionship with them. I am convinced that there are times when saints you've never even heard of will "come along" and "tap you on the shoulder" (in a sense). They initiate the relationship with you, and you become aware of their solicitude for you a certain times in your life even as you are prompted to ask for the assistance of their prayers.
Some saints "nudge" us frequently to make sure we don't forget about them, as if to say, "I'm here, you know!"
I'm using the terminology of ordinary human interaction because these are genuine human relationships, even though for us they live within the sphere of faith. The saints are our friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ, members of His Body just as we who are still on our earthly pilgrimage are members of one another in Christ.
God's Kingdom is a communion of persons, a great family gathered for the wedding feast. None of our great friendships with the saints in glory -- or with our fellow Christians in this present life, or with those others who have been given to us in life, who are loved by Christ and destined for this glorious banquet even if they do not yet know it -- take away from the uniqueness of our belonging to Jesus the Bridegroom. On the contrary, the fruitfulness of His love is their foundation and sustenance.
On another book shelf, the busts of Jesus and Mary carved in the Holy Land from olive wood. 

One Hope

The text below this picture is one I have posted before, but it seems worth recalling once again in these days, especially since it was the first reading for today's Mass. This is one of those Scripture passages that is clearly inexhaustible, and speaks to us in so many ways. It's worth pondering.



"Live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the spirit
through the bond of peace;
one Body and one Spirit,
as you were also called to the one hope of your call;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all."

(Ephesians 4:1-6)

Autumn Adventures

This is a good time to take a break from the serious stuff and mark a few more ordinary events from this October.

First of all, Autumn leaves... as in the lack of them! Until recently we didn't have much color. The trees were starting to look like old broccoli rather than a "second Spring."


Ironically, some color finally started coming out this past week, in the midst of a heat wave that brought daytime temperatures of 85F.


Sunsets have left in their wake some colorful hues on the Blue Ridge at twilight.


The October "Hunter's Moon" was large and very bright. Unfortunately I missed that perfect moment for taking a picture of it: the moon rises right around sunset and there is only a short period when the sky is bright enough to allow my primitive gear (and primitive ability) to get a vivid picture. So I had to settle for a fuzzy overexposed picture that at least captures something of the dusky atmosphere.


Meanwhile, October has also been about baseball for the Janaros. We went to the last game of the Washington Nationals' terrific season, a rollicking 10-7 victory over the Marlins. Our seats were a bit high, but--going into the playoffs--our hopes were also high.


Eileen and I went with John Paul and a couple of his friends... and someone else who decided to come along (mostly because she wanted to "be with Mommy").


*So we had fun at the game.

But, alas, in the National League Division Series against the Dodgers, our Nats fell short. At one point they led the series two games to one, but they couldn't pull off the decisive victory.

We watched with John Paul on T.V. as the Nationals lost game five by the score of 4-3. Another disappointing ending. Another Nationals heartbreak!

Wait till next year!

I Trust in You Now

Jesus died on the Cross. Each of us will die. What do we know about the mystery of our own death?

Where will my heart be in that hour? Let me entrust it NOW to the Divine Mercy, asking that Jesus insert me into His most compassionate heart and that Mary surround me with the maternal love of her immaculate heart.

The Lord Jesus and His merciful Mother have claimed that final hour as their own on the Cross, and at the foot of the Cross. I do not want to deny them that hour, and so I offer them what I have now, this hour, this "now"...

Jesus I trust in You, through Mary.

Like a Watered Garden

"Their life shall become like a watered garden,
and they shall never languish again.
I will turn their mourning into joy [says the Lord],
I will console and gladden them after their sorrows."
~Jeremiah 31:12,13