Ouch 2024!

It's been a rough month. The problems of growing old are compounding the problems of chronic illness. The heat and humidity have been horrible. I have pain and exhaustion and occasional times of depression (the depression, remarkably, hasn’t been too bad). But writing continues to be more difficult. I don’t know why. Often I feel like I don’t know how to articulate the things that I am perceiving and learning as I grow older. My mind struggles more to engage in writing. It used to be a lot easier. Are my intellectual faculties beginning to slip? Or perhaps I am becoming more serious about writing for real communication rather than rhetorical display. I am no longer trying to cover up for the smallness of my understanding. Since writing requires energy, I want to write things that are real and worthwhile. I never realized how hard this is.

So in these days and weeks I have had some worries, some uncertainties, and plenty of ouches too, all of which entail suffering on different levels.

I know my suffering has meaning through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As I continue to learn about being human, and about the current and recent history of my fellow humans in this world, I discover more and more how much suffering (terrible suffering) pervades human life. There are no lack of opportunities to "co-suffer" with my brothers and sisters, to grow in empathy and compassion toward them, and to try to give the little that I have to help instruct, console, and encourage people—to try to be an instrument of Christ's healing and merciful love to those around me.

Meanwhile, I'm still irascible, judgmental, petty, and distracted. Growing older seems for me to entail more irascibility, less patience, more pettiness than ever, especially toward the people I love the most. It's humbling. For all the "physicality" of grouchiness that is rooted in the dragging tiredness of illness and old age, I am still "responsible" when I give in to it and make a "snappy" remark at my wife (note for future Church: you must CANONIZE Eileen Janaro!) or at JoJo—the "last of the kids" who still lives at home and therefore must deal with me every day. I'm still responsible for the love I failed to recognize calling out to me in those moments, and also for my pride—which is mostly hidden to me (though less hidden from my family and friends, thank God)—the mountain of pride that must be broken down and finally "cast into the sea" if I am ever to arrive at my destiny of eternal communion with the God who is Infinite Love.

Jesus, Mary, take over this whole mess. Save me, Jesus! Mary, untie the knots…

Come Holy Spirit, especially through the healing and nourishing sacraments of the Church. The sacraments are foundational: they are "events" that "happen" in your own personal history when you receive them—visible and tangible events through which Jesus gives you supernatural grace. Through this objective sacramental gift, our faith is also deepened. Our experience has "reference points" in incarnate, grace-giving encounters with Christ, and we learn to recognize and remember more and more that He is with us always, sustaining and shaping our ordinary lives according to the infinite measure of the Father's love.

Jesus wants to draw close to us especially in our sufferings—which He took upon Himself, endured, and transformed in the glory of His resurrection. If we suffer, it is ultimately because we are called to share in His redeeming love and be transformed into the eternal glory which is life forever in God's Infinite Love.

Without faith, it would be impossible to hope in the face of suffering. With faith, it is still often difficult.

Let us pray for one another, my friends, especially in times of great difficulty.