John Janaro's Blog, page 264

"Great Conversion Stories" 2015 Begins

I hope you had the chance to see the beginning of the new cycle of Great Conversion Stories for the year 2015 in MAGNIFICAT.

This year we begin again in the time of the New Testament and will present twelve stories of remarkable conversions and vocations from successive time periods and diverse circumstances.

I am reproducing below the first story as it appears in the January 2015 issue of MAGNIFICAT, while also encouraging everyone to consider subscribing to this excellent magazine for liturgical prayer, hymns, devotions, spiritual readings, and reflections. For more information click HERE.

In the article below I develop a reflection from the historical context of the events recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 8, when the effect of Pentecost was still inspiring the first great missionary preaching of the Gospel, bringing Jesus to peoples from many nations.

In the Ethiopian court official we find already a representative of the universal significance of Christ's love.

For Many, It Was a Lonely Holiday

Many, many people spent this past Christmas ... alone.

The atmosphere spoke of happiness and merriment, and yet many sought it in vain. Some searched for Christmas cheer in stores or at parties, in vacations or novelties, or on television, or on the internet, or at the movies. They may have distracted themselves for awhile from feelings of emptiness, but in the end they still found themselves alone.

Christmas alone.

This was certainly the experience of many homeless people, drug addicts, alcoholics, and people who have been abused and abandoned. Here is a terrible loneliness.

Then there were the people far from their homes, especially those who have dedicated themselves to service: to the defense of our homeland, the safety of our communities, the staffing of our hospitals. How much we depend on these people to remain strong even in solitude, even as they yearn for those they love. Let us not forget them. Let us love them and be grateful for their continuing sacrifices.

Christmas was also lonely for people whose hearts were heavy over the loss of parents, children, relatives, or friends. And then there were people whose hearts were cut into pieces by estrangement from one another.

How many of us have known this loneliness only too well?

Have we found healing and peace? Have we forgiven one another and been reconciled?

Christmas alone, for the sick, for those who have become strangers to their own minds, and for those who are neglected in their sufferings. There are more people like this than we realize, people near to us, people who waited helplessly for our compassion.

Then there are in our midst lonely people who have lost their faith, or who have never found it. People without hope. People who don't allow themselves to be loved.

People who need our presence, our witness. People who need us to take the risk of giving of ourselves, the risk of loving.

People who need our prayers, not simply in a formalistic way, but prayers from our heart, prayers that hold them and accompany them, prayers that seek the One who has made Himself the companion of every person, the One who has hidden Himself within every loneliness and made it His loneliness.

In this new year, let us pray for all those who have not known the light of these days. Let us also pray for one another and take the risk to give ourselves in love, to walk with one another. For we all depend on one another, we all need one another.

We have been given the time and space of this new year, of this life, so that we might show mercy to one another, so that we might be merciful and receive mercy.

Embracing God's Will With Joy... And Even a Few Laughs!

Donkeys have no sense of humor, especially wooden donkeys. But
human beings do. And I need a pic so I can post this to Pinterest. :)"I want to do the will of God."
Really? Perhaps that's true, or has begun to be true, after 52 years of life.
It's about time. The hairs... they are getting even more gray, no?
Even so, "wanting to do God's will" remains an intention that I still don't manage to sustain, or even remember, through much of the day.
I know that "doing God's will" is not an abdication of my humanity, but -- on the contrary -- it is the path to the realization of my true self, created in the image of Infinite Love and unable to be free and happy with anything less. The "will of God" -- His wisdom, goodness, and love for me -- is what awakens my freedom, draws me, encourages me, whispers within my heart that fulfillment in this Love is possible.
Indeed, it is a promise.
I think, however, that in order to "do" God's will, I have to "want" more. I must ask for the grace to embrace His will -- to let Him embrace me with the grace that shows the beauty of His love while also raising me up to His measure, which is beyond all things, incomprehensible, and that opens up a path so often unfamiliar and "strange" in its ways.
Your ways are not my ways, O Lord.
At the same time, "Your ways" are the only ways in which my heart hears the echo of the promise, and finally comes to rest forever in the Love for which it cries out in every moment.
The Mystery is revealed and comes to dwell with us, not to cease being Mystery, but to accompany us, to be our companion, to dwell in the very stuff of our lives and give Himself through it.
So, what does it mean to "embrace the will of God?"
It means -- by God's grace -- to rejoice, to have gratitude, to affirm the reality of this moment... fully, with complete trust, without running away. It means to embrace my circumstances with their joys and possibilities and disappointments and frustrations and sufferings in the conviction that these circumstances have been shaped by the mystery of God's love, that He is with me in and through it all, that He is giving Himself to me and opening me up to be able to receive Him more.
I don't think I do that very often. I don't know that I ever do it. But I can't do it by my own power. He has come into the world to give me the transfiguration of humanity and the energy of love that makes this possible. He has united Himself with my life because He wants to heal me and raise me up to share in His life, to give me the gift that enables me to receive Him, the One who is Gift.
So I must take this heart of mine that cries out for Him, that longs for Him and begs for Him, that is already a total need for Him, and I must ask Him to enable me to embrace His will, to love the One who loves me and even to love the ways He loves me. This does not mean to understand His ways, or master them, or even to "feel good" about them. It is to love them; for it is love that "recognizes" and embraces and draws the whole of us beyond ourselves.
We are called to this embrace of God's will, of God's ineffable wisdom and infinite love present in our concrete lives. This embrace is the only thing that can bear up the weight of life. It is not enough to drag life with sadness and fear, for that turns everything into slavery and leads only to disgruntled conformity or desperate revolt.
In the embrace we will find the joy, the "lightness" of the burden -- our hearts and minds will glimpse it, if nothing else, though the miracle of humor. We will learn to laugh, at least a little bit, but even this is a triumph: those little bits of laughter are the buds of wonder. We may not even be aware of them, because humor is small and tender and moves through us swiftly so as to give itself away. We may not notice our own laughter, but it will be a song that will lighten the burdens of others.
The necessity and difficulty of this embrace of God's will -- God's way of loving us -- struggles against the discouragement that turns away from it and the fear and violence that attempt to avoid it or escape from it.
This constitutes the true and profound work of our lives, and it is the real existential drama that underlies the world we live in today.

Sturdy, Leafy Friends

My brave wintergreensprevailagainst the frozen snow.Framed in crystal white,with looming, stretching shadowsgathered over them,they rise upverdant, vital, bright emeraldsin the play of the lowering light.

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Ivy, ivy, ivycreepingover crumpled last year's leavesand roots of sleeping trees.Deep hues of ivy.

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Green and white,dappled sunlight!

.I take inspiration from my sturdy, leafy friends.

Glory

Glory
Jesus has grasped us,and made us his own.He has raised us upinto the glory of his torrential pouring out of himself,his self-emptying, his giving-away-everything.his drawing-all-things into the immense spaceof his opened heart.
And we awaken from our paralysis,and find that we are whole and free.We are washed by himwashed and made clean in the roaring oceansand the mighty winds of his life-giving Spirit;so that we too might give everything,become ourselves giftlive forever, given within the Infinite Giftwho is Love Eternal.
He has made us to live beyond our walls,to live in the everlastingof Love’s gift.and to begineven nowon this present earthto taste and see,to give and share,in this Love,the wonder, the beauty, and the ecstasy of his healing embrace,which lifts up the fallen,comforts the afflicted,satisfies the hungry,and shines in hidden places,small, humble places,
glory among the outcasts. 

Winter Beauty

Sky clear with intense brightness shining up from the snow. Cold, cutting air. My Blue Ridge mountains on this January day.

Remember: We're Still Having a Merry Christmas!

The Wise Guys have arrived!Today is January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, in which we continue to celebrate God revealing Himself to the world in the flesh of Jesus Christ. We recall the "wise men from the East" who came from far away to pay homage and give gifts to the new king of Israel (see Matthew 2:1-12).

In the Byzantine tradition, today is the great feast of the Theophany, recalling the revelation of the Trinity as Jesus emerges from the waters of John's baptism (see e.g. Matthew 3:13-17). The Latin tradition will join in this commemoration in a few days.

And though the liturgical observance of the Epiphany is transferred to the nearest Sunday in the United States and a number of other countries, we are still observing "Epiphany week." Thus, in these days, the ordinary form of the Roman rite continues to pray:

"O God, whose Only Begotten Son has appeared in our very flesh,
grant, we pray, that we may be inwardly transformed
through him whom we recognize as outwardly like ourselves.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever."

The formal liturgical observance of Christmas celebrations continues in the Western churches until Sunday, January 11. Moreover, the "classical Christmas season" (still observed in many cultures and in some liturgical traditions including the extraordinary form of the Roman rite) lasts for 40 days, ending on February 2 with the feast of the Presentation, which commemorates Jesus being brought to the temple to fulfill the law of Moses, and that moment when the poor of Israel recognize Him through the eyes of Simeon and Anna (see Luke 2:22-38).

We still have much to celebrate in these days.

So there is no rush to take down the tree and decorations. Light up your January nights and let the brightness warm your hearts.

Jesus is with us. The Mystery that makes us, for whom our whole life is one great longing, is here. He has made Himself present in time, in history, so that we can find Him, so that He can shape our history, so that He can dwell with us and draw close to us in all our efforts and our cheer, and especially our sufferings.

God makes our human reality His own. How small and strange we are, with our glittery kitch ornaments and our awkward expressions, our funny-shaped noses and faces, our complaints and our cleverness, our gadgetry and our games. He has come to be with us.

That's a fact worth celebrating for more than one day. This is a season for that profound and humble human quality that brings together beauty and humor, a dark and cold season in which nevertheless we are -- or at least we desire to be -- merry.

And so -- because I am astonished to find that I am a quirky and odd little man in a family of funny people who have been chosen to be brothers and sisters of God -- I shall even today greet you all in this fashion [there should be a video below]:

Above Every Other Name

William Congdon, Mary and Jesus.


"Jesus,


though He was in the form of God,did not regard equality with Godsomething to be grasped.
Rather, He emptied himself,taking the form of a slave,coming in human likeness;and found human in appearance,
He humbled himself,becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted Himand bestowed on Him the namethat is above every name,
that at the name of Jesusevery knee should bend,of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess thatJesus Christ is Lord,to the glory of God the Father."


                             ~Philippians 2:6-11

A Heart For Everyone

"And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart" (Luke 2:19).


This is what the Gospel tells us about Mary's personal response to all the great events of these days. She reflected on the things (or pondered, as some translations have it, which evokes "weighing" these things, entering their depths). And she did so in her heart.

And "these things," of course were the mystery of what we are celebrating, the Nativity: the epiphany of God who was truly born from her womb, and the encounter of God, her son, with the people.

As soon as she had given birth to Him, they came. The first to come were the poor, those who counted for nothing in the world. They were shepherds, and they were weary and burdened. The young ones had no hopes for their lives beyond the flocks, and the old ones awaited the end of their days, grizzled, toothless, with gnarled faces and tired eyes that had watched more nights than they could remember.

But then messengers came forth from the Mystery (whose Name the shepherds dared not speak), the Mystery beyond the stars, and the messengers filled the sky with light and song and proclaimed that something new had begun in the world.

And so the shepherds came with joy and expectation to see the One who had been announced to them as their Savior, the One whose coming was meant to be "a great joy for all the people," the One who was the Glory of God and the bringer of peace.

And Mary showed them her child.

She was with them when they saw the Glory of the Lord, the Glory of the Mystery who creates and sustains all things, the Glory that is not like the ideas of power and domination that human beings seek to grasp and possess. They saw the Glory of the Lord as an infant, born an outcast (from a town that had no room to take Him in), wrapped in cloth bands and lying in a feeding trough.

The Infinite Mystery, so Great beyond all greatness that His glory shines through the "smallness" of taking flesh under the heart of Mary. His glory shines through His coming into the world as the son of an insignificant mother who takes refuge in a shelter among the poorest of the poor.

His glory was in sharing the night of the shepherds, because He wanted to bring joy and peace to the grizzled, toothless, wrinkled, tired old men.

They had hearts, and they had hope. He would not leave them disappointed....

His glory was, and is, the revelation of His love, the revelation that He is Love.

And Mary kept these things and pondered them. She pondered the humility of the One who had placed Himself in her hands so that she could give Him to everyone. She pondered her mysterious motherhood of the God who had become her child, and who wanted to be the brother of every person, first of all of those who were the least, the poorest, the most forgotten.

She kept these things in her heart. She said "yes" to all the multitude whose lives her son had come to embrace. She said "yes" to being mother to the shepherds' joy, and she kept saying "yes" -- to His disciples, to the crowds who would follow Him, to those He forgave on the cross, to those who waited in the upper room for the Spirit to come, to Israel and the Gentiles, to every human being, to you, to me.

Mary kept and pondered in her heart. That means she loved.

This love was and is for everyone. Mary is our Mother.

At the center of it all -- of all our searching and finding and fulfilling of our destiny -- there is the heart of a woman who loves, a mother....

Of course. How could this not be true?

The Silence of a New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve, 2014.

I found an artifact from the past, a scribbled piece of notebook paper headed with the words:

Retreat: Holy Cross Abbey, December 1989
The last three days of December, twenty five years ago.
Let that soak in for just a moment. 1989 was twenty five years ago.
And I was about to turn twenty seven years old. I was a graduate student living in the Washington D.C. area, and this was my first visit to the Cistercian monastery in Berryville, Virginia that would become so very important and dear to me nine years later.
It was an "undirected retreat," which means that I checked into the guest house outside the enclosure, and was able (but not required) to follow the monastery's liturgical schedule in the abbey church. The guest house had its own chapel and dining area, and a monk brought food to the guests three times a day. We ate in silence while he read spiritual reflections.
One of the fathers came to hear confessions and give private counsel to those who desired it.
Otherwise, we were free to experience solitude, to pray, to read in our rooms, or to walk through the farmlands and woods on the monastery property. I did a lot of walking.
The simple Cistercian abbey church in the morning.I also followed the monastic schedule, including the vigils at 3:30 AM.
I scribbled a few notes on the notebook paper, thoughts that passed through my head. Now, twenty five years later, the words pass before my eyes.
I want to end the year 2014 with the words of 1989, words about a Valley that was destined to be the place I would make my home, where I would raise my children, words about my search for God on the threshold of a new decade.
I was just young, and it is a marvel to remember so long ago. I was praying to know God's will for my life. A few weeks later I met Eileen for the first time, but that's another story... a whole collection of stories.
So many things have changed in twenty five years, but the Mystery of God remains, and in the presence of God I remain a child.
"Dogs bark back and forth across the valley, and I hear -- between surges of the hum and thump of blood in the tissues of my inner ear -- holy silence.
"A distant train whistle slices the night mist, and as the abbey bell shakes the roof timbers in the church the monks pass in procession before the abbot to receive his blessing, their practiced feet in an orderly dance over the creaky wooden floors.
"After the night vigil I prostrate myself on the carpet at the edge of the cloister in the abbey church, pressing my forehead and nose against the floor -- 'O Lord, see how I abase myself before You?'
"Dawn and Christ come in the morning Eucharist: 'John, see rather how I abase myself before you.' "