John Janaro's Blog, page 240

Cana in Galilee

There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee,
and the mother of Jesus was there.
Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.
When the wine ran short,
the mother of Jesus said to him,
“They have no wine.”
And Jesus said to her,
“Woman, how does your concern affect me?
My hour has not yet come.”
His mother said to the servers,
“Do whatever he tells you.”
Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings,
each holding twenty to thirty gallons.
Jesus told them,
“Fill the jars with water.”
So they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them,
“Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.”
So they took it.
And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine,
without knowing where it came from
— although the servers who had drawn the water knew —
the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him,
“Everyone serves good wine first,
and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one;
but you have kept the good wine until now.”
Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee
and so revealed his glory,
and his disciples began to believe in him.
John 2:1-11

Zacchaeus the Tax Collector

I have begun a new year of Great Conversion Stories in the pages of that unique magazine that is smaller than a pocket tablet and still has real pages. It should be another fascinating year of stories of the action of Jesus through His Church in so many different times and places.

Returning once again to the pages of the New Testament, here is the story of Zacchaeus the Tax Collector in the January 2016 edition of MAGNIFICAT:

How Can I Love People Truly?

Nothing in the world can satisfy the human heart. 
We stand before each other like open wounds, aching for the love of God. It is Jesus who brings us God, brings us healing, and brings us together.
Jesus, I bring to You my broken heart,
broken by the desire to loveand the confusion over how to love well and truly.O Lord, forgive me.I have not loved You as I should,and I am self-seeking and divided in all my relationships.How can I love people truly,with the "detachment" that recognizes that they belongto You alone,and also with the passionate attention that recognizesin each of themthe beauty of Your image and the glory of Your redeeming power?Jesus, open my heart to receive Your healing mercy.Change my heart, and make me silent, patient, and tender:full of awe and wonder and gratitudebefore Your gift of Yourself to me and to every person I meet.I am so in need of healing.I am so in need of conversion.Have mercy on me,and make me the person You will me to be.

Death Comes for the Artists... and Hope for Mercy

The author is also a musicianRecently, there have been several deaths of actors, composers, and musicians from various causes. Indeed, as I get older, many of the entertainers and celebrities that I remember from my youth reach the end of their lives.
When the news comes out, I am certainly moved to pray for these people's souls as I would be for anyone. Often I can't help thinking about the sometimes deeply disturbed and distressing lives many of them have lived, and their apparent lack of faith.
At the same time, I cannot help being touched by nostalgia as the reviews of their life work raise long forgotten personal memories and the striking recognition of their originality and creative achievements in their artistic fields.
Among those who have died recently there were some remarkable artists. I can appreciate a career and the work that came out of it without endorsing the crazy, dysfunctional lifestyle of the artist. No amount of special talent exempts anyone from responsibility for their actions. I must admit, however, that (being a poet and musician myself) I have a particular empathy for artists, musicians, writers, and performers.
Artists in general endure much suffering in the creative process. They often carry other forms of psychological baggage that come with their gifts. Moreover, in the strange and stressful and turbulent times we live in, with the need to negotiate the pressures (as well as the possibilities) of the explosion of technological media, the artistic vocation can be a very hard life. It has been destructive in many ways to talented young people who are thrust suddenly into wealth and celebrity status, without a human context that can guide them, and under intense pressure to produce products for sale. This does not simply excuse, but it may give some context to a lot of outrageous behavior of artists in our time.
So they live, take the stage, crave attention, fear failure, make their marks, and then if they survive exhaustion, physical neglect, and/or addictions they grow old and die. I can only pray for them and hope. I have reason for hope, because I know that there is Someone greater than all the chaos of our world.
Jesus's sacrifice is infinite. His mercy is infinite. He died for everyone, even the poor crazy artists (and they are poor, no matter how much wealth they may have hoarded or squandered in their brief lives). He knows the real depths of their sufferings, the desires of their hearts, their questions and their (often hidden) cries for help. He knows how much or how little culpability they bear for their sins, however huge and preposterous they may look to the world.
I myself am a sinner who has been foolish in my youth and stubborn in my old age, and it may be pride and timidity as much as anything else that keep me looking "respectable" on my own small stage in life. If all we had was our own fragile human freedom, what could we do? But the grace and mercy of the God who loves us finds ways to draw us, surprise us, provoke us, and even "outwit" us.
The Good Shepherd seeks out all His sheep, He knows our roads. He has traveled them all the way to the end.
The mystery of human freedom remains. We must walk with God and struggle and fight against the evils we face and our temptation to settle for less, to go our own way, to be self-satisfied and self-centered. I pray especially for artists to be faithful to their calling, and me to mine and all of us.
My hope is that the infinite mercy of God will win our hearts in the end.

God Comes in History to Change Us

BLESSED AND HAPPY FEAST DAY!
The Christmas season culminates in the celebration of "the Baptism of Jesus," known in the early Church (and still in the Byzantine tradition) as the Theophany. The mystery of the Trinity is revealed as the Spirit descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove and the Father's voice is heard (theophany means the "appearance of God").
We see this event portrayed and written in images in the basic structure of the icon of Jesus's baptism. Let us note a few other details: Jesus is immersed in the waters, not for his own purification (he doesn't need it, obviously) but to consecrate the waters of the world by contact with his body and to begin the restoration of all creation as the New Adam. Jesus is naked (sometimes, as here, portrayed with a loincloth), which symbolizes the restoration of Adam's innocence before the Fall. Strange beasts and humanish forms under his feet symbolize the demons defeated by Jesus. John the Baptist gazes not at Jesus but at the Holy Spirit, corresponding to his own testimony in John 1:32-34. Angels wait upon the shore in adoration and in readiness to serve Jesus who is the Lord of all creation.
This is brief reading of the icon above. As we reflect on the important symbolism here, however, let us not be led to think that this is nothing more than a clever and imaginative mythological story. This imagery conveys the truth about a real event that happened to a real man, Jesus. This man is the answer to the human search for the Mystery that sustains everything and gives ultimate meaning to life.
God has answered the question of our hearts by entering our history as a man, giving His life to us, and accompanying us on the journey to our destiny, to live in the glory of His love forever. Christians receive the sacrament of baptism from Jesus, through His ministers, because God's love for the world and for every human person is not abstract, distant, cold and inaccessible. God has touched us in Jesus, our brother. His love enters our history and changes us.
Let us be grateful for our baptism, or—for those who do not yet know Him—ardently seek this encounter with the Mystery who heals and saves and brings the heart to fulfillment, this touch of God who has come to meet every person on their journey, and who will begin to draw to Himself whoever opens their heart and asks for the truth and beauty of life.

"He Will Baptize You"—Water, Spirit, Fire

"...And We Saw His Glory"

"The Word became flesh, and made His dwelling among us, and we saw His glory..."
(John 1:14).

In His humility we see His glory, for He humbled Himself to reveal His love, and thus He reveals the mystery of Himself, for God is Love.

The Infinite Mystery is revealed as Infinite Love. The Trinitarian God is the absolute, inconceivable communion of love eternally "poured out" within His own Divine life. And this Mystery has chosen, out of the freedom of love, to create free persons and invite them to share in this communion.
God is love. God loves us. Each and every one of us. His taking flesh, His life, His death for our sins, His resurrection are all the manifestation and communication of this love, which is His glory.
He is Love, and His love for us—His mercy—endures forever.
Pope Benedict XVI reflects on this at the beginning of his first encyclical in the year 2006:

"We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a Person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.... Since God has first loved us (see 1 John 4:10), love is now no longer a mere 'command'; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us" (Deus Caritas Est, 1).

The Manifestation of God in the Flesh of This Man!

"In the beginning and before all ages, the Word was God
and he humbled himself to be born the Savior of the world"
(antiphon, Epiphany Week).

The full significance of Christmas is found in the celebration of the Epiphany (or "the Theophany," as it is know in the Eastern tradition).

This is the celebration of the manifestation of God to the world in the flesh of this man Jesus, who was born of the Virgin Mary. God manifested Himself to the world as a child.

Here is a rendition of the beautiful Byzantine icon of the Nativity, which I present for your contemplation. Perhaps it is good that I am neither prepared nor sufficiently energetic to attempt to explain it right now. Let it be thus, and let it show itself to those who dwell upon it:


The Western Christian Epiphany tradition places emphasis on the Magi from gentile lands, who travel by the light of a star in search of God's promise. Now the Three Kings have arrived at the end of their journey. Here is a picture of the Nativity Scene in the Janaro house (above) and the Kings at our parish church (below):


The parish church sanctuary continues to glow with the lights of Christmas:


What I would really like to do is give a shout-out to the unsung hero of the Three Kings' entourage, without whom they never could have made the trip:


The Camel!

May the light of Jesus Christ give you joy in this Epiphany season. It is good to begin the new year with the memory of the extraordinary and unforeseeable event that has happened in history, in real life, in real "space and time" -- the Infinite Mystery has come to dwell with us, to reveal and communicate His love.

God became human, took flesh, and gave Himself for us.

This event defines everything in history. It changes everything. It gives us an unconquerable hope.

Young Jesus in the Eyes of an Old Scribe

I have been thinking about this thing of being 53 years old. It's a bit striking to realize that I am twenty years older than Jesus when He was crucified.

I'm old enough to be one of the Scribes or Pharisees.

I can imagine myself watching this young Jesus and stroking my beard and remarking on the "interesting novelty of the Jesus phenomenon." I would have been determined to give further study to this religious and sociological development... when I had the time.
Still, in a pinch, when called to vote on his fate, I would be bothered by having to make a rash decision, but in the end I would vote with the group because that's where my interests would be vested. I would have been looking out for myself.
I hardly need to project myself back two thousand years and imagine such a scene. How much of my real life has been taken up with intellectual distance, coldness, indecisiveness, vanity.

Nevertheless, what reaches me is the grace of the Holy Spirit and the witness of His disciples. A person can be "born again even if he is old." God pours out His mercy and love upon us all.

"In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him" (1 John 4:9).

And It's Another Birthday For Me

Here are some birthday pictures from last night. Some pasta with red wine:


Then there is the masterpiece of cake. "Sing 'Happy Birthday' fast or we'll have to call the FIRE DEPARTMENT!" But there it is, a beautiful cheesecake baked by my wife, so yummy:


It's a very simple cake, not a "Doctor Who" cake. Although we did notice the opening on the top and were saying, "It's a crack-in-space-and-time! Where is the Doctor??!!" It would take too long to explain all that. We're just nerds, that's all.



On this January 2, I turned 53 years old. I'm slightly freaked out by that number. Still, I'm healthier today than I was ten years ago (I was very sick back then) and--strangely--I feel "younger."

Who knows? I worked up an "impressionist" style graphic from a photo of a country road going off into the evening light.

Lord, lead me on this journey of Yours, one step, one day at a time.