Saint Athanasius: The Grace of Easter “is Always Near…”

Today is the feast of Saint Athanasius (296-373), the fourth century’s unshakable “defender of orthodoxy.” During times of epochal change in the Greco-Roman world of Late Antiquity, and times of confusion and betrayal among Christians regarding the Arian heresy, Athanasius courageously upheld the truth of the Divinity of Son of God, who took our human nature in Jesus Christ for our salvation.

Athanasius endured many trials and persecutions during his long life, but was sustained by holding fast to Christ. His feast always comes during the Easter Season, which he particularly extolled. The Risen Jesus—Creator and Redeemer, conqueror of sin and death, Only Begotten Son of the Father, the Word made flesh, Lover and Savior of humankind—was Athanasius’s enduring joy. This joy “enlightened” his faith-filled mind and heart, because his “ardent desire” and “thirst” for Christ were greater than any fear of the sufferings brought upon him by the lies and manipulation of the Arian faction—even when its “rationalist” reductionism of the Gospel became the dominant ideology of the imperial power that tried to impose it by force on the Greco-Roman world. Athanasius never gave up. He brought his desire, his afflictions, and his thirst for truth and life to the Living One who alone could sustain him and fulfill him: Jesus Christ living in His Catholic Church.

Here is a quotation from the Festal Letters of Saint Athanasius:

“The time has arrived which brings to us a new beginning: the announcement of the blessed Pascha, in which the Lord was sacrificed. We eat, as it were, the food of life, and constantly thirsting we delight our souls at all times, as from a fountain, in His precious blood. For we continually and ardently desire; He stands ready for those who thirst; and for those who thirst there is the word of our Savior, of which, in His loving-kindness, He uttered on the day of the feast; 'If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink.' Nor was it then alone when anyone drew near to Him, that He cured his thirst; but whenever anyone seeks, there is free access for him to the Savior. For the grace of the feast is not limited to one time, nor does its splendid brilliancy decline; but it is always near, enlightening the minds of those who earnestly desire it” (Festal Letter 5).

Saint Catherine of Siena Teaches Us to Trust in God

Today is the feast of the magnificent 14th century Saint Catherine of Siena. She was one of the most amazing women who ever lived, the youngest of 25 children, chosen to experience and communicate to the world the astonishing, relentless, mad love of God for every human being.

She spoke fearlessly to those in power, to the wealthy, the clergy, to anyone who would listen. She moved the hearts of popes, brought reconciliation to warring factions, served the poor and the sick, and prayed tirelessly for great sinners—many of whom converted and became her most ardent followers and collaborators. She was also sometimes humiliated, often misunderstood, and afflicted by abundant physical and spiritual sufferings and temptations, without ever wavering from her total abandonment in trust to the infinite mercy of God. 

Catherine was not only a “visionary” abounding in charismatic graces, but also a true contemplative, a mystical soul immersed in God’s saving love even while engaging with tremendous charity and courage the tumultuous circumstances of her times, which were marked by the many dramatic problems in ecclesiastical and civil life that characterized the emergence of early modern Europe. One of four women specially venerated under the title “Doctor of the Church,” Catherine left for all times and places a record of her testimony to her experiences of the mysterious embrace of Christ the Bridegroom of her soul. His love burned through her and made her 33 years of life an unforgettable fire whose embers still glow, warming our hearts and giving us hope even today.

She was a vital presence for me when I lived in Rome in 1993-1994, from her repose under the main altar at Santa Maria Sopra Minerva and out into the church piazza, into the streets, into the air. Catherine, from Siena, from the Tuscan hills came to be the friend of the bishop and the people of Rome for nearly 700 years.

She held the fires of divine love in her heart and in her hands, and she continues to draw people near to Him—this humble woman, this “familiar friend” who helped me to begin to learn something of the steadfastness of the mercy of Christ 30 years ago in Italy, during a particularly beautiful and difficult time in my own life.

"I can do anything through Christ crucified, for I know truly that he does not lay a heavier load on his creatures than they can bear. So I want to leave the measuring up to him and, for my part, bear these things with true patience... I know that whatever God grants or permits, he does it for my good, so that I may be made holy in him" (Saint Catherine of Siena, 1347-1380).

I want to share a few more words from Catherine in the graphic at the bottom of this post. In these words she speaks powerfully about her desire for God. They can help us grow in understanding the fundamental truth about life, the direction and ultimate meaning of our own existence.

All of us have this infinite desire in the depths of our hearts—Saint Catherine’s mystical awareness of being made for fulfillment in the inexhaustible reality of God is true for each and every one of us. The longing for God is the “motor” of our heart that moves us every day. We search for goodness and meaning. We want “more,” and nothing in this world can satisfy us. Rather, the realities of this life open us more and more to that “mystery deep as the sea,” the One who makes all things and calls us to dwell forever in communion with Him, to see Him—face to face—in the superabundant fulfillment, the blessedness, of His infinite life forever. 

We have all been made for God. 

What Catherine experienced and communicated with a special conscious awareness is the truth for all of us. The happiness we all seek and hope for can only be found in God, and this life is our journey toward Him, where He prepares and enlarges our hearts by His grace and mercy for eternal life. 

Saint Catherine, pray for us, that we might not shut Him out of our hearts and close ourselves up in our false ideas of self-sufficiency. Pray for us that we will let Him open our hearts, heal us, and transform us in His wonderful merciful love.

The Long Evening Sunlight Has Returned

The woods are a youthful green, and the sun is now setting after 8:00PM. This is one of my favorite times of the year!🌤️🌿🌱☘️🌼

Popes, Grandparents, and Grandchildren

This day marked the tenth anniversary of the canonization of Pope Saint John Paul II, an event recorded in the archives of this Blog. Pope Francis emphasized the Church's commitment to Saint John Paul's enduring legacy. He expressed the need to carry on John Paul's commitment to affirming the dignity of every human person created by God and called to eternal life, and building a culture of life and peace through works of mercy by which we are conformed to the Father's love in Jesus Christ.

Pope Francis also had a special audience with a gathering of grandparents and grandchildren, where he emphasized once again his important witness to the significance of elderly people for society as a whole, and the crucial value of interaction among the different generations for the vitality of humanity's history and God's plan to forge the human community as a "diamond of love." The Pope's words are especially encouraging for those of us who have begun to embark on our own senior years in life, and also to learn so many wonderful things through our grandchildren.

"Our society is full of people who are specialists in many things, rich in knowledge and useful means for everyone. However, if there is no sharing and each person thinks only of himself, all that wealth is lost; rather, it becomes an impoverishment of humanity. And this is a great risk for our time: the poverty of fragmentation and selfishness. The selfish person thinks he is more important if he puts himself in the foreground and has more things, if he has more things… But the selfish person is the poorest, because selfishness impoverishes. 

"Let us think, for example, of some expressions we use: when we talk about the 'world of youth', the 'world of the elderly', this world or that world or another… But there is just one world! And it is made up of many realities that are different precisely in order to help and complement each other: the generations, the peoples, and all the differences, if harmonized, can reveal, like the faces of a big diamond, the wondrous splendour of humanity and creation. This too is what your being together teaches us: not to let diversity create rifts between us! No, let there not be rifts… Not to pulverize the diamond of love, the most beautiful treasure God has given us: love.

"At times we hear phrases such as 'think of yourself' and 'you don’t need anyone'! They are false phrases, which mislead people into thinking that it is good not to depend on others, to do things by yourself, to live as islands, whereas these are attitudes that only create a great deal of loneliness. Such as, for example, when because of the culture of rejection, the elderly are left alone and have to spend the last years of their life far from home and from their loved ones. What do you think about this? Is it good or is it not good? No! The elderly must not be left by themselves, they must live within the family, in the community, with the affection of everyone. And if they cannot live with their families, we must go to visit them and stay close to them. Let us think about it for a moment: do we like this? Isn't a world in which no one has to be afraid to end their days alone much better? This world is sad, clearly yes, it is sad. So let us build this world, together, not just by devising care programmes, but by cultivating different projects of existence, in which the passing years are not considered a loss that diminishes someone, but an asset that grows and enriches everyone: and as such are appreciated and not feared.

"And this brings us to the final aspect: love, the love that makes us wiser. It is curious: love makes us wiser. Dear grandchildren, your grandparents are the memory of a world without memory... We must not lose our memory. Listen to your grandparents, especially when they teach you, with their love and with their witness, to cultivate the most important affections, which are not obtained by force, which do not appear through success, but which fill life."

The Good Shepherd Leads Us Home to the Father

The fourth week of the Easter Season focuses on the image of Jesus as the “Good Shepherd” who leads His flock on a path of unity that reflects His union with the Father. Our salvation and our vocational path draw us into the eternal life of God who is a Communion of Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whose Mystery is written on the depths of our hearts. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep.

“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father” (John 10:15-18).

“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one” (John 10:27-30).

Opening Our Hearts to the Holy Spirit

In today’s General Audience, the Pope encouraged us to be open to the Spirit, who renews and strengthens our faith, hope, and love. We must pray. We are made for this openness-of-heart to the God who gives us our very being, our selves, and who wants to give us Himself and lead us to eternal life.

USA Finally Passes Ukraine Aid Bill

The United States House of Representatives finally approved the latest installment of military aid for Ukraine, thereby sustaining its pledge of solidarity and support (if not “alliance”) for the Ukrainian people, who continue to struggle against the murderous invasion of Russian forces led by Vladimir Putin’s Rogue State. It remains remarkable that this aid has been held up for several months by political controversy in the U.S. Congress. It seems pathetic that 112 members of the majority party in the House still ended up voting against the bill. American voters need to ask these congressional representatives why they favor the interests of Putin’s Russia and its allies—North Korea, Iran, and China—over the needs of the Ukrainian people, the security of Eastern Europe and beyond, the stability of the NATO alliance, and the requirements of international law.

However, we now have further reason to hope that Ukraine’s courageous people will continue to have access—at least for the present—to the resources needed to hold off Russia’s attacks.

“Anything that keeps Russia from advancing in Ukraine is to be welcomed,” as Ukraine continues to mount “a defense of life, liberty, and our freedom of conscience… Ukrainians are very grateful to people of goodwill in the global community, and in a special way to Americans who are in solidarity with their (Ukrainians’) valiant struggle for God-given dignity. They’re also very grateful to American Catholics, most of whom not only understand, but pray and help” (Metropolitan Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak, Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church, Archeparchy of Philadelphia).

War is horrible. This is all the more reason for Ukraine to defend itself (and be supported by others) against Russia’s aggression, which—by perpetrating systematic genocidal atrocities against the Ukrainian people, as well as by continuing to flagrantly violate international law, respect for the borders of its neighboring nations, and its own previous diplomatic agreements—only increases the horrors of this war and guarantees more horrible wars in years to come. 

Putin’s criminal dictatorship is imposing war on Ukraine, while threatening other nations and the peace of the whole world. We need to stand with Ukraine, for the sake of a just and secure peace. May God have mercy on them and their persecutors, on all who suffer as victims of war and violence, and on all of us.

Life in Christ: Our Resurrection Has "Already Begun"

Through baptism, we are united with Jesus and made adopted children of God and heirs to the fullness of His Kingdom. We have been given a participation in the Divine life, and through supernatural grace this life grows within us and transforms us. Grace awakens and sustains in us the very freedom by which we cooperate with its working in us, and become lovers of the God who has loved us first.

The Easter Season is a time of abundant grace for the newly-baptized, who died to sin and rose to new life in Christ at the Easter Vigil. At Easter, all Christians renew their "baptismal promises," their adherence to Christ living in His Church, fostered by the path of the liturgical seasons and nourished concretely by the sacraments.

Christ has entered the history of our lives and claimed us as His own, beginning with the event of our baptism. His love always comes first, opening up our lives to follow Him and to be His witnesses—to further "embody" His saving love in the lives of others as our Christian vocation unfolds.

God gives Himself to us; He draws us into a personal relationship with Himself; He is leading us to our destiny which is to share forever in His glory, to behold and to love forever the One who is the fullness of all goodness, to belong to Him forever.

The glorified Jesus is with us now, in the Eucharist above all, and also through His actions in the Sacraments, in the Scriptures, and in the abundant ways in which the life of the Church "specially consecrates" by signs, gestures, exhortation, commissioning, or other “official” actions many people, places, and things that engage us as Catholic Christians every day. Here too we must remember our very selves, our families, and our “faith-communities” in which we travel together as brothers and sisters—members of one another in Christ, consecrated by baptism as “a royal priesthood, a holy people.” We are “the Church,” gathered together to worship God through Christ (joined to Christ’s once-for-all offering of Himself “made present” for us in the wonder of the Eucharistic Sacrifice), and called to serve one another in the communion of “agape,” and to help and strengthen one another through friendships founded on Christ.

All of this is bound up with the fact that Jesus also lives "in" us by the Holy Spirit, in our prayer and our love for God, one another, our neighbor, and all people (as we live out this love in different ways). In our hearts the Lord has already mysteriously initiated the gathering up the whole of creation for that final, definitive renewal of “all things.” For Christians, eternal glory has "already begun," secretly, in the very heart of this ordinary life, because Jesus has embraced all human life and defined it according to the measure of His love. Through Jesus and in the Holy Spirit, the Father pours out this love in the depths of our hearts, empowering us to exist and act in new ways, supernatural ways, for His glory through His Son, Jesus, who lives in us and consecrates through us the times and circumstances entrusted to us in history.

God dwells in us, engendering within us a new life through the death and resurrection of Jesus. He calls us to cooperate with His redeeming and transforming grace right now, in whatever actions we undertake, and whatever sufferings we endure.

The Risen Jesus is shaping our whole humanity: our eating and drinking, waking and sleeping, living and dying.

Christianity is not external to the "real," mundane, humble, humanly-ordinary concerns of our lives. Rather, it illuminates them and opens us up to their true meaning.

April Flowers!

The Dogwood and Cherry Blossom Trees along with Buttercups and Tulips in many different hues display their bright banners all around us this time of year.

Remembrance and a Question: "Have We Gone Numb?"

Marking the 17th anniversary of the horrific and excruciating ordeal of Virginia Tech University.

Many, perhaps, have forgotten this day. In the past 17 years, there has been so much more violence: so many school shootings, public venue shootings, and innocent people dying, bleeding and dying at random, people dying because they were in “the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time,” because violence came, unbidden, to a place where they should have been safe, and with an explosion of bloodshed, stole their lives from them. 

This is not a television show. This is the reality of our society—the society we are making for ourselves out of our anger and negligence, our undisciplined cravings and the brutality of our relationships, our neglect of the defenseless, our crass ignorance, our cowardice. And beyond the intolerable atrocities that shock us on the news, there is a whole hidden world of assault (hiding in plain sight) where many innocent human persons—our brothers and sisters—are attacked, brutalized, wounded again and again, or killed and discarded. This is what happens in a society that is too busy, too distracted, too self-absorbed, where people don’t want to see the pain beyond the media spectacle and the ugly curiosity it generates. This is what happens in a society where hearts have grown small, where love has grown cold.

Are we becoming NUMB? Have we made ourselves comfortable with a society full of murder and violence and fear—a "culture of death" that places so little value on the inalienable dignity of every human person? I must examine my own conscience on this question. It would do us all good to be "unsettled" (and more) by the killing that goes on and on and on… 

But #VirginiaTech, I will never forget your sorrows. For the last 17 years, your beautiful and inspiring commemorations of the 32 Hokies who were gunned down on this day help bring consolation and healing. I join you in remembering those who died, those who survived, and all their loved ones, and all my Hokie peeps today.

🧡🤎💔 #VirginiaTechHokies #RemembranceDay

"Never Give Up" on Jesus, No Matter What...

Rejoice! Christ is Risen from the dead, Alleluia!

We are in the Easter Season. We celebrate with joy what has been accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We celebrate the glory of His victory over death and evil.

But we don't need to pretend that we ourselves are no longer suffering. Everyone endures trials and tribulation of one kind or another. There is immense suffering at all levels of life, from the depths of our hearts to the desperate struggles of nations and peoples. Our times are likely to see worse things...

Nevertheless, let us remember that Christ is Risen, and that He remains the center of history, the Source of our strength, the goal of our journey through this world.

Jesus is Lord! He defines and gives measure to every moment of our lives, directly, personally, by the power of His love for each one of us. All of life: the aspirations and successes, the compassion and courage and works of love we do, and the disappointment, the suffering, the sins, the failures, the weakness, the most appalling afflictions and all the incomprehensible, banal, repetitive, small, and apparently meaningless moments we endure and live day after day. He remains with us in the fullness of His victory. He dwells among us, He is "God-With-Us" and He has endured every sorrow so as to stay with us and draw us to Himself—to draw forth even the renewal of our freedom, and the growth of our freedom...if we will let Him. We can't begin to imagine how much He loves each one of us, how much He loves every single human being.

"Never Give Up" on Jesus. He is Risen! Rejoice...even when sometimes that "joy" feels like nothing but the bare grip by which we hold on to Him in the dark with wild hope and refuse to let go of Him even when everything seems crazy or lost.

The "Horizon of Eternity"

"Jesus does not eliminate the concern and search for daily food. No, he does not remove the concern for all that can make life more progressive. But Jesus reminds us that the true meaning of our earthly existence lies at the end, in eternity. It lies in the encounter with Him, who is gift and giver. He also reminds us that human history with its suffering and joy must be seen in a horizon of eternity, in that horizon of the definitive encounter with Him. And this encounter illuminates all the days of our life. If we think of this encounter, of this great gift, the small gifts of life, even the suffering, the worries will be illuminated by the hope of this encounter."

~Pope Francis

Inspired By Spring…

“Inspired By Spring 2024, no.1” (#DigitalArt #JJStudios).

Freedom for the Ukraine Byzantine CATHOLIC Church

The Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church celebrated Easter this year according to the Western calendar. This is the Church of native Ukrainian Christians in full communion with Rome, which is relatively small but tremendously important both for Christian ecumenism and as a consistent and vivid witness to Ukraine's independence as a people and a culture.

For them the fire of Easter candles was unwelcomely augmented by the fire of a renewed Russian bombing campaign.

The importance of an Ukraine free and independent of Russian political power, or even a so-called Russian "sphere of influence," is perceived with particular clarity and urgency by Ukrainian Byzantine Catholics, who have a long and painful history of struggling for freedom against the “errors of Russia.” Perhaps it could be said that they originated the path that in recent years has been taken up by the now autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church and other Orthodox communities in Ukraine. For six centuries, these Orthodox churches—following the widespread rejection of the Reunion Council of Florence and the fall of the Byzantine Empire—were subjected to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church even as their people were subjected to the ruler of Muscovy, who proclaimed himself the heir of Constantinople's imperial status. Moscow declared itself to be "the Third Rome" and its rulers took the title of "Caesar"—the Divinely-appointed "Czar" of a "Holy Empire."

The Muscovite Russian Empire soon appropriated the history of "Kyivian Rus" and swallowed its lands and peoples. But there were a few churches among the southern Rus who continued to work for full communion with Rome, and finally achieved it in 1596. The ensuing centuries were not easy for the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church. This Church was illegal in the Orthodox Empire of Czarist Moscow. Moreover, its adherents struggled (even though they were supported by popes) to preserve their distinctive Byzantine and Slavonic heritage in Latin Catholic Poland, while finding a greater measure of tolerance in the multi-ethnic, multi-national, somewhat chaotic Habsburg confederation. 

Through it all they never forgot that they were Ukrainians. In the 20th century, the cruelest of all the Czars—Joseph Stalin—tried to "liquidate" the Ukrainian Catholics by a forced merger with the Russian Orthodox Church that he manipulated and controlled.

Many Ukrainians—Orthodox and Catholic—emigrated to the West in those dark years. Ukrainian Catholics flourished in North America and elsewhere. I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I was within walking distance of the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic cathedral of the regional eparchy. From my youth I knew about Byzantine Catholics and was able to participate in their profound liturgical life.

I also knew about Ukrainians and their nation, their beloved Ukraine which they (rightly) regarded as a "captive nation" of the Soviet Union. Many years ago, I made the mistake of asking a Ukrainian woman if "Ukrainians were basically like Russians." With firmness and dignity she replied, "We are not Russians. We are Europeans!"

There are some important and very particular dangers that most Westerners (including Western Catholics) don't understand about the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Latin-rite Catholic Church is permitted to exist freely (albeit carefully) in the Russian Federation at this time. Churches are not tolerated, however, if they follow the Byzantine Liturgy and Byzantine spiritual traditions while also expressing full communion with the Pope. Russia itself has not (yet) had an enduring Byzantine Catholic presence among its own people, the only exception being the brief flowering of an authentically Russian Byzantine Catholic Exarchate in 1917 after the abdication of the last Czar (which I have written about here). Sadly, the success of the Communist Revolution put an end to this young church (or, I prefer to believe, planted it deep in the earth like a seed still destined to grow and bear fruit).

The Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church endured even after it was driven underground by Stalin, however, with support from the Ukrainian diaspora communities, and it emerged again after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the establishment of an independent Ukraine. The democratization of Ukraine has guaranteed full freedom of religion to the Byzantine Catholic Church. By stark contrast, invading Russians have already proven that the Putinist fantasy of a "Great Russia" that absorbs Ukraine into itself has no place for a Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome. In the areas invaded and occupied by Russian troops, Ukrainian Catholic churches have been shut down or destroyed, and Byzantine Catholic priests have been driven out of the regions or arrested and tortured.

Here we see one of many reasons why Russia must not emerge from this criminal war with so much as an inch of illegally conquered or "annexed" Ukrainian territory. I raise this point, among other reasons, in the hope that it might stir the consciences of some fellow Catholics in the USA who are tempted to believe the lies of Putinist propaganda, or blindly follow American politicians who propose to solve "in one day" the profound problems of this war, or who dishonor our country by withholding promised support that Ukraine needs to continue to defend itself.

But the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic bishops themselves make the case for the legitimacy of national self-defense, the need for assistance, and all the reasons why Russian aggression is criminal and indefensible in a thorough and admirably clear statement released last month. This is the statement from the Synod of bishops in Ukraine, who minister daily to soldiers and their families, civilians in bomb shelters, migrants and refugees and all the victims of Putinist violence. It is worth reading. Here is the link: Rescue the Oppressed from the Hand of their Oppressors.

Please, read this document. 

Latin-rite Catholics must not remain ignorant about the sufferings of our Eastern-rite brothers and sisters, who deserve our special attention even as we pray and work for the upholding of the inalienable human dignity of every person afflicted by this horrible war. And the realities addressed by the Ukrainian Catholic bishops are among the key issues for an honest and constructive dialogue that might prepare the way for a just and lasting peace.

Easter Octave: The Sunday of Divine Mercy

We come to the conclusion of the “eight days” that constitute the superabundance of our celebration of the “Day” of Christ’s Resurrection: “This is the Day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad” (Psalm 118:24). Now follow the days and weeks of the Easter Season, culminating in Pentecost.

It is also Divine Mercy Sunday, instituted by Pope Saint John Paul II in recognition of the deepening of awareness in the Church of the centrality of God’s merciful love at the heart of the Paschal Mystery. The body of Jesus, pierced in the heart by a lance, pours forth blood and water, which indicate the sacraments of the Eucharist and Baptism through which the Risen Jesus gives Himself to us and conforms us to Himself.

Today’s Collect:

 .

God of everlasting mercy, who in the very recurrence of the paschal feast
kindle the faith of the people you have made your own,
increase, we pray, the grace you have bestowed,
that all may grasp and rightly understand
in what font they have been washed,
by whose Spirit they have been reborn,
by whose Blood they have been redeemed.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

The writings of Saint Faustina—the twentieth century Polish nun who conveyed the details of the image and the key elements of the devotion to God’s Mercy—indicate that Jesus willed the Sunday after Easter to be specially dedicated to His Mercy.

“O blood and water, which poured forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of mercy for us, I trust in you.” Trust encompasses our living faith, our personal relationship with Jesus our Savior. Trust grows through the faith that believes in His redemption, adheres to Him in hope, and grows in love for Him and the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Triune God who made each one of us and calls us to an everlasting communion with Divine Love.

Everything is grace, the gift of God’s merciful love. With wonder and gratitude, we pray for the grace to say “yes” every day to Jesus, to follow Him on the path of the journey to our True Home.

The Mystery of Mercy Embraces Our Whole Humanity

For whatever reason[s], I'm feeling stiff and slow and tired and overwrought and confused as we approach the end of Easter Week. It's a physical thing, and there's nothing "new" about it. Rest usually clears things up, eventually. So, I shall try to get some rest.

Obviously, we have all been through tragic and difficult events. The weather has also been unseasonably cool and windy. When Spring finally comes to stay, it will bring some improvement for my tired old rheumatic beat-up Lyme-disease-damaged body (which includes the fog and the mush in my brain).

We're all provoked, I think, to let Jesus take over our minds and hearts more profoundly, to let the Spirit of the Risen Lord bring His healing mercy to the more hidden levels of our broken lives—the failures and limitations and stubbornness and resistance to God’s love and the fear and self-grasping that run so deeply in each of us, in our own personal history and our relations with one another.

Jesus is Risen from death. There are no "gaps" in our humanity that are too big for Him to fill.

Well, I'm too tired to say any more right now. Jesus, save me, save us! Have mercy on us! 

I shall never give up on the mystery of your mercy.

An Easter Week of Mourning Losses Past and Present

Me and my Dad, around 1979.

I miss my Dad, who died five years ago (on April 3, 2019). I have reflected much upon him on this blog and also about so many other events that have happened since that day. This year’s remembrance of his death, however, comes during Eastertide, and at a moment in which our local community continues to mourn the terrible loss of last week.

Jesus Christ is truly Risen, Alleluia! And He says to Doubting Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed” (John 20:29). What a precious gift is our faith! But the obscurity of death — of the final passage from this life to the fulfillment of eternal life — remains difficult for us who continue our pilgrimage through this world. We need to help one another, console one another, and pray for those who have gone before us on that final journey, as God’s purifying mercy prepares them for the perfection of union with Him.

Our Easter joy struggles to “see” through the clouds and darkness that remain on our path, and sometimes the challenge is great. We may not feel joyful — indeed, other immediate circumstances of these days might pull our emotions in many directions. But our joy still has vitality. It can still be “lived” (regardless of how we “feel”) in our persistence of moving forward on the path of the good news of the resurrection. There is much we do not “see,” but faith and hope adhere to things beyond our sight, beyond our comprehension, and sometimes beyond bearing for our fragile human psychological and emotional structure.

When we can’t “keep it together” and are overwhelmed by the exhaustion of our poor humanity, then there is no shame in “falling apart”—but let us make even of this affliction a prayer full of the poverty that opens to God our Father in humility and hope.

While I still miss Dad (very much), the loss of him and my mother has grown more over time into an "acceptance." Their "not-being-around-anymore-on-earth" has taken shape in my life as part of the current terrain of my pilgrimage. I remember them every day and feel a new kind of closeness to them, among other things through the bond of praying for them every day. "Requiem Eternam…"

This Easter, I also pray for the repose of the soul of a young man whose body will be buried on Friday. And I pray for those who have been broken by his tragic death last week, that with God’s grace and in God’s time, peace and healing will come. At every moment, the Risen Jesus is with us. He draws all our broken pieces of humanity together in Himself. He redeems our sorrows and transforms our wounds. Still, they hurt terribly. Oh God, save us! Lord Jesus, have mercy on us all. It’s so hard.

I pray for — and have really begun to long for — that Final Day when we will all be together again, with all the tears wiped away. Until then, “we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”

Remembering Saint John Paul II

Saint John Paul II died on April 2, 2005, right after the celebration in his hospital room of the Vigil Mass for Divine Mercy Sunday.

He was, in an important sense, so much “more” than a Pope. He was a human being full of a passion for life, for the goodness of reality, and full of com-passion for suffering of every kind. He was this gigantic man for whom it was obvious that Jesus Christ was everything: “The Redeemer of man, Jesus Christ, is the center of the cosmos and of history” (Redemptor Hominis, 1). He lived this as a fact, as an interpersonal relationship, as an ardent discipleship, as an adventure of truth and love — and he inspired my generation to want to live this way.

He was a convincing sign that Jesus is the answer to our humanity, that He more than deserves our trust.

The Risen Body of Jesus Heals and Transforms Us

Jesus is Risen!

This is not a metaphor. He is risen in a true human body, His body. This fact is central to our Christian faith.

We need to be saved by the Word Incarnate, because we are bodily beings. Jesus makes it very clear to the disciples that He is not a ghost. He is transformed but totally, concretely human. He is a man with a body—the same man the disciples knew before—who has conquered sin and death and evil. He is glorified in His humanity, which is a mystery, but one that gives “more weight” to this real humanity rather than detracting from it. Here it is important for us to see that the Risen Lord does not “undo” His crucifixion; He rises with His wounds (hands, feet, side) in His glorified body, wounds transfigured by Divine Mercy, to be forever signs of His forgiveness. 

His glorified wounds are a constant and particular invitation to us. We all have wounds and we all hurt one another. The consequences of the violence we carry out against one another are real, and the disfigurement, the pain, the bitterness, and the anger may last long after the wounds become scars. But we who have been wounded must not allow ourselves to be reduced and defined by these afflictions so that they diminish the truth about our lives in our relationship to our destiny, the fulfillment of our true selves which has already begun, and is already shaping us in the present moment.

The Risen Jesus shows us His wounds, and reveals to us that our own wounds have meaning. The Kingdom of God manifests itself, the world begins to be transformed into the New Creation, when—in union with Jesus crucified and risen—we forgive those who have injured us, we love our enemies, we pray for our persecutors.

This does not mean we ignore justice, trying to pretend the wounds are not there. What we seek is the conversion of our enemies—not only that in their sorrow they might try to repair what they can of the damage they have done to us—but fundamentally that our enemies might become our friends, together with us in the Body of the Risen Lord, united in His forgiveness that brings new life—eternal life.

Jesus Christ is Risen, Alleluia!

Mors et vita duello
Conflixere mirando:
Dux vitæ mortuus regnat vivus.

Death and life have contended
in that combat stupendous:
The Prince of life, who died, reigns immortal.

~Easter Sequence, Victimae Paschali Laudes

Prayer Overcomes the Darkness of Death

In his Good Friday meditations for “The Way of the Cross,” the Pope gave us much to ponder, even as we await the mystery of the resurrection. In particular, he reminded us of prayer as essential to life and death, to the whole horizon of our humanity—prayer as trust in Jesus who saves and fashions anew our humanity.

Trust, trust, trust, in the greatest darkness, beyond the most awful of tragedies, beyond the blackest holes of incomprehensibility that open in front of us, beyond all we accomplish in toil and struggle, and all our sins, failures, incompetence, weakness, all the pain that never goes away… Trust, hold onto Jesus, pray and never give up. The Holy Father says, “persevering prayer bears fruit and overcomes even the darkness of death. Love never goes unanswered, but always grants new beginnings.”

Elsewhere in yesterday’s meditations, Pope Francis prays to Jesus in reference to the moment on the Cross when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—“Jesus, this prayer of yours is unexpected: you cry out to the Father in your abandonment. You, the eternal Son, dispense no answers from on high, but simply ask why? At the height of your passion, you experience the distance of the Father; you no longer even call him ‘Father’, but ‘God’, almost as if you can no longer glimpse his face. Why? So that you can plunge into the abyss of our pain. You did this for my sake, so that when I see only darkness, when I experience the collapse of my certainties and the wreckage of my life, I will no longer feel alone, but realize that you are there beside me. You, the God of closeness, experienced abandonment so that I need no longer fall prey to feelings of isolation and abandonment. When you asked the question why, you did it in the words of a Psalm. You made even the utmost experience of desolation into a prayer. As we too must do, amid the storms of life. Rather than keeping silent, closed in on ourselves, we should cry out to you. Glory to you, Lord Jesus, for you did not flee from my pain and confusion, but tasted them to the full. Praise and glory to you, for you bridged every distance in order to draw near to those who were farthest from you. In my own dark night, when I keep asking why, I find you, Jesus, the light that shines in the darkness. And in the plea of all those who are alone, rejected, oppressed or abandoned, I find you, my God. May I always recognize your presence and turn to you in love.”

Good Friday 2024

Good Friday, March 29, 2024. Two images by Georges Rouault (1871-1958). 

Above [1] “Crucifixion” (1914). 

Below [2] “Golgotha” (1938).

He Washes Our Feet

"When [Jesus] had washed their feet and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, 'Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me "teacher" and "master," and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.' "

~John 13:12-15

The Cross is Suddenly in Our Midst

William Congdon, Crucifix no120 (1974)

Holy Week has gained a sudden and specific weight in our community due to the tragic death of one of our young people. (May the Lord grant him eternal rest, and bring consolation to his family and friends.) 

I don’t have any words to address such sorrow. I have spent all of my pretenses to be able to say anything about this kind of grief on previous occasions—too many previous occasions. It is an incomprehensible suffering. Yet it is filling up the world especially in these times, weighing down the human shoulders of all those it leaves behind.

None of us can bear it. It is an anguish that cries and cries to God, and endures what seems like the silence of God. It opens an abyss in front of us that we don’t know how to bridge or circumvent. 

We must confront the truth that we are powerless. We cannot save the world. We cannot even save ourselves. We have no power to “undo” our own sins. We cannot raise the dead to life. Still, we long for life, forgiveness, and healing beyond the abyss of death. Why does this longing remain in us, with all of our weakness, in the depths of darkness? “My God, my God, why…?”

This week, and in all our days in this world, we place our hope entirely in a greater abyss of a mercy which we will never comprehend, but which has “space” for all our sorrows and suffering, for all that we think is irretrievably cut off, impoverished, botched, or “left unfinished” in our worn and ragged lives—the unfathomable abyss of the pierced Heart of our Crucified God.

Holy Week: All is Grace!

These words from Pope Francis in my archive came up recently. This point is fundamental and we must remember it. Grace is the fruit of the Paschal Mystery that we are praying and living in these days.

We Begin Holy Week With the Memory of St Oscar Romero

[Credit for detail from iconic mural: The Claretians/Cerezo Barredo]

This year Palm Sunday falls on March 24th — which supersedes what would ordinarily be the feast day of Saint Oscar Romero. Therefore, many churches in Latin America moved the celebration of the martyred Archbishop of El Salvador to Saturday March 23rd this year — one day prior to the 44th anniversary of his being gunned down at the altar while saying Mass in the chapel of Divine Providence Hospital in San Salvador.

In fact, Saint Romero’s funeral was held on Palm Sunday in 1980, the week after his death. In the midst of the vast crowd that had gathered in the cathedral and out in the piazza on this profound beginning of Holy Week for Salvadorans, multiple gunmen opened fire, killing forty people and turning the ceremony into a scene of violence, havoc, and terror for the people.

Soon, the long and brutal civil war would begin in full force. But the people kept the courageous witness of the Archbishop in their hearts.

Today Romero’s testimony speaks to our own time. The search for a genuine and just peace must remain the formative purpose and guiding light even in the midst of conflict. Even those who take up arms to defend themselves against unjust aggression need to keep this light burning in their hearts. They must never forget that even the aggressors and their leaders are human persons with ineradicable dignity; a vigorous self-defense can (must) also be an honorable self-defense. Maintaining a spirit of “inner non-violence” is very difficult in these circumstances, but the Christian and human vocation requires it, promises the grace to make it possible, and gives it a supernatural efficacy to extend the influence of God’s Kingdom within the realities of the temporal world—which are signs (that can be imbued with the foretaste and anticipation) of the Father’s House toward which we journey in this life.

Romero expressed it in this way: “Peace is a product of justice. But justice is not enough. Love is necessary: the love that makes us feel that we are brothers and sisters is properly what makes for true peace.” How can living with this love, looking upon everyone as a brother or sister (including the enemy who attacks you and compels you to fight to protect yourself and the rights of your people), generate new possibilities for peace in the midst war or any of the other forms of struggle among human beings?

We will only find out by actually living this way. Insofar as we adhere to God with obedience and love through His crucified Son Jesus, and love every human person as brother or sister, children of the same Father, called in the depths of their hearts by Holy Spirit to eternal life in Jesus who is the “firstborn” of the New Humanity through His cross and resurrection—only insofar as we live this way will we realize the possibilities it opens up for a more just and peaceful world. Saint Oscar Romero reminds us that the vocation to eternal life confers on us responsibilities regarding this world and its concrete circumstances. Our life of faith, hope, and love touches the whole reality of the here-and-now “so that, illuminated with the vision of eternity, we make this earth what it was meant to be, a foretaste of heaven.”

But let me quote this entire segment from a homily in 1979 where Saint Oscar Romero encapsulates his understanding of his own calling as a bishop of an unimaginably impoverished and ruthlessly oppressed people, of the Church’s calling, of the calling of every Christian and every human person.

As we follow the “Way of the Cross” during Holy Week 2024, let us not forget what Romero taught us about the scope and the radical risk of living the Gospel, the totality of Christ’s love for which Romero gave witness in his words and actions, and ultimately in the shedding of his own blood:

“The voice of the Church continues to be known and wants to be the voice that preaches the eternal message of the Lord. Despite the distortions and ill-will and slanders and defamation the voice of the Church wants to be that voice that from the heights of heaven draws all things unto herself so that we can speak about the meaning of death and life, the meaning of government and the struggle for just demands, the meaning of well-being and misery and living on the margins of society and the meaning of sin. The Church wants to speak about all these realities so that, illuminated with the vision of eternity, we make this earth what it was meant to be, a foretaste of heaven and not a war zone or a place where passions run wild. Indeed, as sisters and brothers, as children of God, we are all on a journey toward heaven, toward [Christ] the head of the body.”