John Janaro's Blog, page 37

Total Dependence on “Another”

If we look at our real selves, at the motivations and hopes of ourselves-in-action, this truth becomes clear:

"Man depends, not only in an aspect of his life, but in everything: whoever observes his own experience can discover the evidence of a total dependence on Another who has made us, is making us, and continuously preserves us in being" (Luigi Giussani).

Russians Remember Alexei Navalny

"Eternal Memory." Alexei Navalny was buried on March 1, with the full rituals of the Russian Orthodox Church that had been the vital inspiration for most of his adult life.
After his death was announced on February 16, his mother undertook the long and difficult journey to the Gulag-built town of Kharp beyond the Arctic Circle to ask for her son's body. She persevered for nine days in her demands, while security officials stalled, made excuses, and then began to negotiate ( shamelessly !) the "conditions" that she would have to accept in order to receive her son's body for a proper Christian burial in Moscow. They insisted that she agree to hold a "private" burial, because the government feared that his funeral might be the occasion of massive anti-Putinist demonstrations.
Even after killing him, the regime was determined to persecute Alexei Navalny. But in fact, this is not Stalin's Soviet Russia. Social media and Navalny's exiled wife made sure to broadcast this final disgrace around the world, and his body was finally released to his grieving mother without conditions, and the government permitted the funeral to be held at a small church south of Moscow.
Thousands of people did gather at the cemetery under heavy police guard. They waited many hours on huge lines in order to honor the grave of their hero, even though they were only given a few seconds each by the police.
They have continued in these recent days to visit the grave and to lay flowers before the cross.

Are We Ready For War?

Vladimir Putin gave a speech today. He mocked the West’s lack of resolve. Is he right? 

I'm sure the entire Duma applauded loudly and long. When Stalin used to address the Politburo, no one wanted to be the first person to stop clapping. The story was that the first person to stop clapping would be arrested and never seen again.

Someone was arrested yesterday in Moscow because she had donated 50 rubles to an anti-Putin organization. And yet, in a few weeks the world will witness the outrageous charade of Putin's "reelection" for six more years as "President" of the Russian Federation.

Everyone knows this is a fake election.

The frozen blood of Alexei Navalny cries out to heaven from the ice of northern Siberia against all the lies of Putinism. As does the blood of Ukrainian women and children, victims of war crimes, and the blood of the poor Russian conscripts used as human weapons thrown recklessly at Ukrainian positions by a nihilistic military that has no regard for theirs or anyone else's lives. And Ukrainian soldiers who are running out of ammunition to defend themselves... who can account for that?

The Western world—in particular my own nation—is constituted by the most materially wealthy, powerful, and physically comfortable people in the history of the human race. Does this entail no responsibilities in regard to the rest of the world?

Western Europe and the United States of America are already effectively "co-belligerents" with Ukraine: ironically, Putin is right about this. In a 21st century war, money, weapons, and training are more than "virtual boots" on the ground. But the West's contribution to this war is weak and cowardly. Eastern Europe—Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia—cannot afford to be weak. They are preparing for war. As Russia shifts to a "war economy," it will need to continue fighting wars. The ex-KGB clique that rules the Russian Federation almost entirely from Moscow will find plenty of pretexts to visit destruction upon its other neighbors if it succeeds in Ukraine.

It has been verified that North Korean weapons are being used by the Russian military in Ukraine. North Korea can only do what China permits it to do. China defines itself by politics, and unlike Russia's mafia-state, the Chinese Communist Party is pervasive and continues to refine methods of managing a materialist consumer society.

China is sharing its "methods" on every continent in the world. They take material risks and sometimes fail but they seem to "learn" (according to their own criteria) and keep going. Their influence will continue to grow.

In the West (especially in the United States) we expect to "win" without really risking anything. Both parties and several American Presidents have played different kinds of games since 2014, when Putin first seized and annexed Ukrainian territory and threw down the gauntlet at the structures of international law. 

Ours is the strategy of a decadent civilization. Our political leaders are reckless, narrow, and ignorant—and the ones who claim to represent morality (especially on points that I myself believe are necessary to human dignity) bring disgrace to human dignity and trivialize these sacred things by their craven political ambition and slavish adherence to an irresponsible and vindictive partisan leader. 

If we think these people can fix our society, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

I don't advocate war. I hate war. But self-defense is necessary, and the Ukrainian people are fighting a rogue state and they are running out of bullets, and the American Congress has adjourned themselves for a "vacation."

I rarely speak about my country's politics, but many reasonable voices (that are not the American mainstream media) are speaking, so I'm not entirely a fool here.

And I cannot be silent as the frozen skeletal remains of Alexei Navalny's body are buried in the earth tomorrow.

February Art From JJStudios

February 2024 was not very dramatic in terms of the local weather, but I was able to work up a few of my “digital sculptures” from photographs. I experimented with a few different styles and color patterns. Here are the features from beginning to end of the month.

Two Years of “Martyred Ukraine”—Dare We Forget?

FEBRUARY 24th is here once again. With my prayers and my tears and the anguish of my heart, I cry out to the Lord for the suffering Ukrainian people… and also for the suppressed and broken Russians and the minority peoples who live under an iron yoke, and also for Eastern European nations that are still on high alert against dangers that they once thought were left in the past. This day reminds us that we live in a world at war. In particular, war rages in the lands on the inland seas from Europe to the Middle East. It has been a decade since Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution of Dignity represented that ancient nation’s decisive turn toward Europe and what was left of best ideals of Western civil society (which they may well understand and appreciate much better than we do). They knew only too well that the alternative was submission to despotism. Ten years ago, the despotic regime began seizing Ukrainian territory, and two years ago today, it sent its armies in full force to conquer and subjugate the entire nation in violation of international law and the regime’s own prior solemn agreements.

Two years later, Ukraine continues to defend itself and fight to regain its rightful territory. Meanwhile, war seethes slowly like fire that may yet spread to places we cannot imagine. Where will we all be on February 24, 2025? Wherever we are, however dire the circumstances, I hope we are not brought there from lack of courage and/or preoccupation with our own comforts. That would be to our shame.

I don’t think I can say anything on my silly little blog that would make any difference. But saying a little is better than nothing at all.

I stand with the people of Ukraine, unjustly and brutally invaded two years ago by the shameless Putinist Oligarchy that controls Russia, that continues to perpetuate violence and oppression against Ukraine, suffocates all opposition in its own country, and murders those who speak out against it.

May God have mercy on them, on their oppressors, on me, on all of us.

Jesus, Only You Can Work This Miracle in Me

There are peculiar problems that can arise for people with my type of mental illness to make a “healthy” (and realistic) examination of conscience, but we must find ways nevertheless (if necessary with help from others who can be trusted). We are no less sinners than anyone else, and we must repent, be converted, deny our egotistical self-centeredness, and open our hearts to the working of the Holy Spirit.

It is thus possible for me to examine my daily life, to gaze reasonably on my actions, to recall this, and that, and this, and that, and all the fruits of my negligence and entrenched habits. It is with sorrow that I see—in all my circumstances—selfishness, grasping, and pride nipping away at so many earnest and good aspirations and efforts, and defining so many others.
Yet Jesus and His mercy are here, and so I’m not beating up on myself (as I’m so often tempted to do). I repent, and place before God my "desire for the desire" to recognize Him and love Him well, and to offer everything... even the pride.

Take me, Jesus, in all this mess; love me especially in those places in my heart where I don't even know I need You.

"God resists the proud" — I know this is true, Jesus, but I'm begging You to take me with all my pride because I don't know what to do with it. Make me humble and true. It will take a miracle, but I come to You as the blind man did, begging You to give me my sight, with faith that You—and only You—can work this miracle in me. And I also know that even with my repeated forgetfulness and failure, the miracle is still happening. Jesus I trust in You.

The Chair of Saint Peter and Father Giussani

February 22 is the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter (the “chair”—cathedra—is the bishop’s “seat” in his diocese, indicating his authority as successor to the Apostles). White is today’s liturgical color and the “Gloria” is sung!

So this means that some celebration is appropriate. The ministry of the Papacy is a great gift to us all.

This day is also the nineteenth anniversary of the death of the Servant of God Monsignor Luigi Giussani. We have only begun to benefit from the great wisdom that the Lord gave him:
“Here is the paradox: freedom is dependence upon God. It is a paradox, but it is absolutely clear. The human being – the concrete human person, me, you – once we were not, now we are, and tomorrow will no longer be: thus we depend. And either we depend upon the flux of our material antecedents, and are consequently slaves of the powers that be, or we depend upon What lies at the origin of the movement of all things, beyond them, which is to say, God” (Luigi Giussani).

Alexei Navalny: The Russians Also Have Their Heroes

One of the most implacable Russian critics of Putin’s neo-Stalinist regime, Alexei Navalny died “inexplicably” on February 16, 2024 at the “Polar Wolf” Arctic Penal Colony. +Memory Eternal. May the Lord receive him in Peace. It’s tragic but hardly surprising to learn that the infamous Gulag is back in business.

Navalny had already survived the Russian secret services’ attempt to poison him in 2020 with a toxic nerve agent. During months of recovery and extensive rehabilitation in Germany, Navalny worked with independent investigators and a documentary team to identify the Soviet Russian undercover operatives who tracked his movements and ultimately doused his underwear with what was meant to be a fatal dose of “Novochuk.” But he survived, and the originally independent documentary Navalny was picked up for distribution by major networks including CNN and HBO. This documentary’s significance unfolds in the process of its being made, portraying the tentacles of espionage, the actual unmasking of vast secret surveillance and murderous plots against peaceful citizens whose only “crime” is telling the truth, and the moral bankruptcy of a legal system that brazenly engages in “disappearing” Putin’s opponents.

This great documentary (see trailer HERE) tells the compelling story of how Alexei Navalny—a lawyer from Moscow, a husband and father, a man of no particular political ideology who simply loved Russia and wanted a life of basic freedom and human dignity for Russian people—led an anti-corruption movement that used then-still-accessible Russian media platforms to expose the massive criminality of the Putin-Inner-Circle’s vicious kleptocracy.

Navalny did not cast himself as a Western-style liberal. He has been criticized by Western media for his past outreaches and dialogue with Russian “right wing” nationalist groups (although he had sought alliances with people all over the political spectrum). Navalny also didn’t protest Putin’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, but he soon changed when he saw the unfolding of the Putinist plan for the subjugation of Ukraine, and he condemned the regime’s neo-Stalinist expansionism.

Three times they tried to poison him, and the nearly succeeded in 2020. No one would have blamed Navalny for accepting the refuge offered by numerous countries in 2020—the chance to live in greater safety but also in exile. He chose instead to return to Russia, to carry on his work as much as possible or at least to live in solidarity with the suffering of his people. But he was immediately arrested upon his arrival in Moscow in November 2021, and soon after was convicted of “extremism” and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Transported numerous times through the prison system, he finally ended up at Polar Wolf, built on the site of a Stalinist gulag camp far above the Arctic circle. We have as yet no way of knowing whether he died from the effects of slow and tortuous treatment at the hands of his captors over the past three years, or whether he was finally dispatched in a more direct fashion.

But it is clear that Alexei Navalny was killed at the age of 47 by the ruthless Soviet Russian regime led by Vladimir Putin. He was murdered for speaking the truth.

This may seem a rather beguiling quotation from a man facing death (although it was known that he never lost his sense of humor). What does Navalny mean by this text? Perhaps he echoes the words of another famous Russian dissident who said, “Live not by LIES!”

Pope Francis Begins His Twelfth Lenten Journey in Rome

On Wednesday February 14, Pope Francis began his twelfth Lenten Journey as Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, Servant of the Servants of God. 
I remain grateful for his ongoing apostolic ministry, and I pray for him. May the Holy Spirit continue to sustain, strengthen, and guide him in his papal mission until it is fulfilled.

“Catholic Saints”: The Coptic Martyrs of 2015

February 15, 2024 marks the first public liturgical commemoration of the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Egypt in the Roman Catholic Church since their insertion into the official Roman Martyrology last year by Pope Francis. This is the ninth anniversary of their being brutally beheaded on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea by ISIS Islamist Terrorists for refusing to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. 
Who can forget how ISIS recorded this murderous act and posted the video to YouTube and distributed it to media outlets all over the world? Many of us saw at least parts of this video, where flesh-and-blood men—ordinary Coptic Orthodox Christian working men doing migrant work in Libya—repeated the name of Jesus as a prayer during the last seconds of their lives. In this world of global interactive media, what was meant to be a propaganda video instead allowed millions of people to see the faces of their fellow human beings giving their lives for their faith. It was terrifying in many ways, yet the truth being lived before our eyes was compelling and convincing. 
Twenty of the martyrs were Egyptian, but one was from Ghana (listed here as unidentified "worker" but I'll revise it when I find his name). He was not baptized Christian, but had been arrested with the others. When commanded to convert to the ideology of his violent Islamist oppressors, he pointed instead to his brother workers and said, "their God is my God." Thus dying for his faith in Jesus Christ, he obtained what the ancient Christian tradition called "the baptism of blood."
These martyrs were members of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, which has not been in full communion with the Catholic Church since the year 451, but which has retained valid apostolic succession through the ("monophysite") Patriarch of Alexandria, and therefore has the sacraments, the Divine Liturgy, and the Eucharist. Last May, Pope Francis decided to recognize the holiness of these 21 martyrs of 2015 who were already being celebrated as saints in the Coptic Church. They are now officially honored as saints in the full sense of the term by the Catholic Church.
We should remember them and prayer for their intercession, especially for Christian Unity, which their sacrifice embodies as a "beginning" and stands as a sign for all who believe in Jesus and profess His name—the name they loved more than earthly life.
1. Saint Milad Makeen Zaky, pray for us.

2. Saint Abanub Ayad Atiya, pray for us.
3. Saint Maged Solaiman Shehata, pray for us.
4. Saint Yusuf Shukry Yunan, pray for us.
5. Saint Kirollos Shokry Fawzy, pray for us.
6. Saint Bishoy Astafanus Kamel, pray for us.
7. Saint Somaily Astafanus Kamel, pray for us.
8. Saint Malak Ibrahim Sinweet, pray for us.
9. Saint Tawadros Yusuf Tawadros, pray for us.
10. Saint Girgis Milad Sinweet, pray for us.
11. Saint Mina Fayez Aziz, pray for us.
12. Saint Hany Abdelmesih Salib, pray for us.
13. Saint Bishoy Adel Khalaf, pray for us.
14. Saint Samuel Alham Wilson, pray for us.
15. Saint [Worker from Awr village], pray for us.
16. Saint Ezat Bishri Naseef, pray for us.
17. Saint Loqa Nagaty, pray for us.
18. Saint Gaber Munir Adly, pray for us.
19. Saint Esam Badir Samir, pray for us.
20. Saint Malak Farag Abram, pray for us.
21. Saint Sameh Salah Faruq, pray for us.