John Janaro's Blog, page 260

St. Paddy's Day Photo Fun

It was a subdued but happy St. Paddy's Day for the O'Janaros.

Here's a bit of photo fun:
A shamrock being hugged by a mouse? Whose St. Patrick's Day pin might this be?
Yup. That pin says "Josefina" all over it!
Proof that I did my part by wearing green (short sleeves no less)

Actually, we did NOT have Pesto for dinner. I just wanted to experiment with graphics.

Saint Patrick, Evangelizer and Convert

Tomorrow is a very special day for all my friends of Irish heritage, and for everybody else too. Saint Patrick's Day has come again.

Of course my Irish heritage "friends" include my wife (who is 50% Irish) and my kids (you do the math). So I guess I'm connected. :-)

First of all, however, Saint Patrick stands for all of us as a great evangelizer. He is also someone who underwent a significant conversion experience of his own.

By some editorial peculiarity, my article about Saint Patrick's conversion in my Great Conversion Stories series ran in last month's issue of Magnificat (to which you can subcribe by clicking HERE).

I sometimes make articles from this series available on my blog, and I thought it would be appropriate to reproduce Saint Patrick's conversion story this month at the time of his feast.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

The Solitude of Our Tears

"The Lord Jesus... took upon Himself
the burden of all our mortal anguish.
His face is reflected in that of every person
who is humiliated and offended,
sick and suffering,
alone, abandoned, and despised.
Pouring out His blood,
He has rescued us from the slavery of death,
He has broken the solitude of our tears,
He has entered into our every grief
and our every anxiety."

~Benedict XVI

God Does Not Explain Himself, But He Promises to Stay With Us

"I will lead the blind on a way they do not know;
by paths they do not know I will guide them.
I will turn darkness into light before them,
and make crooked ways straight.
These are the things I will do,
and I will not forsake them." (Isaiah 42:16).
I love this verse. It's probably one of the sources of the well known saying, "God writes straight with crooked lines." As a person who makes so many crooked lines, I am much consoled and encouraged by God's promises and by His presence.

O Lord, I have so little vision of the mystery of my own life that we might as well call me blind. I am blind. I do not see or feel or understand the deepest works of healing that You are carrying out within my person.

You are leading me, especially and most profoundly, in those 'ways I do not know," the 'places of darkness' and all the crookedness of the wounds of my sins. You are leading me through so many secret sufferings, through the pain of my truest prayer that so often cries out for You, trembling with hunger. 

There is always this hunger, this longing for You, Lord, that seems overwhelming. Temptations pretend that there are other ways to fill this hunger, and they come from all directions. Ultimately, they pretend to offer something of You that I can grasp and make my own. But what they offer is not You (as I have learned by bitter experience). I want You. 

Where are You, O Lord? 

Baptism has made me Your adopted son, and has enabled me to live with You in the midst of Your People, my brothers and sisters in Jesus the eternal Son, "gathered" (ekklesia) throughout history and today in Your Church. The Church and the sacraments have brought me forgiveness and reconciliation, healing, growth and strength in so many ways. 

But the crushing human weight of the effects of original sin and the scars of my own broken life remain in me in ways I don't understand. I am still so blind. 

Yet You do not forsake me. You are leading me through the anguish and loneliness that come from being a broken human being who lives in broken relationships, who remains a sinner even with all he has been given, who suffers disappointment and fears death. 

Father, I am Your child in eternal life, but I am like a newborn baby even after these many years: small, helpless, crying out, and not yet able to see.... 

I am blind... perhaps in part because of Your mercy. You shield my eyes from the things You know I could not bear to see. Or You let me have a very small glimpse: just enough to know that the pain is there so that I can abandon myself to Your loving hands, and just enough to see that Jesus is here with me. 

Father, I believe that Jesus is here in the suffering, in the places that seem senseless, in the wounds that never fully heal.

God makes a way here, a way that I do not know. He does not explain these hidden ways to me, but simply asks me to trust in Him, to persevere on the path and share in the darkness and suffering that remain in me but no longer belong to me.
He has made them His sufferings. They no longer belong to me, and no longer define me, because He has taken them through love.
Therefore, I must not try to hold onto them, as if the incomprehensible depths of suffering somehow might give me a claim against God, a pretext to turn away from Him, to doubt His promise that He "will never forsake" me. I must not hold them up in God's face and say, "I accept that You exist, but I don't accept Your world" (as Ivan Karamazov says in Dostoevsky's greatest book).
My very bones cry out, "Why?" And yet as our dear late Lorenzo Albacete put it, "God doesn't give you an answer. He just shows up."
The "answer" cannot be a solution or a formula or anything that I can grasp with my mind. My mind cannot turn this darkness into light.
The "answer" is a fact that I must adhere to with my mind, with trust. This adherence is called faith. Even in the deepest darkness, I must have faith that He is here, that He has not forsaken me, that He is leading me on paths unknown.
God's answer is not a "solution" in the sense we think we want. It's not the ultimate "self-improvement" manual. Nor is it a social or political or psychological or intellectual solution.
God's answer is Love. His Love. God's answer to my anguish and loneliness is the gift of Himself.
Infinite Love doesn't "answer the question" of my pain; it is a response that is beyond all the terms I use to try to ask the question, and all the loneliness and anguish that drive the question. Still, it corresponds to all my human questions; it even intensifies those questions while inviting me to live them within this Love. Love transforms my longing, my emptiness, my wounds.
Love turns darkness into light.
____________________________________
P.S. -- God gives Himself in Jesus. He is Gift. He who is Love and Freedom can only be freely received. My human reason and freedom are respected by the God who created me in His image, as a person. Infinite Love gives Himself totally as a free gift. He wants to raise me up in this gift, giving me the capacity to receive Him and share His life.
This raises a new "question" for my reason, a profoundly practical question that I cannot escape. Should I accept this Infinite Gift? 
I can choose to say, "No."
A gift by nature is offered freely. True love by nature is the opposite of coercion; when we love someone we seek a free response of love. Clearly this must be super-eminently true for the Infinite Gift who is Love Himself.
He wants me to say, "Yes!" He will even empower me to say a "Yes" that shares forever in His life. But He will not force me to accept Him.
Therefore, I can reject Him. There is a great mystery here, because His creative love sustains me in my very being, which means that "I" can never "totally" reject Him because then I would cease to exist. I cannot exist, I cannot be "me," without depending totally on His Love that gives me my very being, and remains always the Source of "me."
Still, He makes me free. I do not have to accept His gift of Himself, His Love and His "way of love" that He has crafted to bring me to my fulfillment. I can resist Infinite Love. I can remain blind forever, because I do not want to let go of my limitations, my nothingness, my way of measuring reality which ultimately comes down to my misery and dissatisfaction. And I can spin endless rationalizations for why refuse to let go.
I can refuse to let go of my sufferings.
But why would I resist the Infinite Gift (who gives me my being) freely offering Himself to me forever? Such a resistance is not only the ultimate misuse of freedom. It is also the ultimate failure of reason. It is the victory of fear.
I cry out in the darkness, "Where am I? Who am I? Why all this pain?" and the answer is "I am with you. I will lead you. No matter how hard, I am with you!"
I am not given "explanations" about the mysterious depths of my own life. I am given Someone who is worthy of my trust. I need to let Him pick me up and carry me. He will never forsake me.
And He will open my eyes, when the time is right.

Francis: Don't "Watch Humanity from a Glass Castle"

Here are two extended memes following recent statements by Pope Francis. The first is from a recent commemoration of the 100th anniversary of an Argentinian university, where Francis speaks specifically about the role of theology, and the motivations which should govern it. The second is from a recent general audience, when the Pope once again expressed in strong terms the neglect of the elderly that plagues wealthy societies.

Happy Birthday Eileen Janaro!

My dear wife, we grow older, but indeed we are full of years, somehow, even with all the care and toil and pain. We move forward together, and hope grows stronger. We do not know what lies ahead, and we do not doubt that new sorrows will come along with new and deeper joys, but we are learning about how God's persistence and the patience of His goodness turn even our weaknesses into the strong soil of fresh and surprising growth.
Happy Birthday, Mrs. Janaro. I love you with all my heart!
***************
We all had fun celebrating Eileen's birthday on March 5, which felt even more like a little holiday in the midst of Lent thanks to the strongest snowstorm of the season. It gave us at least eight inches of snow and kept us, once again, all together and snug in the house with something to celebrate. Snow fell throughout the day.

Here's the house and surroundings getting pelted with snow. Pine hangs with snowy fruit. The road is around here... somewhere!
Among many things, there was plenty of home cooking. The highlight of the day was the birthday cake that Agnese baked. It was a pound cake with honey liquor and a pineapple sauce. Oh gosh, it was so delicious!
Teresa brings in the glowing cake.

That is a slice with pineapple sauce, and it tasted even better than it looks.
Thank you, Lord, for all Your blessings. Grant that Eileen and I will have many more happy years. And bless all her many labors that make our home everything that it is.
Thank you Jesus, for everything.

Hidden Hopes Awaken

Jesus, let my heart feel the flame
of the fire of your ardor
for the whole world,
for everyone.

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 vast multitudes who do not know you,but whose hearts have been made for you.
And you lead them in many secret ways
to the moment that lets them find you.

And you love especially
those who have known you,
but have fled far from you.

You search for them,
you call out to them,
and with all your Divine ingenuity
you find unseen chambers deep within their hearts
that may yet echo with your whispering.

You rouse their most buried, dormant, hidden hopes,
forgotten hopes or hopes unknown
that may yet awaken to their own hunger.

And I know this hunger.
It burns great holes in me.

Saint Katharine Drexel: Going to the Margins

March 3 is the feast day of Saint Katharine Drexel. She is, in fact, the only born citizen of the United States to be elevated to the honors of the altar in the Catholic Church. (Elizabeth Seton was born before American independence and Francesca Cabrini was born in Italy and became a naturalized American citizen.)

Heiress of a vast family fortune, Katharine Drexel did more than give alms to the poor. She dedicated her personal energies and all her wealth to building institutions that would change the shape of the society in which she lived.
Born in Philadelphia two years before the outbreak of the Civil War, Katharine Drexel’s life spanned nearly a century; she lived to see the United States move from the brink of disintegration to become the most wealthy and powerful nation in the world. During this period, however, her work was to found a congregation of women religious -- the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament -- specially dedicated to missionary activity among the poorest of America’s poor: the newly freed blacks and the increasingly oppressed indigenous peoples.

Mother Drexel for many years traveled widely through the deep South and the Southwest, dedicating her administrative talents as well as her financial resources to furthering the work of her order. She was especially concerned with the founding of schools for Native Americans and African Americans (in 1917 she founded Xavier University in New Orleans, the first African American Catholic college).
In the final twenty years of her long life, however, a heart condition forced the end of her journeying. Yet her labor during this time of suffering and what appeared to the rest of the world to be “retirement” was the greatest of all her works: Saint Katharine Drexel dedicated her remaining years to daily adoration of Jesus in the Eucharist, surrendering to Him all of her missionary zeal and love for the poor.

Josefina Talks About "Older People"

Josefina: "So it's mostly older people who live in this house."

Me: (Surprised by this unprovoked declaration) "Huh? What do you mean?"

Her: "Oh you know, John Paul, Agnese, Lucia...."

Me: "Haha, okay, I see what you mean. Older people, yes indeed, this house is full of really old people.... But what about Teresa?"

Her: "Well, sometimes she's older."

Me: "And of course your mommy and daddy don't even enter into consideration for this category. Mommy and Daddy are like beyond the horizon of any kind of oldness that you can possibly conceive!"

Her: Looks at me like 'I-don't-understand-what-you're-talking-about-but-I-know-you're-being-silly.'

     ...I thought about this for a moment and then I continued...

Me: "But wait, what about Daddy? Daddy is an grownup but he acts like a kid sometimes, right?"

Her: "Yes. You're the only grownup I've ever seen who acts like a kid!"

Me: "Well, I'm sure other little girls think their daddies act like kids sometimes, too."

I hope they do!

Remembering Benedict

I can't think of a better way to end the month of February than by reproducing here the full text of the tribute I wrote two years ago on this day. It was then that Benedict XVI took leave of us in order to enter a greater solitude.

We knew that the times to come would be dramatic, but we really had no idea. God had new surprises in store for us. Anyway, here's the article.