Nine YEARS of Remembering Christina Grimmie

It’s astonishing to think that today marks the ninth anniversary of Christina Grimmie’s passing from this world. Her music and pioneering contributions to audiovisual media remain very much with us. I still reflect often upon her almost singular vocation in mainstream popular music — a vocation invested with such a rich humanity. In an environment that can so easily become inhuman, superficial, and conflict-driven, Christina was persistently human. She was full of passion for her own singing, songwriting, and musical composition, while simultaneously giving herself in friendship and encouragement to her fellow artists.

I have done lots of reflecting about Christina on this Blog. For many years I have followed the paths of music and the expansion of media as well as the needs of humanity, the witness of faith, and the gift of love. Not only as matters of study, but above all as factors of my own life and the growth of my own family.

Open this LINK to see and read all the posts I have devoted to Christina Grimmie — text and images — over the course of the past nine years. There is enough for a book! Although it seems that I keep repeating the same themes about her beautiful life, and her offering-of-herself to Jesus and her “frands” right up until the final moment, when she opened her arms on that night and her gratuitous, defenseless love was met with incomprehensible hatred and bullets.

Nine years later, it seems like the violence of this world has grown and grown, like a monstrous whirlwind that threatens to sweep us all up. But can we not say that love has also grown? Christina's legacy continues to grow. Her frands (like my own used-to-be-teenagers) have become adults now. It won't be long before they take positions of responsibility in their own communities. They will make their contribution to the shape of their societies and the dispositions of their nations (the “Team Grimmie” page on Facebook has members from 99 different countries). I think they will contribute to making this world a better place because Christina has taught them and witnessed to them about the greatness of God's love.

I still see her in this way, with her arms open, ever welcoming, creating spaces of beauty and humanity — spaces of encounter where she could meet people and people could meet one another, spaces of inspiration and encouragement, spaces of peace.

May these spaces of peace and friendship continue to grow.

Pentecost 2025: “The Spirit Breaks Down Barriers…”

“The Spirit breaks down barriers and tears down the walls of indifference and hatred because He ‘teaches us all things’ and ‘reminds us of Jesus’s words’ (cf. John 14:26). He teaches us, reminds us, and writes in our hearts before all else the commandment of love that the Lord has made the center and summit of everything” (Pope Leo XIV, Pentecost 2025).

“The Harmony of the Spirit…”

The harmony of the Spirit works for fraternal communion among us, a coexistence of diversity among “living stones” that build up the house of God. The Holy Spirit fills our hearts with His love.

Come Holy Spirit, Come Through Mary

Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni Per Mariam.

So I pray, many times during the course of the day. It is an invocation worth pondering as we prepare for the great feast of Pentecost. At the very center of the mystery of salvation, there is a woman.

It was the Holy Spirit who preserved her from original sin and from all sin. It was the Holy Spirit who dwelt within her heart from the first moment of her conception, who taught her from her first thoughts to seek God's will and ponder His word, and who inspired her to consecrate herself wholly to the Divine plan. It was the Holy Spirit who gave her a sense of wonder in the presence of God, and that dedication and self-abandonment which she expressed when she called herself the "lowly servant" the "handmaid" of the Lord. It was the Holy Spirit who came upon her in that first, secret Pentecost that occurred in her heart and in her womb when she said "Yes" to the word of the angel Gabriel, when her loving obedience overcame the selfish disobedience of Eve. 

The Word, the Only-Begotten Son of the Father, took flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. And it was the Holy Spirit that sustained and deepened the "Yes" of Mary's heart all the way to the Cross, a "yes" that accompanied the redeeming love of Jesus offered for the whole human race, and therefore a "yes" that embraces each of us personally.

So it is no surprise that we find the Mother of God in the upper room with the disciples praying for the gift of the Holy Spirit and receiving Him anew in the birth of the Church. And now the Virgin Mary, reigning in glory with her Son, prays for us to receive the gift of the Spirit. We receive the grace of the Spirit because we receive Jesus Christ. Jesus became man in the history of the world through the maternal mediation of Mary, and so today He takes flesh in our lives through the maternal mediation of Mary. Jesus comes to us in the invitation to love that shapes the moments of our lives, a shaping that passes in a mysterious but deeply human, attentive, and motherly way through the heart of Mary.

Mary is the "Mediatrix" of all graces (within and subordinate to the One Mediator, her Son Jesus). Thus her involvement in our lives is not just a distant fact of the past. It is a reality of the present, a reality of this moment, a living reality for my life. Mary, my Mother, my Mother. Through her Christ makes Himself present in our lives now, and so through her, the lowly servant of the Lord, we receive the gift of the Spirit in Christ, now, each of us, in all of our many circumstances.

How can I imagine such tenderness, so extensive and yet so personal? And yet it is Love that makes it possible. And so I turn to Mary, always, with confidence. She is my Mother.

Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni Per Mariam.
Come Holy Spirit. Come through Mary.

June 4th 1989: When Will the Chinese People be Free?

In these days we recall once again the paradigmatic act of violence that symbolizes in many ways the sorrows, sufferings, and frustrations of the great ancient people(s) who live in the world's most populous nation. 

From the night of June 3rd to the morning of June 4th 1989, the Chinese Communist PartyState deployed the overwhelming force of the “People’s Liberation Army” for an aggressive offensive invasion of a city. But it wasn't some foreign city that stood as a threat to China in these days.

It was Beijing.

How strange that the Chinese Communist PartyState thought it necessary to wage war against their own capital city. Moreover, the forces they sought to overcome were… their own people who lived in the city! 

The people had succeeded in preventing armed units from entering Beijing after the May 20th declaration of martial law; they made their stand in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of students who had occupied Tiananmen Square in peaceful protests over the previous seven weeks. Under the broad category of “Democracy,” the students were calling for the freedom to ask the fundamental questions of human existence, to express the ineradicable desires of the human heart.

These young people were not satisfied with the bread and circuses of the previous decade’s “Reform and Opening” engineered by the PartyState. Many didn’t have a clear idea of what they actually wanted. But they wanted the freedom to search for it. And their desire spread like fire in the Spring of 1989.

This was enough to mark them as enemies of the State power that had arrogated to itself the right to define, and ultimately remake, human beings according to its own suffocating ideology and/or the ruthless exigencies of a power politics dominated by an increasingly invasive and pervasive Party "control" of all aspects of people's lives.

The Army came to impose and restore "order" in the city. But countless citizens of Beijing - ordinary people, workers, vendors, bus drivers, restaurants, even the local media - stood with the students. Finally, the 27th Division of the PLA was ordered to force its way into the city and “clear the Square” of the protestors.

The full story of that horrible night remains in part obscure, but only because the repression was so inhuman, so brutal, and so thorough in “clearing” Tiananmen Square of the protestors and the evidence that they had ever been there. First the army took the city itself by indiscriminate force in its streets, with tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) shooting down civilians frequently and at random.

Then the 27th Division, known for their efficiency and unquestioning obedience, headed for the Square, where the student protestors maintained their non-violent resistance surrounded by guards (not carrying lethal arms) of the Shenyang Military Region. What happened next? Many voices with diverse agendas give different accounts. The Chinese Communist PartyState, not surprisingly, praised the 27th Division for quelling “counterrevolutionary riots” on that night, and put the death toll at about 200. The general consensus of those who have studied these events is that “thousands” died in the city and in Tiananmen Square on June 3-4, the vast majority of whom were unarmed civilians and students.

There is one report, only recently made known, that deserves particular attention. Documents declassified by the British government in 2017 include a secret diplomatic cable from Britain’s ambassador to China in 1989, Sir Alan Donald. Information was relayed to him by a consistently reliable intelligence asset who received it directly from a member of the highest organ of central government, the State Council.

This excerpt from the asset’s report - as presented in the BBC news - speaks for itself. I should note that this text describes some very disturbing - frankly, just plain sick - behavior. According to the BBC's presentation, when the army arrived, a deceitful announcement was made: “Students understood they were given one hour to leave square but after five minutes APCs attacked. Students linked arms but were mown down including soldiers. APCs then ran over bodies time and time again to make 'pie' and remains collected by bulldozer. Remains incinerated and then hosed down drains. Four wounded girl students begged for their lives but were bayoneted.”

Today, thirty six years later, the Chinese Communist PartyState has nothing to say about this crime against humanity, which not only crushed untold human lives, but also tried to crush the human heart’s aspiration for something beyond material prosperity, that deep and mysterious awakening of the core of the human personality that people seek to express when they use the word “freedom.”

Freedom can be distracted by false and superficial promises. It can be deluded, misdirected, discouraged, and even turn toward destructive behavior. Those of us who live in the “Free World” have demonstrated all this beyond any reasonable doubt.

But the fundamental impetus of freedom cannot be crushed. Its “crying-out” cannot be silenced. And it cannot be satisfied by narrow ideologies, material success, nationalist tribalism, or any other LIES. Freedom seeks the real fulfillment of the human person, the ultimate reason for which every human heart is made.

"Divine Mercy" and the Gift of the Holy Spirit

"For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have Mercy on us and on the whole world."

I pray this prayer every day, when I say the chaplet of Divine Mercy. According to Saint Faustina, Jesus urged the practice of praying this repeatedly, using the beads of the Rosary, promising that this "chaplet" would be a source of great and special graces for us and for the world (if you don't know this prayer already, see this LINK).

When I pray the chaplet, I seek to unite myself spiritually to the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, because it is through the Eucharist that I can pray the prayer at the beginning of each decade: "Eternal Father, I offer you the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world."

These prayers express so much about the love of the Father, the truth about our sins, and our total dependence on the mystery of Christ's sacrifice. But sometimes I have wondered: where is the Holy Spirit in this prayer? Then I thought (and this is just my own opinion), that Mercy itself refers to the Holy Spirit. Through the redeeming sacrifice of the Son of God made man, the Father and the Son breathe forth the Spirit upon the world, and into the hearts of those who receive God's saving love.

The Divine Mercy devotion and the special icon given to Saint Faustina focus on the "blood and water" that flowed forth from the Heart of Jesus. But as Saint John tells us, "there are three that bear witness...the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three are one" (1 John 5:7-8). In some sense, can we not think of the Mercy of God as the gift of His Spirit?

Then, the prayer of the chaplet becomes a Trinitarian prayer: "For the sake of His [the Son's] sorrowful Passion, [Father] have Mercy [send Your Holy Spirit] on us and on the whole world." I don't see any reason why it cannot be understood in this way, but the more important thing is that I know that when I pray the chaplet and implore God's Mercy for me and for the world, I am begging for the grace of the Holy Spirit, by which God works the miracle of His Mercy in me, and embraces in His Mercy all those who have been entrusted to me - those who need my prayers. I want to lift up my heart and immerse myself in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, of the God who is Love, and who is my only hope.

And I beg for that Love to be poured out as healing mercy on a poor world that is so broken and so full of longing and suffering and deception and violence — a world that I feel inside my own heart, crying out for a love it does not know, crying out for the Presence of Christ to radiate love within it through me. 

Come Holy Spirit, make me an instrument of God's love and mercy.

Saint Andrew Kaggwa of the Uganda Martyrs

This is the story of Saint Andrew Kaggwa, one of the group of martyrs whose feast we celebrate today.

The nineteenth century witnessed the first sustained interaction between European nations and the many different cultures of sub-Saharan East Africa. Europeans met not only various tribal societies, but also a remarkable political entity on the shores of what is now Lake Victoria: a nation of three million people united under a centralized bureaucracy and ruled by an absolute monarch.

This realm was called Buganda, and its ruler was the Kabaka. The “Kingdom of Buganda” dominated the surrounding region, received tribute and took slaves from enemy tribes, and traded with Arab merchants. Some of the Bagandans accepted the religion of the Arabs, abandoning their traditional animism for an adherence to one God.

Among the many slaves was a young boy born about 1855, taken from a neighboring tribe, adopted by a Baganda clan family and raised as one of their own. He was given the name Kaggwa. His strength and outgoing personality won the favor of many, and he was recruited by the prestigious royal service as a teenager. He was assigned to the royal musical retinue which was at the time trained by Arabs. Young Kaggwa had a keen intelligence and (along with many other Bagandans) a remarkable hunger for the truth. Desiring to serve the One God who created all things, he followed his Arab teachers at that time and became a Muslim.

Meanwhile, French Catholic missionaries first arrived at the court of Kabaka Mutesa in 1878. Mutesa was a complex character, fascinated by religion, refined, but also corrupt, ruthless, and bent on the maximum consolidation of his own power. He allowed freedom for religious teaching, but constantly vacillated his favor between Arabs, English Protestants, and French Catholics.

Kaggwa was not content as a Muslim. But soon he encountered the French Father Siméon Lourdel, a Catholic priest from a strange land with a strange skin color, but also specially prepared to share something beautiful with the Baganda people. Lourdel proposed the true God who created all things, and who also became man in Jesus and redeemed the human race from sin. Jesus seeks every person of every race and nation, to draw them into communion with his ongoing presence and gift of himself in the Catholic Church.

By the time Kaggwa took his place at the Kabaka’s court, he had decided to enroll as a Catholic catechumen. The grace of the Holy Spirit worked powerfully in transforming his own searching intelligence and openheartedness. The missionaries were astonished by how Kaggwa and several other young catechumens rapidly learned the catechism with thoroughness and comprehension, became passionately committed to their faith, and began spreading it to others even before their own baptism. Kaggwa soon brought his friends to receive instruction from the missionaries, who found that they had already learned much from Kaggwa himself.

Finally, he was baptized “Andrew” Kaggwa on April 30, 1882. In the next four years, he rose to prominence in the court of Mutesa’s son, the Kabaka Mwanga. He married and began a Catholic Christian family, and also taught the faith to many others as a catechist in his home. In this way, however, he aroused the envy of anti-Christian officials which led to his martyrdom a week before that of young Charles Lwanga and the other children attendants at the royal palace on June 3, 1886.

On John Paul’s Birthday, I Remember Being 28

Today is John Paul’s 28th birthday. When this blog began he was 13. Now he’s nearly five years married with a family of his own. When I was 28, I was still single and several years into my graduate studies.

It was the year 1991.

Here is a poem-of-sorts that I wrote a few months short of turning 28. It has a visual component, as I am comparing myself to ten years earlier (1981). It’s not a very deep reflection, but it’s based on a sense of how we change as we grow older. At this age, after a decade of “adult experiences,” we have a stretch of life we can “look back” upon.

Roses are Blooming

June is almost here, and the roses are blooming.🌹

Non-violence: A Method and a Style of "Peace-building"

May 2025 on this Blog has been all about "Popes" - not surprisingly. I'm finding it difficult to write lately, but perhaps that's just as well. It's hard to know what to say in these disturbing times. 

Pope Leo has encouraged us to listen, and he has already said much that is worthy of hearing. 

In a speech he made today to the Italian group initiative "Arena for Peace," Leo gave a concise yet rich articulation of the importance of non-violence as a Christian and human witness which is rooted in hearts that renounce vengeance, and through compassion branch out into works of mercy, fraternity, solidarity, and peace. Here are some of his words:

"Dear brothers and sisters, all too much violence exists in the world and our societies. Amid wars, terrorism, human trafficking and widespread aggression, our children and young people need to be able to experience the culture of life, dialogue, and mutual respect. Above all, they need the witness of men and women who embody a different and non-violent way of living. From local and everyday situations up to the international order, whenever those who have suffered injustice and violence resist the temptation to seek revenge, they become the most credible agents of non-violent peacebuilding processes. Non-violence, as a method and a style, must distinguish our decisions, our relationships and our actions.

"The Gospel and the Church’s social doctrine are a constant source of support for Christians in this effort. They can also act as a compass for everyone, since the fostering of a culture of peace is a task entrusted to all, believers and non-believers alike, who must advance it through reflection and a praxis inspired by the dignity of the person and the common good.

"If you want peace, prepare institutions of peace. Increasingly we realize that this cannot simply involve political institutions, whether national or international, but requires all institutions – educational, economic and social. The Encyclical Fratelli Tutti frequently spoke of the need to pass from 'I' to 'we', in a spirit of solidarity that needs to find institutional expression. For this reason, I encourage you to remain committed and present: present within history as a leaven of unity, communion and fraternity. Fraternity needs to be recovered, loved, experienced, proclaimed and witnessed, in the confident hope that it is indeed possible, thanks to the love of God 'poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit' (Romans 5:5)."

“Christ’s Ascension…Sustains Our Journey on Earth”

This year, Thursday’s worldwide observance of the Feast of the Ascension is on May 29, which is also the memorial of Saint Paul VI, the Pope of my childhood (who served from 1963-1978).

Personhood, the "Heart," and Friendship with Jesus

I continue to meditate on the late Pope Francis’s last Encyclical on the Sacred Heart, published this past October 24. Here are some beautiful excerpts from sections 25-28.

“Where the thinking of the philosopher halts, there the heart of the believer presses on in love and adoration, in pleading for forgiveness and in willingness to serve in whatever place the Lord allows us to choose, in order to follow in his footsteps. At that point, we realize that in God’s eyes we are a ‘Thou’, and for that very reason we can be an ‘I’. Indeed, only the Lord offers to treat each one of us as a ‘Thou’, always and forever. Accepting his friendship is a matter of the heart; it is what constitutes us as persons in the fullest sense of that word.

“Saint Bonaventure tells us that in the end we should not pray for light, but for ‘raging fire’. [Itinerarium Mentis in Deum VII:6] He teaches that, ‘faith is in the intellect, in such a way as to provoke affection. In this sense, for example, the knowledge that Christ died for us does not remain knowledge, but necessarily becomes affection, love’. [Proemium in I Sent., q.3] Along the same lines, Saint John Henry Newman took as his motto the phrase Cor ad cor loquitur, since, beyond all our thoughts and ideas, the Lord saves us by speaking to our hearts from his Sacred Heart. This realization led him, the distinguished intellectual, to recognize that his deepest encounter with himself and with the Lord came not from his reading or reflection, but from his prayerful dialogue, heart to heart, with Christ, alive and present. It was in the Eucharist that Newman encountered the living heart of Jesus, capable of setting us free, giving meaning to each moment of our lives, and bestowing true peace: ‘O most Sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus, Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and Thou beatest for us still… I worship Thee then with all my best love and awe, with my fervent affection, with my most subdued, most resolved will. O my God, when Thou dost condescend to suffer me to receive Thee, to eat and drink Thee, and Thou for a while takest up Thy abode within me, O make my heart beat with Thy Heart. Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is proud and sensual, all that is hard and cruel, of all perversity, of all disorder, of all deadness. So fill it with Thee, that neither the events of the day nor the circumstances of the time may have power to ruffle it, but that in Thy love and Thy fear it may have peace’.

“Before the heart of Jesus, living and present, our mind, enlightened by the Spirit, grows in the understanding of his words and our will is moved to put them into practice. This could easily remain on the level of a kind of self-reliant moralism. Hearing and tasting the Lord, and paying him due honour, however, is a matter of the heart. Only the heart is capable of setting our other powers and passions, and our entire person, in a stance of reverence and loving obedience before the Lord.

“It is only by starting from the heart that our communities will succeed in uniting and reconciling differing minds and wills, so that the Spirit can guide us in unity as brothers and sisters. Reconciliation and peace are also born of the heart. The heart of Christ is “ecstasy”, openness, gift and encounter. In that heart, we learn to relate to one another in wholesome and happy ways, and to build up in this world God’s kingdom of love and justice. Our hearts, united with the heart of Christ, are capable of working this social miracle.”

"May Flowers" and Green Scenes in 2025

This month has been more cool than usual, overall, with plenty of rain. Flowers have bloomed, followed by fresh lush greenery and long days with plenty of evening sunshine. Here are some examples of Springtime as seen 'through the eyes of JJ."

Another “Janaro Graduation”

Last weekend, Teresa Janaro became the fourth of the “Janaro children” to graduate from University! She now joins the Christendom College alumni along with her brother John Paul and sisters Agnese and Lucia. Remember those “kids” in the earliest days of this Blog? (They really do grow up…)

Congratulations, Teresa!!⭐️ We love you and we’re proud of you.

It was a hot day so we all look a bit wilted, but the whole family got together. We got to cool off later.

I was also proud to be there in my professional duds (as “emeritus” member of the faculty). I also posted a silly Instagram video while I waiting for the graduation to begin (I hope you can access it below the picture).

Authority: "Loving as Jesus Did"

Here are some excerpts from Pope Leo XIV's homily at his installation Mass on May 18. He helps us to understand the meaning of the authority bestowed upon him when he was chosen to be the 267th Successor of Saint Peter.

"Jesus asks Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ (Jn 21:16), he is referring to the love of the Father. It is as if Jesus said to him, ‘Only if you have known and experienced this love of God, which never fails, will you be able to feed my lambs. Only in the love of God the Father will you be able to love your brothers and sisters with that same ‘more’, that is, by offering your life for your brothers and sisters.’

“Peter is thus entrusted with the task of ‘loving more’ and giving his life for the flock. The ministry of Peter is distinguished precisely by this self-sacrificing love, because the Church of Rome presides in charity and its true authority is the charity of Christ. It is never a question of capturing others by force, by religious propaganda or by means of power. Instead, it is always and only a question of loving as Jesus did.

“The Apostle Peter himself tells us that Jesus ‘is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, and has become the cornerstone’ (Acts 4:11). Moreover, if the rock is Christ, Peter must shepherd the flock without ever yielding to the temptation to be an autocrat, lording it over those entrusted to him (cf. 1 Pet 5:3). On the contrary, he is called to serve the faith eof his brothers and sisters, and to walk alongside them, for all of us are 'living stones' (1 Pet 2:5), called through our baptism to build God’s house in fraternal communion, in the harmony of the Spirit, in the coexistence of diversity. In the words of Saint Augustine: 'The Church consists of all those who are in harmony with their brothers and sisters and who love their neighbour' (Serm. 359,9).

"Brothers and sisters, I would like that our first great desire be for a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world.

"In this our time, we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalises the poorest. For our part, we want to be a small leaven of unity, communion and fraternity within the world. We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ! Come closer to him! Welcome his word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to his offer of love and become his one family: in the one Christ, we are one. This is the path to follow together, among ourselves but also with our sister Christian churches, with those who follow other religious paths, with those who are searching for God, with all women and men of good will, in order to build a new world where peace reigns!

'This is the missionary spirit that must animate us; not closing ourselves off in our small groups, nor feeling superior to the world. We are called to offer God’s love to everyone, in order to achieve that unity which does not cancel out differences but values the personal history of each person and the social and religious culture of every people.

"Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love! The heart of the Gospel is the love of God that makes us brothers and sisters. With my predecessor Leo XIII, we can ask ourselves today: If this criterion 'were to prevail in the world, would not every conflict cease and peace return?' (Rerum Novarem, 20).

"With the light and the strength of the Holy Spirit, let us build a Church founded on God’s love, a sign of unity, a missionary Church that opens its arms to the world, proclaims the word, allows itself to be made 'restless' by history, and becomes a leaven of harmony for humanity.

"Together, as one people, as brothers and sisters, let us walk towards God and love one another.

Pope Leo XIV: Learning to Listen, to Dialogue, to Build Bridges

“How important it is to listen! Jesus says, ‘My sheep listen to my voice’. And I think it is important for all of us to learn how to listen more, to enter into dialogue. First and foremost, with the Lord: always listen to the Word of God. Then also listen to others, to know how to build bridges, to know how to listen without judging, not closing the doors thinking that we have all the truth and no-one else can tell us anything. 

“It is very important to listen to the voice of the Lord, to listen to it, in this dialogue, and to see where the Lord is calling us.”

~Pope Leo XIV (homily of 5/11/25)

“The Miracle of Peace”

Pope Leo prays for “the miracle of peace.”

Missing My Mother on Mother's Day...

Mother's Day has just ended, but I can still squeeze in a few words in the minutes past midnight.

I miss my Mom on Mother's Day. This picture is from Spring 1963, with baby me and big brother Walter. Our Mom is 24 years old in this picture (younger than two of my own daughters today). Dad is 28 (my son turns 28 next month). This is the fourth Mother's Day since Mom passed away.  I often miss her, yet she seems "not far from us." I pray for her and my Dad, that God will receive them into His embrace of Infinite Love forever. This is the fulfillment for which they were created.

Jesus has conquered death through His Cross and Resurrection, but this was not to eliminate sorrow and grief from the human journey; rather, the hope of eternal life gives ultimate meaning and value to sorrow and grief and the whole range of human experience. Our pain and struggles with the mystery of life and death have a value that makes us willing to endure them when we remember in faith that suffering and loss are not "the last word" on human existence. Christ is Risen, Alleluia! God works everything towards the good, and God loves us immensely. He is worthy of our trust, day by day, step by step.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you!

Leo XIV: "To Move Aside So That Christ May Remain"

"An indispensable commitment for all those in the Church who exercise a ministry of authority... is to move aside so that Christ may remain, to make oneself small so that he may be known and glorified, to spend oneself to the utmost so that all may have the opportunity to know and love him" (Pope Leo XIV).

Christina Grimmie Encourages Us in Life

Remembering Christina Grimmie after eight years and eleven months. She continues to encourage us not to be afraid, not to worry.💚

A Pope From "The Americas": Welcome Leo XIV!

We have a Pope!

White smoke emerged from the chimney yesterday evening, and an hour later came the announcement that Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost had been chosen by his brother Cardinals to be the 267th Pope, taking the name "Leo XIV." He was born in 1955 in Chicago, making him the first Pope from the United States of America. But he also spent many years in Latin America as a bishop in Peru, and became a naturalized Peruvian citizen. The people of Peru have long regarded him as "one of their own."

Now he belongs to the whole world. 

Dear Lord, bless and sustain our new Pope Leo XIV in his ministry as Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, Servant of the Servants of God.

The Church Sustained by the Gift of Jesus in the Eucharist

As we continue to pray for the Cardinals gathered in the conclave in Rome to elect a new Pope, the readings from the third week of the Easter Season give us God's Word to enlighten us, and for us to ponder, to shape our prayer, to lead us to worship Him who has given Himself totally, who reveals the mystery of the God who is Infinite Love.

To contemplate the mystery of the Eucharist (as we do in these days, in the Gospel readings from the sixth chapter of John) is to be full of wonder and gratitude for the gift of God the Father who sends His Only-Begotten Son to save the world (John 3:16), to draw us to share in the eternal life of the Trinity. Jesus gives Himself — His "flesh," His body and blood poured out for us — to nourish the new life of His people whom He unites to Himself in the Holy Spirit. Jesus in the Eucharist builds up His Mystical Body, the Church. Through His gift we encounter the singular, astonishing love that God has for us, and we are sent forth with the Risen Christ to share His mission, to witness to God's inexhaustible love, to be "instruments" of His love in the lives of those who are entrusted to us each day as we live out our vocation in this world.

This is the life of the Church for which we pray, as she is called to take a new step in her pilgrimage through history toward the fulfillment of the God's Kingdom, where God will "be all, in all" (1 Corinthians 15:28). This is the "new reality" present in the midst of the realities (and the illusions) of this age. As the Church lives these intense and decisive days, we remember that we are "members of one another" (Romans 12:5), and the Cardinals are our brothers. We express this mysterious unity in our solidarity with them in prayer. May they receive an abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to fill them and sustain them in wisdom so that they might elect a Pope who will remind us that we are one in Christ — united in truth and love, in Baptism and the Eucharist, in adoration of the Lord and in gratitude for making us His sons and daughters in Jesus. We beg God our Father through Jesus Christ our Savior in the Holy Spirit to work in us and through us the "continuation" of His gift of redemption for the whole world, drawing the heart of every human person through His Church.

We are a poor Church that depends entirely on our adherence to Jesus Christ, and a grateful Church sustained by the "bread of life," by the gift of "[His] Flesh for the life of the world."

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Jesus said to the crowds: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: 'They shall all be taught by God.' [See e.g. Isaiah 54:13; Jeremiah 31:33-34.] Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.

"Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.

"Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world."

~John 6:44-51

Colors of Hope

The Election of a New Bishop of Rome Begins

Wednesday, May 7 is the beginning of the Conclave in the Sistine Chapel, where 132 Cardinals from every inhabited continent on earth will gather to elect a Pope to succeed the late Pope Francis as leader of a Catholic Church that counts some 1.4 billion members.

This blog "covered" the last Conclave back in 2013. It was remarkable for many of us for the unprecedented (virtual) access we had to the ceremonies via livestream leading right up to the Cardinals entering through the doors of the Chapel, which were then closed and locked beyond the reach of all media technology. The livestream switched to the "chimney camera" so that we could see right away the color of the smoke when the four daily ballots were burned. Once the white smoke came, we saw it pour from the chimney in real time.

Then the "feed" switched to the balcony over Saint Peter's Square where great crowds of Romans gathered to wait for the new Pope to be announced and presented, and to give his first blessing. It was a long and suspenseful period of time that passed before we were introduced to a 76-year-old Argentine named Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who took the name "Francis."

The next 12 years of his papacy were beautiful, surprising, and challenging in ways we never could have expected.

Now the time has come, once again.

The world is very different than it was a dozen years ago. The ceremonies will be livestreamed from the cell phone in your pocket to the widest "smart TV" on your wall. Like in 2013, we Catholics will have the chance to be joined in prayer and solidarity all over the world, in support of the Cardinals as they carry out their sacred office, and in welcoming the new Successor of Saint Peter.

I'm not sure I'm going to watch every moment of the events on streamimg video. (I will at least check the smoke.) I have no expectations or analysis regarding who among the Cardinals right now is this "man-who-will-be-Pope." His responsibilities will be immense, the media scrutiny relentless, but the graces of the Holy Spirit superabundant for him to carry out God's will for the good of the whole Church and the world.

The way we can best be attentive to the process that is beginning is to pray for the Cardinals, that they will choose someone filled with wisdom, truth, charity, and humility to lead the Church in the worship of God, and guide us in adhering to Christ in whatever trials might await us in times to come. He will need to confirm us in our faith, inspire us to be courageous in our witness, and be an example to us of the ardent love through which the Sacred Heart of Jesus wants to love this poor world and every human person living in it.

Could This Be Pope Francis's "First Miracle"?

The last time these two met in person, things — to put it mildly — did not go well. But last week, after they both attended the funeral of Pope Francis, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelinskyy had an intense impromptu meeting in the back of Saint Peter's Basilica. The U.S. President's hostility, it seems, has turned around (at least for now), and the United States and Ukraine have since signed an economic cooperation agreement which is somewhat more vigorous in its affirmation of Ukraine's sovereignty.

It's a miracle?

Probably not, but it may be a step toward the peace that Pope Francis so ardently prayed for to his last breath. His perseverance in prayer and sacrifice for "Martyred Ukraine" will bear fruit. We all must continue to pray for an end to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, and for a just and lasting peace which respects Ukrainian sovereignty and allows Ukraine to flourish.

And we must continue to pray for the eternal rest of our beloved Francis, and for the approaching conclave that will elect his successor.

Athanasius and the Incarnation

May 2 is the feast of the crucially important fourth century Church Father Saint Athanasius of Alexandria. The text that follows is an excerpt from my 2003 book The Created Person and the Mystery of God, which - if I had actually had an "academic career" - would have been regarded as "one of his early works" (I was 40 years old when it was published😉). It has much in it that I would have liked to have developed in greater depth, but my path "moved in a different direction" due to illness and disability, which is a familiar story for anyone who reads this blog. 

The "historical section" of this book contains concise vignettes of some of the Church Fathers, and follows a style that is similar to my monthly articles in Magnificat (which I have been writing since 2013). If God wills, I may yet return to working on a "more mature" scholarly project bringing together the various themes and methodological approaches that I sketched out in this book nearly a quarter of a century ago. The intellectual realm of historical studies within the context of philosophical and theological anthropology (i.e. this multifaceted approach to "the created person and the mystery of God") is still the inspiration for my studies and what writing I have been able to do. My experience and my thinking have grown much since the days of this book, and circumstances have opened new doors and indicated larger vistas that would require several volumes to bring together in a formal academic study. 

If someone gave me a very large financial grant (enough to keep my wife and I going for the rest of our lives) and if they were very patient, a project like this might be possible. I am certain that no form of "AI" will ever be able to do it (perhaps it could assist in some tasks, like finding sources).

Who knows what might happen? May the Lord lead me, empower me, and show me the way. We live in a time of epochal change. I think right now of some poor archbishop who might be a bit older than me, taking a coffee in Roman coffee bar, looking forward to what he hopes will be a short bit of ecclesiastical "business" so that he can get back home; he has no idea whatsoever that in a few weeks he will be the Pope!

But, speaking of epochal change, I am supposed to be introducing Saint Athanasius here. Let us therefore proceed to text which looks at a great figure who endured many "changes" but persevered through them all in his defense of the Divinity of Jesus Christ:

Less than five years after Constantine’s declaratiom of religious freedom in 313 a.d., the Church was plunged headlong into a new type of crisis. A popular, talented, and politically astute priest in Alexandria named Arius had developed a theory about the Trinity.  Up until this time, most attempts by Christian thinkers to shed light on the unity and distinctness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had been provisional at best.  For Arius, classical Catholic accounts of the Trinity were dissatisfying and ambiguous and seemed to involve the Church in irrational and contradictory affirmations about God.  He proposed a simple solution, logically coherent, easy to understand, and—at first glance—seemingly consistent with the language of the New Testament.

Arius taught that the One Eternal God is the radically Unoriginate One in every respect. This meant that God is solely unoriginate "in Person" (this, in any case, is what his approach to the Trinity inescapable implied). It follows, that the Logos, the Word, is "God's" first and greatest creature.  The Word is a reflection of the Divine Being, so perfect that he is called “Son” and God is his “Father” in a unique manner.  Nevertheless, he is a creature.  According to a famous slogan of Arius which he even set to music, “there was a time when he was not.”  This first creature fashioned everything else in turn; therefore he is called “god” in relation to the rest of creation; however he is not divine by nature.  The Holy Spirit, too, is a creature, the first and greatest creature of the Word who is himself the divine-like creature of God the Father.

What Arius proposed was ingenious and remarkable.  It appeared to be nothing less than a translation into Christian terms of the “Divine Triad” of Neoplatonism, in which Universal Intelligence and Universal Soul were inferior reflections emanating from the Transcendent One and bringing forth the spiritual and material world in turn.  It seemed as though Arius had reconciled Catholic faith and philosophical wisdom, giving a rationally satisfying explanation of the Trinity. 

In fact, however, Arius had deconstructed the mystery of the Trinity, and he stubbornly refused all correction on the matter of what became known as the "great heresy" that bears his name.  His theory was condemned at the Council of Nicaea in 325, wherein the Only Son of the Father was proclaimed God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father.  After this Council, however, the Arian party succeeded in gaining imperial favor by means of deception and intrigue.  Enormous political pressure was brought to bear against orthodox bishops by Constantine’s successors, and imperially sponsored synods tried to construct and then impose compromise Trinitarian formulations that secretly favored the Arian position.  

In the center of this storm was the singular figure of Saint Athanasius, the great bishop of Alexandria and fearless defender of Trinitarian orthodoxy.  Athanasius was exiled from his see no less than five times during his tumultuous career, because he stubbornly opposed any and every politically engineered compromise with the Arian position.  

Modern secular historians may often wonder why Athanasius was so passionate and so persistent about what might seem to be an abstract theological point.  Yet we can appreciate the energy of his zeal if we realize that he perceived the deep connection between the mystery of the Trinity and the mystery of the Incarnation and Redemption.  Athanasius’s conviction about the Trinity was inseparable from his conviction about the Christian event and its significance for the life of man.  Through the incarnation and redemption, God has made it possible for us to share in His very life.  Our union with the Word made flesh gives us a participation in the Divine life.  This is the great patristic teaching on deification (“theosis”): God became man so that men might become “gods”—that is, adopted sons of the Father.  Athanasius perceived the radical implications of Arius’s theories: if the one who became incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary was not fully Divine, how could he possibly give us a participation in the Divine life?  In the Arian system, the magnificent destiny of the Christian man comes crashing to the ground.  The one who walked the earth, who became our friend, who gave us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink, was merely another creature like us.  God has not shown us His face nor invited us into his friendship.  He remains a stranger to us.  Thus Athanasius declares: “the Son of God became Son of Man, so that the sons of man, that is, of Adam, might become sons of God.  The Word begotten of the Father from on high, inexpressibly, inexplicably, incomprehensibly and eternally, is He that is born in time here below, of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, so that those who are in the first place born here below might have a second birth from on high, that is, of God.”  

Moreover, if the Holy Spirit is not fully God, how can he possibly transform us into the likeness of God?  “If the Holy Spirit were a creature, there could be no communion of God with us through Him.  On the contrary, we would be joined to a creature, and we would be foreign to the divine nature, as having nothing in common with it…If by participation in the Spirit we are made partakers in the divine nature…it cannot be doubted that His is the nature of God.”  

Thus for Athanasius, the full co-eternal divinity of the Word and the Holy Spirit was not only a truth about the mystery of God; it was also a matter of life or death for man—it was a truth decisive for the human vocation.  Only the Divine Word made flesh divinizes His brothers in the flesh.  If Christ is anything less than God, then the gates of heaven are closed and man is still in exile from his eternal home.  The comfortable rationalism of Arius, in the end, robbed Christianity of its very heart.

First Council of Nicaea, 325 - from an ancient fresco in present day Turkiye.

The Freshness of Spring and the Joy of Easter

"Almost-May" flowers and green are coming with their splendid show. The freshness of Spring!🌷🍃🌱

Even greater, the joy of Easter that remains in this season. Christ is Risen from the dead, and the foretaste of joy remains with us, carries us, renews its promise to us even in this strange year of 2025 that is so full of sorrows and concerns and trials — in our personal lives, in our society, in our world burdened by the distortion of sin that breeds so much injustice and violence, where war rages in many places and casts its looming shadow of horror over all of us. 

The Church rejoices in this Easter Season and “mourns” the passing of our beloved Pope Francis, sorry to be deprived of his physical presence but also astonished by his final days so luminous with deeds and words of mercy. Next month the Cardinals will elect a new Pope. There is no point in worrying about things beyond our power. We must pray from the heart for the Church, the world, and all our needs, and entrust everything to Jesus Christ our Lord.

Catherine of Sienna: A Fire Whose Embers Still Glow

The wonderful Caterina Benincasa, born into that wild, corrupt, belligerent fourteenth century Italian city-state called Sienna, has her feast day April 29th.

Tomb of Saint Catherine in Rome

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 left 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 us and giving us hope even today.

She was a vital presence for me when I lived in Rome, 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 Sienna, from the Tuscan hills she 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 helped us to draw near to Him, this humble woman, this familiar friend, who still looks after me even when I forget to ask her. She knows the “mad hope” that cries out to God from my own heart. She knows my long and often obscure journey of hope, the journey of my life, of my vocation. She reminds me of the Light and Love of the One who draws me to my destiny.

It is a joy to encounter Saint Catherine of Sienna in the liturgy during this Easter Season, the continuing celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus who transformed her whole existence. She witnesses to the Risen Jesus who is working through the Holy Spirit to change us, and who invites every person to the embrace of the Mystery who has created them to share in His infinite fulfillment, His glory which is the Happiness that every heart desires.

"You are a mystery as deep as the sea;

the more I search, the more I find,

and the more I find the more I search for you.

But I can never be satisfied;

what I receive will ever leave me desiring more.

When you fill my soul I have an even greater hunger,

and I grow more famished for your light.

I desire above all to see you,

the true light,

as you really are."

~Saint Catherine of Siena