John Janaro's Blog, page 292

On Being a "Good" Father

Giving the kids important lessons about lifeIts hard to be a father. Or, rather, its hard to be a good father. I've told lots of funny stories about our family, and a few painful stories. We have faced some notable obstacles with health issues, but (as I have often emphasized) many "ordinary people" endure such things. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that our family life is mostly ordinary... and flawed.

For me, the day-to-day responsibilities of fatherhood all too often end up engendering a bunch of mistakes. I don't give the kids enough attention, or I speak rudely, or I'm too demanding, or (more often) I'm too lenient, or I get impatient, or I get snarky, or I deal with them in the mode of what-do-I-need-to-do-to-get-this-annoying-distracting-person-out-of-my-face, or I join in with their goofy games and forget to enforce basic family rules like DON'T JUMP ON THE COUCH, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I'm sure my wife could draw up a longer list. Any Mom reading this knows (and puts up with) the standard DadFails every day.

Its just the standard, ordinary stuff. There's much more on the positive side (I hope). Really, I'm a "good Dad." But I need to be better. I need to grow.

I want so much to love my children more, and I truly believe that there are abundant graces from God that make it possible fulfill the vocation of being a Christian and human father. God loves my children with an infinite love, and He wants to show them one of the foundational signs of His love through me. This is an awesome task which is beyond my natural powers as a human being and as a man.

Remembering my own fatherhood helps me to see my total need for healing and grace.

The illusion of self-sufficiency and self-satisfaction can be difficult to break, and it is very easy to ignore God's presence (and even His existence) as long as we live inside the bubble of this illusion. But one way God awakens us and draws our hearts is through our children.

If we allow ourselves to love our children, we open ourselves up to the awareness of our own vulnerability. Children remind us again and again that we are not the ones who control reality. If we truly care about our children--if we let them burst the bubble of our self-centeredness--we are going to experience how much we need God.

Being a father reminds me that I need to pray.

I want my kids to discover and to grow in the awareness of the fact that God is their Father. I want them to know that their Daddy on earth is called to "help" them to experience in a more intimate way this true Fatherhood, this tremendous Love that gives them to themselves each moment, in His image, and calls them to be His children forever.

I can't fulfill my vocation without remembering continually that God is my Father too. He has made us all His children by giving us our lives, and by giving us His life in Jesus.

Holy Bar-Be-Cue!!!

Jesus has suffered for all of us, and suffers in all of us. He is the reason why redemption and glory are destined to rise up out of our own suffering, if we adhere to Him in faith, hope, and love. It doesn't usually "feel" this way when we are going through difficulties and pain.  But in the life of the Church, God has given us signs that suffering has indeed been transformed. For example, some saints have experienced the marvel of an ecstatic and wholly supernatural joy—a kind of anticipation of glory—that penetrates the heart of suffering itself.
Such joy—the foretaste of glory—is a kind of miracle, a special gift of grace. It is given to chosen souls. It lights the way for us all. We can see radical examples of this miracle of ecstasy and glory in the ancient accounts of the early Christian martyrs.

The history of the church in Rome during the great persecutions includes the story of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, whose luminous courage comes down to us through the ages in the form of an unconquerable (and profound) sense of irony and wit. When compelled by the authorities to surrender "the treasures of the church," Lawrence appeared in the presence of the magistrates with a crowd of poor people, proclaiming that "these are the treasures of the Church."
Later on, the story tells us that—as he was being roasted alive on a grill—Lawrence joked to his executioners, “You can turn me over. I’m done on this side”! In the spirit of this transcendent humor, the Christian people honor St. Lawrence as the patron of cooks—this is not a crude analogy, but a recognition in the heart of the Church that the triumph of the Cross penetrates all the way to the details of ordinary life.
The joy of St. Lawrence is a sign for us, not unlike the Transfiguration was for Jesus’s disciples. It is a flash of eternity in the memory of God’s People, reminding them of the real truth of the things of time.

He Gives Himself First

With Christ I am nailed to the cross. It is now no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me (Galatians 2:19-20).

This is Christian life.

What can I add to this? I have been dwelling on this text recently. What happened on the Cross? He intervened, definitively, in my life. He did something completely new, so new that it changes who I am. He identified Himself with me, to the point of even taking on my sins, from which He sets me free in the mystery of His love.

He loved me and gave Himself up for me. We should read these words every day. He loved me and gave Himself up for me. What is this "me" that He loves so much? Weakness. Selfishness. But then He takes hold of my life at its roots. Where I am helpless He comes with the love and the gift of Himself, He the Son of God. He claims my life, in order to become the source of something new.

He asks me to let Him embrace me and become a source of new life--a life that is beyond the selfish prison of an "I" that struggles to find meaning in itself, alone. He breaks down the wall that separates me from the God that He is, the God that my "I" was created to live "for"--and this living for Him means that my self is opened up to Him. I am no longer alone. He lives in me.

How can this be? What does it mean? I live in the faith of the Son of God. I live a vital, obedient faith, full of hope, love, and trust because He has loved me.

He has found me, He has given Himself to me, He has made it possible for me to recognize Him and live for Him. The Christian "I" lives in a relationship of self-abandonment to Jesus Christ, a relationship made possible because He gives Himself first.

Hands, Voice, Mind, Heart

The Rosary. We cry out to God with our profound existential crises, and then the Blessed Mother comes and says, "Pray the Rosary."

"But I'm confused about why I even exist. Does God even care?"

Wait. You're a human being who is distracted and broken by nature, and you're beaten up in your interior life, your perspective, your anticipations and fears by many bruising years of experience. You're carrying the consequences of your mistakes, of being manipulated by other people, and also all the flaws and disappointment woven into even your most cherished relationships.

"But I believe in Christ. Why am I such a mess? And not just me. The whole parish is a mess. The priests...gosh! Holiness? We're called to holiness, really? It seems like a joke...."

You got hands?

"What does that have to do with anything?"

You need to use your hands. Your fingers. Start with your fingertips. Take the beads.

Hands, voice, mind, heart.

Use your hands and your voice, and do the best you can with your mind, and Jesus and Mary will give you the heart. Take a journey through the Gospels with Jesus and Mary. Ponder the moments of His life. Be patient with yourself because your mind will wander a lot. Just do it, and try to do better. Try to do it even a little bit better?

You have the crucifix and images for you eyes. Let Jesus in. Let Him come in through those tired senses... those senses that have endured so much affliction.

Let Jesus and Mary bring you healing and peace.

Pray the Rosary.

Self-Inflicted Violence: It Doesn't Always Meet the Eye

I beat myself up all the time. Does that sound scary? Yet you won't find cuts or scars or bruises on my body. No... as is so often the case, I'm talking about something I do inside my head.
I think its important to take seriously the metaphor of "beating ourselves up" mentally and emotionally over our own real or perceived failures. These metaphors resonate for reasons that are deeper than we may realize.

Mentally ill people can develop even compulsive forms of interior violence, and repetitive psychological self injury. This can be even more crippling than visible, external self-inflicted violence, although I think the two often go together in life circumstances and illnesses other than my own.

Whatever the nature of the behavior, we need to become more aware of how damaging (and how potentially dangerous) it is to "beat up on ourselves."

I am not a medical doctor or a therapist. I am just a "patient" who has lived with my own mental illness for more than 40 years. All I can do is share what I have learned, what has helped me in my own struggles. And I have certainly learned that beating up on myself is very bad thing. Neurological dysfunctions in the brain can give rise to dark and distorted perceptions or feelings of doubt, which then strive to articulate themselves as compulsive thoughts and emotions.
This can break out into a cycle of interior self abuse that is not only painful, but that causes me to withdraw from my responsibilities and from others who need me. I know that I must try my best to break this cycle, by turning to God in prayer, certainly, but also by sticking with my medications, watching what I eat, following my routine, managing stress, exercising, using cognitive therapy, and relying on people who can help me get back into focus and stay there.
I have never been able to think my way out of this. Help comes from outside, and no degree of illness can take away the personal responsibility that I have to be receptive, to struggle to be open to the help that I cannot give myself.
I know that there are many people who don't worry about much of anything, and who would benefit from a good dose of sober self-criticism (n.b. sober, which means balanced, measured, realistic). And we all feel guilty and ashamed at times simply because we've done something wrong. This is normal and good. But its something entirely different from a pathological and constant interior assault that is all out of proportion to any fault, that seems to block out goodness and that leads to discouragement.
Don't give in to this. Move away from it, even if all you can manage is an inch. Do it one inch at a time. And search for anything that helps you to draw out of yourself. If some of those helps begin with "psych," don't be ashamed of that. Its awkward terminology, but when properly applied these "helps" encompass both corporal and spiritual works of mercy. And we all need mercy. 
It is essential to people with mental illness to remember that God loves them just as they are, and that they must learn to love themselves, to be kind to themselves, and to turn their energies outward in constructive ways. And they must not be ashamed that they need help from others.

From my own experience I can say: It is possible to live in a relationship with God, with joy and patience, and constructive engagement of work and relationships, even with chronic depression, bi-polar, OCD, and other neurobiologically based disorders. It is also possible to be healed greatly from much self inflicted personal damage.
It is an ongoing process, and you can't do it alone. You need help.

Love in the Spaces of Darkness

We cause pain to people we love. We all do this to one another. We hurt one another. Even when we are trying our best to avoid doing this, it still happens. This is not to say that we shouldn't try our best. The harder we try, the less pain we cause to those we love, and the more we forgive, the more we are healed of the wounds that we have received.

We must try our best. We must struggle with this. God is calling us here. Jesus says, "Love one another." Still, we must not be discouraged by the fact that we fail so much. We must get up and keep loving, and offer our weakness to God's mercy, trusting in His healing power that works in often hidden ways, but always with perfect wisdom, understanding, and compassion for who we are and for those we love.

God doesn't answer all our questions. He doesn't explain the deep paths of His mercy that is always at work in our lives. He asks us to trust Him.

He allows us to endure the profound pain of not being able to understand one another in so many ways. Our effort to love one another in this present life remains (in some ways) like climbing a mountain in the dark. We keep bumping into the rocks. We keep bumping into each other. In the darkest moments of this journey, however, God remains with us. He enables us to get up again and again, and to help one another, to forgive one another, and to keep going forward.

God is at work in the darkest places. Each of us must believe that Jesus died for me. "The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me" (see Galatians 2:20). God is closest to us in our suffering, and He enables us to go forward and grow in love. As Pope Francis keeps saying, He never abandons us.

He stays with us and endures that "space of darkness" that we so often experience in our relationships with one another, that "space" full of pain and failure and vulnerability and resentment and guilt. That space of darkness that remains even with all of our efforts to love each other. That space of loneliness that we cannot fill up in ourselves and that we will never totally fill or satisfy in those we love.

We have been made for Him, and we need Him -- each of us individually, and in our relationships with one another. We need Him, and He has come to be with us, and His love is always greater.

Jesus on the Cross. For you. For me. For us together. For the world.

He is with us, with such tenderness, with total understanding and compassion, and He wants us to depend on Him.

We don't have to "understand" this. We don't have to feel this. We must trust in Him.

He hears our cry in the darkness. And when we fall and are in pain, we must believe that He is with us even though we can't see Him, and we must cry out to Him to lift us up.

Jesus, I trust in You.

The Maternal Womb of Mercy

We've seen this picture many times. Over three million people gathered on the beach of Copacabana this morning for the final Mass of World Youth Day in Brazil.

This "World Youth Day" has lasted a week, and has allowed the world to see Papa Francisco speaking and acting as a pastor in the part of the world he knows so very well.

For Pope Francis, this is not just a statistic, or a crowd. These are people. These are human persons. Most are formed by the Catholic heritage and the social ambivalence of the Latin American experience. Their hearts must make real choices today, in an environment that holds forth many possibilities but also turns in so many ways to open violence and destruction.

In a lifetime of caring for these people, Papa Bergoglio has learned much wisdom about the heart of every human person, the drama of every human life that is weighted down with so many troubles, pulled on by so many forces, afflicted by so many illusions, and yet called -- in a continual, mysterious, and implacable way  -- by the love of God in Jesus Christ which is beyond all measure.

He expressed this wisdom in a stunning fashion during his meeting yesterday with the bishops of Brazil. Here especially he has given a reflection that captures his passionate conviction of how the Church (i.e. the Catholic people, each and all of us) must seek out and serve the human person in his or her suffering and failure, struggles and hope.

The entire text deserves to be read and pondered. It is concrete and profound. Even though it was addressed to bishops in Brazil, it deserves the attention and truly prayerful consideration of all of us. You can access the whole text through this link HERE to the Vatican Radio website.

I cite here only one quotation, in which the Pope reminds us that the Church is a Mother:

"We need a church capable of rediscovering the maternal womb of mercy. Without mercy, we have little chance nowadays of becoming part of a world of wounded persons in need of understanding, forgiveness and love."

It is Always Person to Person

Morning sun lights up the back of our estate. Its a morning full of blessings
The house is quiet, early in the morning. Its the only time of day that the house is deeply quiet. Everyone is sleeping except me. I've prayed my morning prayer, and now I'm sitting in my "home office" (my corner in the living room, with my "Daddy's chair" and my desk piled with papers and books and containers of my precious raw almonds, and gadgets -- and it must be said that in spite of everything, books still far outnumber the gadgets).

I sit here with my first cup of coffee, listening to the silence. I can hear the soothing sound of artificial ticking. It is our faux "antique" mantle clock, a true masterpiece of Chinese workmanship and design. The plastic body passes for genuine wood. The plastic face with its pretentious Roman numerals looks like gilded metal. A small battery keeps everything moving, and gives it a ticking sound that has nothing to do with the mechanism of the clock.

But as I survey the room and its spontaneous clutter (which is another way of saying "mess"), it is clear that this is a very real home. This is a house that is gloriously, raucously lived in.

Everything is given. It all seems still and silent in this moment, but it is a silence that breathes, from the presence of sleepers in their bedrooms to the tick of the quartz clock; from the errant sneakers that ought to be on the shoe shelf to the shafts of sunlight gleaming through the window. It is more dynamic that a roaring fountain. It is all, right now, coming forth from an inexhaustibly generous hand.

I've been writing less, and spending more time reading during work time these days. I am slow at everything, and I grow tired very easily, but I know that my days are about more than just trying to survive. I am being educated toward the most important work of my life. Indeed, it is a work that has already begun.

I write to communicate. My energy is drawn from my awareness of the persons who read these words, from the realities that I perceive, and from the connections that I see everywhere, and that I desire to share with my readers. Whether those readers are many or few is not so important. I craft various kinds of writing on different interactive media platforms, but I can keep my focus insofar as I remember that what is taking place is person to person communication. Even here, I am not writing to an "audience" -- I am giving something, sharing something that I see with each person who reads these words.

I do not know what people take away from these words, and they are often clumsy compared with what I wish I could say. But all I can do is summon my energies and give what I have been given.

I want to give what I have been given, but what happens to these gifts -- how they are received and what kind of fruits they bear -- is in the hands of God. Indeed, I myself am in His hand. Every person is a gift for others, and therefore every person has gifts to share. Every person matters. Every person has beauty.

The summer sun is brightening up the whole room.

All things are gifts from God to us, and we are gifts from God to one another.

Have a beautiful day.

God Always Surprises Us

Even in the midst of difficulties God acts and He surprises us....
God always surprises us;like the new wine in the Gospel,God always saves the best for us.But He asks usto let ourselves be surprised by His love,to accept His surprises.
Let us trust God!Cut off from Him,the wine of joy, the wine of hope, runs out.If we draw near to Him, if we stay with Him,what seems to be cold water, difficulty, sin,is changed into the new wineof friendship with Him.
~Pope Francis (Aparecida, Brazil 7/24/2013)

Josefina on Boys

Is this a "phase" that girls go through? The other three never said anything quite so spunky, but Josefina is a spunky girl.

Recently, she was telling me about what she is going to be when she grows up. She's going to have a farm, with animals, and its going to be right behind our house. A six year old does not need to concern herself with details like buying up property, tearing down houses, and neighborhood zoning regulations. She can just point in the direction of our backyard and say, "My farm will be right there."

Josefina: "And I will have animals too keep me company."

Me: "But you won't be all by yourself. You'll get married...."

Her: "No, I don't want to get married!"

Me: "What do you mean? Why not?" [Maybe she wants to be a farmer and a nun.]

Her: [emphatically] "I don't want any boy telling me what to do!"

Not exactly the model husbandWhoa. Where is this coming from? Its not like I boss her mother around. She hasn't had any run-ins with the boys at school, as far as I know. She always says, "they're funny." Maybe its from videos? Watching old reruns of the Flintstones, perhaps.... Anyway, I try to present marriage in a different way.

Me: "That's not what marriage is like. You love each other and help each other...."

Her: "I'm not gonna love any boys."

Me: "Oh well, I'm sure...."

And then she leans over and gives me a big hug and says: "I don't love any boys except you, Daddy. ...and God."