John Janaro's Blog, page 66

What a Difference a Week Makes!

…in November, anyway. Wet, cold, dark, rainy. Two days in a row. That’ll bring most of the remaining leaves down, but it will get the creek water up.

The Past and Present of “The Great War”

One hundred and four years ago, the Armistice began. Conscripted soldiers in Europe (who were still alive) were no longer under orders to shoot madly at one another because of the incomprehensible aims and tangled alliances of power politicians. Sadly, after four years of futility, ten million young men were dead. Poppies grew in the fields, by their graves. We remember them with sorrow, and we honor them. Many nations mark November 11 as Armistice Day, the day “the shooting stopped.” This day in 1918 was meant to be the end of what was called “the Great War,” and what idealists termed (and many hoped to be) the-war-to-end-all-wars.

Instead, it was merely a pause… and even in this respect it was only a pause for some. 

For others it was the beginning of the power of revolution and dictatorship, the beginning of decades of oppression, persecution, genocide. Fires were still blazing. Fire in the minds of men burned new ideologies that aimed to remake humanity on the presences of a pseudoscientific racial theory or a pseudoscientific theory of social slavery based on dialectical materialism. These ignited the fires of fresh conflict — the pagan racist state and its allies seemed to pour over the world, destroying millions of lives and committing genocide against a people beloved of God. To defeat this monster, the nations chose to make an alliance with the other monster, the ruler of the dialectical materialist slave empire. Terrible technological tools brought unprecedented horrors, with not only military but civilian deaths on a cataclysmic scale. The nations negotiated with their monster ally, and the monster made promises and assurances and declarations, but they were all lies. 

After what has been called “World War II” (with Roman numerals) came “The Cold War” in which superpowers “deterred” one another from using stockpiles of nuclear weapons only through the “devil’s bargain” of Mutually Assured Destruction, in which the price of global stability was to hold vast populations of innocent civilians “hostage” to the threat of indiscriminate annihilation. Meanwhile, “hot wars” raged everywhere, fought with all kinds of smaller but still devastating weapons that were bought and sold all over the world.

The free nations supposedly “won the Cold War” in 1989-1991, but not before the slave empire had inspired new imitators, new totalitarianisms, new atrocities in many places, but above all in East Asia where the old materialist ideology—losing none of its relentless grip—today creates new combinations of alluring economic prosperity and draconian political control over a fifth of the world’s population. While the “free nations” become slaves to their own stupendous riches, other countries struggle for their own national identities, often within borders they did not make for themselves. The Middle East still seeths and explodes and wrestles over borders drawn in 1919. New ideologies clash with reawakened old myths and fanatical dreams, whose adherents take new weapons in their hands, wreaking old and new forms of violence. 

Not surprisingly, historical (or pseudo-historical) claims are reasserted in many places, with their gods of blood, clan, tribe, and territory pitted against the power-worshipers of the dominant technocracy. Old and new hegemonies are grasping for “spheres of influence” as the latest project of “world (dis)order” has failed to deliver on its false promises, and continues to pillage the earth to serve the wealth and self-indulgence of its elites while stranding the multitudes in deserts of alienation.

And now, 104 years after Armistice Day, the truce stands broken again in Europe for the past nine months, as artillery blazes, guns fire, and bombs fall against a nation that has endured so much of the terror of the past century.

We live in more than the shadow of “the Great War.” We are, in a certain sense, still fighting it. If we do not turn to God, we will never find peace.

The poppies are red in remembrance of people long dead, but also with fresh blood.

11/11/22 … The Past and Present of “The Great War”

One hundred and four years ago, the Armistice began. Conscripted soldiers in Europe (who were still alive) were no longer under orders to shoot madly at one another because of the incomprehensible aims and tangles alliances of power politicians. Sadly, after four years of futility, ten million young men young men were dead. Poppies grew in the fields, by their graves. We remember them with sorrow, and we honor them. 

Many nations mark November 11 as Armistice Day, the day the shooting stopped. This day in 1918 was meant to be the end of what was called “the Great War,” and what idealists termed (and many hoped to be) the-war-to-end-all-wars.

Instead, it was merely a pause… and even in this respect it was only a pause for some. 

For others it was the beginning of the power of revolution and dictatorship, the beginning of decades of oppression, persecution, genocide. Fires were still blazing. Fire in the minds of men burned new ideologies that aimed to remake humanity on the presences of a pseudoscientific racial theory or a pseudoscientific theory of social slavery based on dialectical materialism. These ignited the fires of fresh conflict — the pagan racist state and its allies seemed to pour over the world, destroying millions of lives and committing genocide against a people beloved of God. To defeat this monster, the nations chose to make an alliance with the other monster, the ruler of the dialectical materialist slave empire. Terrible technological tools brought unprecedented horrors, with not only military but civilian deaths on a cataclysmic scale. The nations negotiated with their monster ally, and the monster made promises and assurances and declarations, but they were all lies. 

After what has been called “World War II” (with Roman numerals) came “The Cold War” in which superpowers “deterred” one another from using stockpiles of nuclear weapons only through the “devil’s bargain” of Mutually Assured Destruction, in which the price of global stability was to hold vast populations of innocent civilians “hostage” to the threat of indiscriminate annihilation. Meanwhile, “hot wars” raged everywhere, fought with all kinds of smaller but still devastating weapons that were bought and sold all over the world.

The free nations supposedly “won the Cold War” in 1989-1991, but not before the slave empire had inspired new imitators, new totalitarianisms, new atrocities in many places, but above all in East Asia where the old ideology—losing none of its relentless grip—today creates new combinations of alluring economic prosperity and draconian political control over a fifth of the world’s population. While the “free nations” become slaves to their own stupendous riches, other countries struggle for their own national identities, often within borders they did not make for themselves. The Middle East still seeths and explodes and wrestles over borders drawn in 1919. Old ideologies reawaken, and their adherents take new weapons in their hands, wreaking old and new forms of violence.

And now, 104 years after Armistice Day, the truce stands broken again in Europe for the past nine months, as artillery blazes, guns fire, and bombs fall against a nation that has endured so much of the terror of the past century.

We live in more than the shadow of “the Great War.” We are, in a certain sense, still fighting it. If we do not turn to God, we will never find peace.

The poppies are red in remembrance of people long dead, but also with fresh blood.

Christina Grimmie’s Seamless Vision of Life

It has been six years and five months since the young singer-songwriter Christina Grimmie was killed at an open meet-and-greet after a concert in Orlando, Florida on June 10, 2016. As she was reaching out, arms wide open, to welcome a stranger who came from the line, he drew out a Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol from a concealed holster and fired five shots, hitting her once in the head and twice in the chest. She was 22 years old.

Christina was a pioneering YouTube artist for several years before her magnificent run in 2014 on North American mainstream television, making the finals of Season 6 of The Voice. She called her followers “Team Grimmie” and referred to them as “frands” (combining the words “fan” and “friend”). She loved her frands, truly, in a way that is hard to describe. It was an expansive love, a love without calculation, a gratitude for anyone and everyone who listened to her music.

She was a “regular girl” in so many ways, but with an extraordinary talent and a great heart. She gave and received love with a confidence that was willing to take risks, to reach out to strangers, to be radically vulnerable. And Christina would not want us to regard her brief life as merely a tragedy, because—as she professed humbly but unambiguously in moments that called for it—her whole life and everything in it belonged to Jesus Christ, and she lived everything for His glory.

Why does her faith and following of Christ make a difference here? From every natural human perspective and consideration, her death was a crime and a catastrophe, a cause of awful grief, a manifestation of the relentless violence that permeates our society and has only grown more open and brazen since her death. All of this is true, but it is not the final word on the meaning and value of Christina’s life.

Christina saw everything within the embrace of her belonging to Jesus, and in this light we can glimpse the beauty and the “heroism” of her love for her frands, and the passion with which she gave of herself in her music, hoping to inspire others, always expanding the reach of her love, and persevering in that love all the way to the end.

Summer in November?

The weather has us confused lately in the Shenandoah Valley. We have been having temperatures in the 70s (F) during the day. We had to turn off the heat, and turn the air conditioning back on. #FirstWorldProblems

Then we set the clocks back this past weekend. On Monday the thermometer nearly reached 80! Balmy breezes, bare branches, colorful leaves, a few flowers, and sunset at 5:00 PM? What’s going on? Did the earth tilt in a different direction? This is planet earth, right?

Seriously it was a beautiful day to say “goodbye” to warmer weather. Even the flowers are perplexed, and in a few places they bloomed and competed with the leaves for attention. (See below.)

Alas, things will be set right soon enough. Frost is on the way.

“Cartoon Videos” Keep Getting Easier to Make

It’s almost scary how much easier it is becoming to make cartoons. Apps are being developed and improved constantly in the line of recording or transferring digital videos into AI-generated cartoon. The technology still has a ways to go, but it has come a long way too, even in the past year.

Here we can see the possibilities of an iPhone in late 2022. Enjoy the show(s).

The Vast Multitudes of Unknown "Holy Souls"

November is the month in which we pray for "the faithful departed." This has become a very particular and deeply felt task for me in recent years. 

My own parents are now among the faithful departed, a reality that I am aware of every day. They have joined this important and very large group of persons whose bodily life in this world has ended, but who are still vitally "connected" to us in Christ's Body, the Church.

At the same time, I continue to think of, and pray for, all the faithful departed, the people of every race and nation who are being made ready by Christ, through the mystery of mercy that we call Purgatory, to enter into the fullness of God's life, to share His beatitude, to see Him face to face forever in perfect freedom. 

How great must be this multitude! Often, we pray for "the souls in Purgatory who have no one to pray for them." I often wonder how many belong to this category because their own faith was a secret work of God's grace while they were on earth. I think of the five billion people in this world who are not Christians in any visible sense, the billions of people, adherents of the religions of the world, vast civilizations of people past and present who have a heritage rich in so many ways but lacking an explicit place for the Gospel as proclaimed and lived.

I believe that Jesus Christ is the sole mediator of salvation. Yet billions of people live their whole lives without ever hearing His name or having any real knowledge of who He is. Countless others know something about Him, but are confused by all sorts of images and ideas of what He represents, or have not had the opportunity (at least, not yet) to encounter His love for them, the way in which He has come into the world for them, and the fullness of all the ways He wants to give Himself to them.

Of course, Jesus calls His disciples to bear witness to Him in word and deed. We have encountered Him, followed Him, and come to know His love as the overflowing gift of God that “answers” all the longings and questions and perplexities of life, that corresponds to all the need and the searching of the human heart for meaning, for justice, for beauty, for a fulfillment that endures. We have been created to be sharers in God’s life, children of the Father in His Son, brothers and sisters of Jesus, united in the Holy Spirit. Christ’s love sets us free from sin and death, and makes us free to love God and find our happiness in this love. If we have the joy of loving God, then we will want to make Him known and loved by everyone. Every human person has the “right” to know the saving and transforming love that Jesus has for them particularly and personally, to know the whole scope of God’s plan in taking flesh, dwelling among us, dying and rising for us, staying with us. Christianity is missionary by its very nature, because Jesus belongs to everyone, and everyone is called to realize the truth of their humanity and their personality through a relationship with Him.

When we consider the billions of people on earth who do not know Him in all His fullness, our first impetus is toward evangelization. Nevertheless, up until the present moment, most of the human race has never really heard with their ears the Good News of God’s love, or the whole truth about their human dignity and vocation. Christ’s Church works within human history, sometimes in extraordinary ways, but overall moving within the dynamics of history. Still, He does not neglect a single one of those billions of His brothers and sisters from the past or in the present moment of history.

People who do not know about Jesus Christ are still loved immensely by God, and we can be sure that they are led by His grace. If they search for Him and follow what their conscience shows them to be His will, He leads them (in mysterious ways) to say "yes" to the Person of Christ who is present in their lives, and thus they can be saved by Christ and joined to the Church even if they have never heard of either. This must also be true of people who have "heard" of Christ and the Church, but do not understand them properly through no fault of their own.

Jesus, by becoming man, has united Himself in a certain way with every human being. The secret drama of every person's real life is their decision to say "yes" or "no" to Jesus Christ as He makes Himself present in their circumstances. Since Christ’s coming, there have been many people who have never heard of Him, but they have sought God's will, and have sought through the knowledge that was available to them to do what they thought God wanted of them. They love the good, and in that love God's grace is at work so that they can somehow encounter and accept the person of Christ through love even if they do not know His name. 

If a person truly wants "God's will," then they want Christ even if they don't know it, because Christ is God's will, and Christ places that desire in them. Jesus Christ is what every human person is searching for. And so all those who truly search for the Mystery of life, and beg for that Mystery, will be led in a vital way to God's revelation of that Mystery: Jesus Himself. Thus, many who do not know "about" Jesus in a way that they can express or articulate, can still say "yes" to Jesus in their lives through love, through fidelity to the grace that God gives them, and through mysterious ways that we don't understand.

There are various theological theories about how this can happen, and I am not proposing any of them here. Nor am I saying that someone who recognizes the truth about Christ and the Church can reject it in favor of some other path that he or she prefers. If I am truly searching for the One who loves me, and then He shows Himself to me in Person and reveals His Name, how can I not accept Him, let myself be embraced by Him, and embrace Him in return? If fear or my own preferences were to prevail at this point, it would mean the failure of my search rather than its fulfilment.

What I want to point out is the simple fact that God’s grace is central to the life of every human person, and it has ways of working even in those whose connection to the Church cannot be seen by us. These countless multitudes of people, living and dying with Christ along obscure roads in this life, have now come to a full communion with His Church and a special fellowship with us, either in heavenly glory or in the purifying experience of Purgatory. How much these vast multitudes of unknown Holy Souls need our prayers! To help them is a special sharing of fraternal love and a beautiful work of mercy.

Hope Remains Firm in the Midst of Many Changes

Here is a bit of an “existential reflection” on how the past four years have been so different from what I expected them to be. It was a good time to reflect on the truth that I “belong to another,” and that adherence to Him always give light for the “next step” in the human journey.

I apologize for the shaky quality of this video, but I hope that you will persist in watching, or at least listening to it. With this we say “goodbye” to October 2022.🍂🍁🍃

The Surprise of an Encounter

Today’s Gospel reading about Zacchaeus the tax collector reminded me of an article I wrote on his conversion in my column in Magnificat, published in January 2016. It is a story that vividly displays the gratuitous and transforming power of the encounter with Jesus Christ.

“Portrait” of Blessed Chiara Luce Badano

JJ Studios presents “portrait artwork” of Chiara Luce for 2022.

The origin of this portrait is a small and very grainy photograph. It was crafted with a variety of digital graphics tools, plus detailed work by hand. It preserves the original “red tinge” of the photo. 

Chiara Badano was considered “the prettiest girl in town.” She was modest but not frumpy. She had a boyfriend at one point, and experienced heartbreak. She had trouble with math in school. She was an avid tennis player. She liked popular music (including Bruce Springsteen). She was a girl of her time, and a girl of deep faith. That faith grew immensely during her nearly two years of suffering from osteosarcoma, until her death three weeks short of her 19th birthday on October 7, 1990.

"I offer everything, my failures, my pains and joys to Him, starting again every time the Cross makes me feel all its weight. The important thing is to do God’s will. I might have had plans about myself but God came up with this. The sickness came to me at the right time... [and] now I feel like I am wrapped into a wonderful design that is slowly unfolding itself to me…. What a free and immense gift life is and how important it is to live every instant in the fullness of God. I feel so little and the road ahead is so arduous that I often feel overwhelmed with pain! But that’s the Spouse coming to meet me. Yes, I repeat it: 'If you want it Jesus, so do I'" (Blessed Chiara Luce Badano).

Chiara still needs her second “officially approved miracle” for canonization, although I wouldn’t hesitate to ask her prayers for anything, even little things (especially “little things”).