John Janaro's Blog, page 249

"Self-Sufficiency" isn't Enough

We are often tempted to think that becoming a mature human person means achieving independence, autonomy, and self-sufficiency. We view relationships as merely useful interactions with other autonomous persons that help us or please us or are otherwise subordinated to our ultimate purpose of self-possession and self-affirmation.

When we have this attitude, nothing seems more alienating than sacrifice. Indeed, the claim of Jesus that our vocation consists in the sacrifice of self-giving love for God and our neighbor appears incomprehensible, if not insulting or threatening to our human dignity. The idea of losing-myself-in-order-to-find-myself appears to be a self-negating paradox.

And yet this "losing of myself" in self-abandonment to God is not something that demeans my freedom or results in the loss of my dignity as a person. On the contrary, it is the realization of freedom and of the person. For God Himself is Infinite Self-Giving Love. The Trinity reveals that total self giving is at the very root of what it means to be a person.
Jesus says, "I am in the Father and the Father is in me" (John 14:11). And we will fulfill the true meaning of ourselves as persons, we will achieve the destiny and fulfillment for which we have been created, by abandoning ourselves to Him and trusting in Him: "Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39). We don't "lose ourselves" into nothingness. We lose ourselves by belonging to God and to other persons in Him.
We have been created to become gifts, to realize our freedom as love, to live in relationship as persons, and to "find ourselves" forever in relationship to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Saint Augustine: Hunger and Thirst for More

Late have I loved You,O Beauty ever ancient, ever new,late have I loved You!You were within me, but I was outside,and it was there that I searched for You.In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely thingswhich You created.You were with me, but I was not with You.Created things kept me from You;yet if they had not been in Youthey would not have been at all.You called, You shouted,and You broke through my deafness.You flashed, You shone, and You dispelled my blindness.You breathed Your fragrance on me;I drew in breath and now I pant for You.I have tasted You, now I hunger and thirst for more.You touched me, and I burned for Your peace.
~Confessions, Book X

My Kid... in College?

John Paul's college: Deja vu all over again?John Paul started college this past weekend.

Yes, my son. A freshman in college.

This has always been a difficult time of year for me, for a number of reasons. I have to negotiate every alteration of seasons and/or routines. Change is always hard in my condition.

I have gotten better at handling these kinds of changes since my health has been pretty stable for several years now. But they can still be hard.

This time of year has also been particularly difficult since my illness because-- as the school year begins-- I am reminded once again of my unnaturally young retirement from teaching. I have always felt strange having nothing "special" to prepare for at the beginning of September. Each year, however, I find that I am letting go a little bit more. It's not such a big deal that I'm no longer a player in the drama of higher education. I've seen enough to know that I could not have survived that way.

In fact, I'm "letting go" just in time.

Just in time to take up the new task of being a parent of a college student. A Christendom College student. It's a new approach for me to an institution that I have seen from almost every other perspective.

John Paul is living on campus at least this semester, which will give him a chance to immerse himself in the atmosphere of things. He will probably have to live at home after that. In any case, our house is only a few miles from the school. It was convenient when I was teaching and it should still be convenient for him too.

The college has grown in many positive ways in recent years. I'm confident that John Paul is going to have a great time. I can't predict what it will mean for me, but it's the beginning of a new chapter in a long story. It is also the beginning of the third generation of the Janaros at Christendom.

It's a wonder that we got mixed up in this whole crazy story in the first place. It's certainly not the story that I would have written for my own life.

Instead, it's a wonderful story. I thank God that we have been blessed to be part of it.

Limits of the Sea

A Measure of Loneliness

There is always some measure of loneliness in life.

None of us should think that our spouses, children, family, or friends can fill the deep spaces where we are incomprehensibly alone. There are often times when we are brought to the awareness of that space of need that cries out inside us.
But what feels like the depths of solitude is in fact the place where we are radically held. At the heart of life, of every moment of life, there is companionship with the Merciful God. If it feels terribly empty, that is because it is the place where He, and He alone, dwells. And He is the Mystery.

We cannot contain Him, even here. He "contains" us, and is beyond us, but He is also with us. In His nearness we are born out of nothing, and our loneliness-- no matter what occasions the experience of it-- is always the echo of those sighing depths that yearn for His ineffable, fundamental, irreplaceable presence.

There is Someone with us in our lives, every moment. There is Someone “on the other side” of our longing, our cries, our prayers-- Someone listening, full of tender love, wanting to bestow mercy on us every moment with an attention, an gentleness, a care beyond anything we can imagine.

Light in August

The days are growing shorter, and the arc of the sun in its setting is moving back "up" the Valley (remember, "up" is south in the Shenandoah Valley). And the sun goes down around eight o'clock in the evening, which still makes for long evenings even though -- compared with their high point in June -- the days "feel" like they're getting shorter.

On this August evening, the sun was setting in a perfect spot, crowning a hilltop cresting in the distance beyond clusters of trees.

I shall never grow tired of things such as this:

Mary Queen and Mother

Mary, the Mother of God, shapes the Christian identity of the believer and the vocation of every human person. For every human person without exception has been created to know and love Jesus Christ, and in Christ to share forever in God’s very own life of Ineffable Love.
Mary, indeed, is at the center of what it means to be a Christian, which means that she is also the center of the whole human race. In accordance with the mystery of God’s magnificent, gratuitous plan of love, she brought forth into the world and continues to bring into our lives the One who concretely constitutes the true meaning of our humanity.
By cooperating with her whole being, her whole affections, her whole heart and her whole will, Mary brought into the world the only One who can give meaning to the universe. For from the beginning, the universe has been destined to be transformed by God's gift of Himself. God created the universe and everywhere permeated it with a mysterious impetus corresponding to the design of His Love. 
And in the beginning, the human being was created to be a tupos, a sign, of the-One-who-was-to-come, the One who will bring all things into unity and fulfillment in Himself.
Here and now, Mary brings to me the only One who knows the profound mystery of who I am; the One who knows, from within its very source, the gesture of Divine Love that created me, and that calls me to eternal life, to a participation in His Glory.

Saint Bernard's Love

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux died on August 20, 1153. That's 862 years ago if my arithmetic is correct. Yet he left a mark on Christian history that remains fresh and vital even today, his feast day on the Roman calendar.

Bernard de Fontaines-les-Dijon was a young nobleman who left all his wealth to join a radical new monastic movement. The movement was trying to recover the ancient Benedictine tradition of living in prayer and solitude, in poverty and by the work of their own hands.

These radical monks dwelt in the wild marshland of a place called Citeaux (from the word for cistern), near the border between medieval France and Burgundy. They were ragged and unknown when Bernard first came to them, but they were dedicated to living by the original rule of Saint Benedict. They had gone to work clearing and draining the swamp, and building a humble dwelling place to worship and pray and labor. In and through Bernard, these small seeds planted by the founding monks bore a remarkable fruit.

Though he was not the founder of the great religious order that came to be known as the Cistercians, Bernard's presence, his dedication, his wisdom, and above all his radiant holiness were fundamental to the order's explosive growth in the 12th century. He became counselor to popes and kings, peacemaker, preacher, teacher, and guide along the paths of Christian life.

His sermons, letters, and commentaries remain classics. No one since Saint Augustine had spoken so profoundly and so eloquently about the love of God, and the grace by which He enables us to love Him.

And thus he continues to speak to us today:

If one seeks for God's claim upon our love here is the chiefest: Because He first loved us.

For when God loves, all He desires is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of His love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love Him are made happy by their love of Him.

I know that my God is not merely the bounteous bestower of my life, the generous provider for all my needs, the pitiful consoler of all my sorrows, the wise guide of my course: He is far more than all that. He saves me with an abundant deliverance. He is my eternal preserver, the portion of my inheritance, my glory.

Therefore what reward shall I give unto the Lord for all the benefits which He has given me? In the first creation He gave me myself; but in His new creation He gave me Himself, and by that gift restored to me the self that I had lost. 

He is all that I need, all that I long for.

My God and my help,
I will love You for Your great goodness;
not so much as I might, surely,
but as much as I can.
I cannot love You as You deserve to be loved,
for I cannot love You more
than my own feebleness permits.
I will love You more when You deem me worthy
to receive greater capacity for loving,
yet never so perfectly as You deserve of me.

Show Us Your Beautiful Face

Breathe forth your Spirit into me,
Lord Jesus,
from your body broken into the gift of the Father's love.

Have mercy on me and on the whole world.
Let me feel in my heart the Father's love for the world,
and be united in my own human frailty and suffering
with the struggle and the seeking
of the whole multitude of human hearts
crafted in your Image.

Jesus, you love every single human person,
without exception,
especially those who are the most lonely,
the most troubled and confused,
the most burdened with affliction.
You love those who do not know you,
but whose hearts have been made for you.

I feel the burdens and sorrows
of my brothers and sisters
in my own loneliness and troubles,
in my own confusion and restlessness,
in my affliction of not loving you enough.

Jesus, deepen my love for you today.
Draw my heart,
and every human heart,
closer to you.
O Great Lover, win our hearts,
conquer our fears,
show us your beautiful Face.

We Can Make a Difference in the World!

We're all so worried about the world, about its evils and injustices. These are evil times, we say. People are full of selfishness and violence, and our political leaders are driven by destructive agendas.

It would not be realistic to deny any of these points. And indeed, we are all called to do what we can to build up the good, and to struggle against the evils that afflict our society, our communities, our families, and our own lives. There are many things we can do.
Here is something all of us can do: Pray the Rosary! Every day.

Some more specific gestures involving the Rosary are proposed at various times and places: e.g. right now many in the United States are praying a 54 day "Rosary Novena" (which began on the Solemnity of the Assumption, August 15, and will end on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, October 7). We are praying for marriage and family, peace, the recognition of the sanctity of human life, and respect for religious freedom. (Click HERE for more information about this gesture.)

This is genuine, dynamic social action. The Rosary is a powerful prayer, because Mary is our Merciful Mother and she cares about our whole lives as human beings, including our living together in society. When we present the needs of our world to her heart, and through her to Jesus's Sacred Heart, we are performing an important work of mercy.
Praying for people, praying for the needs of the world, is a vital, crucial "spiritual work of mercy," and "spiritual" does not mean unreal. Its effort and its fruits are often hidden, but by faith we know that if we pray from the heart our prayer is every bit as real and concrete as the bread we give to the hungry. In all its forms, mercy is a way of looking at reality, at others, with compassion. The world desperately needs the touch of mercy through the works of mercy.
So let's pray the Rosary!
I'm not suggesting that "piety" is a substitute for grappling with specific human problems, or a pretext for hiding from them. We must engage the circumstances of our lives. But as Christians we should know that if we don't pray, we'll be neglecting the most important dimension of our circumstances...and our lives.
Whatever our "intentions" may be, when we pray the Rosary we are first of all praying for ourselves; we are always lifting up to Jesus through Mary our own profound need for mercy and healing, and our heart's cry for the Mystery who is Eternal Love.
Pray the Rosary! Pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This is something Our Lady of Fatima asked us to do. She often asks for simple things: "Build me a church...." "Make this medal...." "Say this prayer...."

"Yes," we reply, "but the Rosary is not simple. It's hard!"
Not really. It's not so hard. What's hard is to be confronted, day after day, with the smallness of our love. We always make a bad job of the Rosary, because we don't love God very much.
So let us ask the Lord, through His loving Mother, to give us the grace to love Him more, and the grace to say the Rosary better. That won't make us perfect tomorrow. But the daily Rosary will teach us to be humble and to be faithful in one small thing. And thus we take little steps, with trust.
Let us entrust it to Mary's heart. Let us entrust everything to her, and through her, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I think one reason Mary asked for the Rosary and devotion to her Immaculate Heart at Fatima is because she wanted to draw our faith into sharper focus.
It simply won't do to turn "being Catholic" into an ideology or an abstract program, even if we have every doctrine memorized backwards and forwards. The faith must be recognized as reality, and adhered to with affection--because what we believe in is the Love of a Person. Jesus.

Mary makes things concrete. The Rosary is a way of joining with Mary in the "pondering of her heart." If we pray it, we will grow. It is an extraordinary, healing, miracle-working prayer.
Jesus calls us through Mary's heart, through this prayer. As we try to dwell on the mysteries of His life, we may find ourselves quite distracted. Still, we are searching for Him with our small hearts. We want to look at Him.
And we can depend on this: He is looking at us. He is with us in Mary's heart. He is our brother. He draws us closer to Him, and He changes us.