Christina Grimmie Gave Us Great Music, and So Much More

Saturday was the Feast of Saint Cecilia🎶, and I expressed gratitude for all the musicians who have accompanied me on my life's journey. But I have one more thing to say. I want to single out in particular the amazing young woman whose voice and luminous compassion still bring healing and consolation to my soul even now, nearly ten years after her utterly tragic death.

I mean, of course, Christina Grimmie.

She was a singer of astonishing power, precision, range, and depth of feeling. She played the piano beautifully and wrote her own songs as well as composing her own wonderful arrangements of covers from the early 2010s. Christina gave us great music. But she also gave us so much more.

Her pioneering work with YouTube and her overall-social-media-engagement had a profound impact on her own peers and people of all ages who “followed” her. Years before the internet was flooded by “influencers,” Christina certainly had a real influence on the lives of thousands of people all over the world (among her three million YouTube subscribers). She has convinced me that contemporary communications technologies can be used to mediate the loving "presence" of a person and a true "encounter" that awakens something new in the human hearts of those who "meet her" through the screen. It’s not easy, but clearly it’s possible because Christina did it — without tricks, without egoism, with a joyful, honest, humble presentation of her magnificent music that was seemingly organically integrated with the whole of her gentle-yet-magnanimous person. I think she had a gift — a rare gift — for giving herself in this way, through media.

It's easy to miss this unique quality she had, but I think that in her life it was a vocation sustained by God's grace. Whether it was on YouTube, live streaming, Twitter, in her recorded music, in her own concerts, or in the amazing live television performances in 2014 on "The Voice," Christina "shook" people with her music, but also with her simple but profound humanity, with her extraordinary-ordinary way of living in accord with reality, with her openness and readiness to give her great talent and herself. She not only "broke the fourth wall" (as they say in audiovisual media), she made it disappear. Then, after her own live concerts, she wanted to meet everyone face-to-face, to greet them with a hug and an open ear to listen to their troubles and aspirations. Christina was deeply committed to open meet-and-greets after her shows and was willing to take as much time as was necessary to attend to every person.

Of course, this made her extremely vulnerable, but ultimately she chose to take that risk, knowing that love sometimes provokes rejection, hatred, and violence. But she offered herself with love, to "frands" all over the world who came to her concerts, to new people, to troubled souls, to children — and, finally, to a person who was hiding two fully loaded Glock 9mm pistols under his jacket. She was so full of music and song and a "great love" that gave itself away to the end, who died doing what she had done so many times after her concerts: welcoming a stranger with open arms.... 

In this she was truly heroic — and though most of us are not called to take these particular risks, we do recognize in her a humanity that resonates with our own experience, but also a humanity that is "different" — a humanity that overcomes fear, that breaks down limits, that goes beyond itself. Because of this, her death was more than a tragedy; rather it continues to witness to the fact that death does not have "the last word." Love has the last word. And Christina’s heroism continues to strike our hearts, moving us to grow, to desire more, to persevere in difficulties, and to become — slowly but steadily — a little less afraid. 

I am uniquely grateful for the life and witness of Christina Victoria Grimmie (1994-2016).💚🎶 She sang, she loved greatly, and she didn't hide the reason why she did it all, the One to whom she belonged.

Jesus Christ Our King

Our Lord, our Savior, our King: Jesus Christ.

#ChristTheKing #FeastDay

Ukraine’s Sorrows Past and Present

HOLODOMOR REMEMBRANCE DAY 2025. 

In 1932-33, some five million Ukrainians were starved to death by an artificial famine engineered by Stalin’s genocidal policies. This is the “Holodomor,” the “murder by hunger” that Ukrainians remember and mourn annually on the fourth Saturday in November.

Today, the imperialism of Stalin’s successor drives a relentless invasion that began in 2022 with the expressed aim of eliminating the national identity of the Ukrainian people. Now we see vulgar, small-minded men from the West trying to “make a deal” that would reward the naked aggression of a war criminal. I have no answers, only sorrow. 

And, of course, prayer for the victims of the past and the present, and hope for a future in which courage and honor might prevail for a just and lasting peace. I hope and pray for a truly free Ukraine 🇺🇦, and also for the end of Putinism and the realization of “the beautiful Russia” envisioned and proposed by the great Alexei Navalny — who was murdered in a Russian prison camp in 2024, but who speaks more clearly than ever to Russia, to the world, and to history in his beautiful memoir and “prison diaries” published this year.

Music Day!

November 22nd is the feast of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. Many countries throughout the world celebrate Music Day on this day.

I have been listening to much music recently, including some of the music that made an impact on my life many years ago. I need to write more about those distant days, and the stories of my youth that become so vivid when I hear their music. I remain a musician myself, even though arthritis has made it hard for me to play my cello or my guitars.

Also, as I have mentioned before, I have a kind of personal “Apostolate of Prayer” for musicians and artists in general, as well as certain particular (and in some cases peculiar) artists who have come along more recently. I know (to some extent by personal experience) that they have many sufferings that are difficult to articulate in general terms. Being creative is in itself a distinctive strain on poor human beings who are moved to express a beauty (however humble) that is greater than themselves.

God bless all our musicians, and all the quirky creative people who share their gifts and the fruits of their vision and labor with us.

We Do Not Realize That We Are Poor

"You say, 'I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,' and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked" (Revelation 3:17).

Does Life Betray Us? Does it End in Frustration?

This human life: full of joy and adventure and promise; full of so many reasons to be grateful.

But nothing is ever enough.

If we engage them only within the limits of this world, all the aspirations and achievements and beautiful things of life eventually fall short; they pass with time even as we continue to endure, unfulfilled. They open our hearts, but if we try to hold on to them, we are left with only the wounds of dissatisfaction. Sometimes life itself just seems to betray us, and our hopes are frustrated by external afflictions. Or we might have years of vigor to pursue a satisfying life, but eventually our spirits grow weary of the continual disappointment.

We might become tired, cynical, or bitter as we get older. Or we might shrink our hearts and cover our secret despair with the mask of resignation. Eventually, we realize that all we have to look forward to is death.

If it all seems unbearable, that's because it is unbearable.

The only hope we have is to call upon the Lord. We must really call upon Him, with faith. Too often when we approach prayer, what we're really looking for is an escape from our suffering. But harsh realities cannot be dismissed by "religious talk." Theology is not enough. Superficial pious sentiments are not enough.

The brokenness and frustration remain. The wounds remain and grow worse. It is here -- where we really hurt, where we really experience our infirmity, our need -- that we must turn to the Lord and call upon Him.

There is nowhere else to go, nowhere else to bring these burdens, this life, this cry of the heart. And yet the Mystery for whom we long meets us in the midst of our cries.

Jesus is the God who has already come to be with us, and who waits for us in our sufferings.

Only Jesus can carry this kind of pain, this pain that challenges my identity, that reaches all the way to me as a person. This is human suffering, and only He knows it all the way through. He is the True Man, who has united Himself to every human being. He is also the True God, the only begotten Son of the Father, who alone knows the depths of every person because He is the Source who whispers each person into being, and the Way, the Truth, the Life who calls each one to their destiny. The Word became flesh, and made our sufferings His own on the Cross, joining them to His victory, which is the revelation, the giving, the pouring out of God's love.

This Love is the secret of all the beauty and goodness and all the promises and yearnings that awaken our hearts, only to increase our thirst. But Love has come into the world to be with us, so that we will never give up, so that we will persevere, holding on to Him, recognizing that everything belongs to Him.

This is the hope that changes and transforms life, that saves us. Where else can any of us go? We have to go to Him, and give ourselves to Him who is the Origin and Sustenance and Fulfillment of all things.

"The Church is Humanity Made True..."

"Christ makes himself known, makes himself accessible, and gives us his Spirit in the Church through the sacred scriptures, the sacraments, apostolic succession, but above all his Spirit meets us and invades our lives through the entire life of the Church. The Church is the universe touched, enlivened, and possessed by Christ through his Spirit. That is, the Church is humanity made true, unified by the presence of Christ through the re-creative energy of the mysterious Spirit of Pentecost." 

~Luigi Giussani

Autumn in the Land of Our Dreams

The colors of this Fall 2025 came briefly and now most of them are gone, thanks to the winds and the rain and the frost of ever-longer nights.

I have continued to digitally sculpt my Autumn photos, and I have more to add to the "Gallery." Some of these are "variations on a theme," as you might notice:

Mother Cabrini: Communicating the Love of Jesus

“I will go anywhere and do anything in order to communicate the love of Jesus” (Saint Francesca Cabrini). 

Mother Cabrini is the patron saint of immigrants.

Christina Grimmie and the Radical Gift of Self

Christina Grimmie's soulful voice and joyful visage remain sources of healing and hope for many people who live in the fragmented, threatening, isolating social milieu of today's world.

The image below is "Christina Grimmie pictured as a Cartoon Hero." But she was not just a “cartoon hero” — she was a real hero. In a world where people are constantly taking one another down, Christina inspired people to work and aspire to greatness in developing their talents, and to give themselves and love one another every day. In a world where people more and more want to take other peoples' lives away, she gave her life. In at world where we are becoming more and more afraid of people different from us, and more and more afraid of each other, Christina embraced everyone unconditionally, and — in the end — opened her arms wide to “welcome the stranger”… 

That end came nine years and five months ago. 

Today, November 10, 2025 — in a world that has become even more frightening, a world that seems to be spiraling down into darkness — we need to remember Christina Grimmie, who loved greatly through all her life right up her final moment in this world.💚

A Very Old Cathedral on a Very Old Hill

November 9th commemorates the completion and dedication in the year 324 of the Basilica of St John the Baptist on the Lateran hill, in Rome! Following Constantine's edict of toleration that "legalized" Christianity in the Roman Empire in 313, the new Emperor donated this property (from the Laterani family) to the Church of Rome. The Christian people built the church 1701 years ago, and all the generations of their descendants have worshipped the Lord in this place ever since, with their priests and - of course - their bishop, the Pope.

Building a church to bring people together in the presence of God also deepens their unity with one another. "The house of God is the true house of humans," as one famous author puts it. "Where people just want to inhabit the earth by themselves it becomes uninhabitable. Nothing more is built up where humans only want to build by themselves and for themselves. But where...people let themselves be claimed by God,..where they pull back and part with their time and their space [for Him], there the house of the community is built, there...the impossible on earth becomes a present reality. The beauty of the cathedral does not stand in opposition to the theology of the cross but is its fruit. It was born from the willingness not to build one's city by oneself and for oneself" (Josef Ratzinger).

The Supreme Rule of the Church is Love

Words from Pope Leo XIV about the Christian community, where we are all called to serve one another.

Stay With Us, O Lord

[Here are some words from my own brief prayer and meditation.]

Stay with us, O Lord. Let us experience your love in our poor, bewildered human lives. Let us find strength in the presence of that love, the grace and strength that make us free to open up and give ourselves. May we discover the fulfillment of our freedom in this gift. 

Lord, let us especially know your mercy, for we are awkward in the giving of ourselves, and sometimes we fall into doubt and fear because we forget that we are loved by you. Let us be rooted in your mercy, and find there the courage to ask for and receive forgiveness. 

Enable us by your grace to offer ourselves each day, and not succumb to the great temptation to give up in the face of our failures and sins. Have mercy on us, forgive us, raise us up, strengthen us to continue on the path of loving you and loving our brothers and sisters.

Save us from our clumsiness, our ignorance, our foolishness, and our weakness; do not let the narrowness of our own egotistical selves be a scandal to us. Let it rather be an occasion for greater trust in your Merciful Love, which is the Source of all that we are and have and do. Change us and carry us beyond ourselves into the immeasurable spaces of your goodness and your glory.

You who have given us our freedom — and who sustain its vitality within us — Lord, you want so ardently to bring our freedom to fulfillment through your wisdom and love, so that we might freely love you and be transformed in you and come to dwell with you for all eternity. 

Preserve us from turning away from you. Draw our hearts to you, convert us and bring us your healing. Give us trust in you. Stay with us, O Lord. Never permit us to be separated from you.

Jesus, have mercy on us. Come, Holy Spirit.

A Passing Shadow

My days are like a passing shadow and I wither away like the grass. But you, O Lord, will endure for ever (Psalm 102:13).

Death and Hope

In these days and weeks, we remember all those who have gone before us. We pray for the eternal fulfillment of all those who have lived and died with Christ.

Our hope in the face of death is Jesus Christ.

For each one of us, our hope is that we will recognize Jesus in our own death: He who died for me and who "dies with me" — really it's more correct to say that I am going to "die His death." We pray that through His death and resurrection, we may be made worthy of eternal life.

The drama of life and death is to abandon ourselves totally and completely to Him, or at least to throw our whole selves — however wildly and desperately — upon His infinite mercy.

Hope in the face of death doesn't come from trying to isolate my "I" exclusively in the spiritual aspect of myself, while suppressing and devaluing the whole reality of being a bodily person. Sometimes we imagine that in death we become angels, and the human body is shed like a casing that never really belonged to us.

But that is not what we are. We are not “spirits trapped in bodies.”

I am a bodily person. My spiritual, immortal soul is also by nature the form of my body. My body is an aspect of me. That is why death, in itself, is such an impenetrable mystery.

But Jesus transforms death, and my hope is that in dying I will "lose myself" only to discover myself fully in Him. In death I shall "lose" my body of this present age in order to live fully, face to face with Infinite Love, as a member of Christ's mystical body (a member of "the Church Triumphant").

This is our hope.

We have hope in the ultimate fullness of His victory, which includes our own resurrection, and the resurrection of all who have gone before us (and those who will follow us), so that the God who is Love might indeed be all, in all. May He make us perfect through Jesus Christ, so that we might rejoice forever in His glory.

October 2025 Hasn't Shown Much "Natural" Color

We've nearly reached the end of October, and there are still lots of tired green leaves hanging onto the trees. Much of this month's weather was mild. But we're now feeling colder temperatures along with gray skies and drizzle. We may yet get more nice colors in November.

The leaves vary somewhat, but we haven't yet arrived at the time when you can just point your camera up and automatically get gorgeous pictures. The first three photos posted here give a sense of how the canopy beneath the trees looks (not to mention the broader vistas).

Not exactly dreamy looking. What this Autumn requires is some "imagination" ... and the help of the digital art tools of JJStudios. But digital art based on photographs has been changing rapidly during the 2020s, as the tools have been getting a complete makeover. Apps that I have worked with for years are getting suped up with new A.I. features that usually don't deliver what they promise, but that can spit out some unusual (even "trippy") shape-and-color variations.

The project of digital art is changing, and I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to do to make something interesting (at least, interesting to me) with the bright and sometimes garish images that scarcely resemble the original photos I began with or the scenes that inspired them.

But there are possibilities. Images can be remixed from using a variety of filters and manual adjustments. There may be more scope for the imagination, if I can learn how to control these constantly changing prisms of style, color, and texture.

In any case, Autumn demands color. And we shall have color for our October 2025 virtual gallery. Some of these are funnier than others, all of them are "experimental," but none of them were simply products of the technology. I put time, effort, and significant constructive work into these pictures, trying to make something "different" with the materials that the tech made available to me. So here we go — Autumn “With a Boost,” October 2025:

Blessed Chiara Badano: The Splendid Adventure of God's Love

October 29th commemorates Blessed Chiara Luce Badano (1971-1990), an Italian teenager of our contemporary times whose life and death are a "luminous" witness to God's infinite Love.

Chiara Badano was considered “the prettiest girl in town.” She lived with enthusiasm and joy, as a typical teenager who liked to go out to be with friends and have fun, who liked pretty clothes and jewelry in a healthy normal way. Her bearing was open-hearted and dignified, modest without affectation, admirable and approachable. She had many friends, but also often sought out those in her peer group who seemed lonely or marginalized. Chiara experienced all the securities and insecurities, the discoveries and dramas of adolescent life. She had a boyfriend at one point, and experienced heartbreak. She had trouble with math in school, had misunderstandings with teachers, and — at times — those kind of "disagreements" with her father that are common for teens (her father and mother loved her very much, and she was very close to them). She enjoyed the outdoors; she loved hiking and swimming, and was an avid tennis player. She also liked to sing, and appreciated 1980s pop music (including Bruce Springsteen). She was a girl of her time, and a girl of deep faith. That faith grew immensely during her nearly two years of suffering from osteosarcoma, until her death three weeks short of her 19th birthday on October 7, 1990.

Since childhood, Chiara had vivid faith, full of compassion, that was formed in her by the pedagogy of the Focolare Movement. She recognized Jesus in the faces of others: her friends, the poor, drug addicts, forgotten people, atheists who hungered for God without realizing it. She wanted to serve God with her whole life, and to love God especially in persons and places that seemed furthest from the "reach" of Christ's Church — even among those who might have considered themselves His enemies. At age 12 she said, "I discovered that Jesus Abandoned [on the Cross] is the key to unity with God.... I understood that I can find Him in the distant ones, the atheists, and that I must love them in a very special way, without interest!" She often said, with ardent simplicity, that "we have to love everybody" She had a special attentiveness in listening to her companions and acquaintances who were struggling with serious problems, hindered by broken family situations, or caught in the self-destructive habits that plague so many adolescents today.

Her cancer diagnosis challenged her faith, but the Lord helped her to discern that He was calling her through it to a more radical love — to be united to the sufferings of Jesus. During her times in the hospital, she suffered much and sometimes felt overwhelmed but she trusted more deeply in the love of Jesus. "God loves me immensely!" she said. With this love, she sought out and accompanied others in the hospital who were struggling to break addictions, who suffered from mental illness, and those who were discouraged or hopeless.

Chiara hoped to be cured of the cancer and underwent all the standard medical treatments of thirty-five years ago. But above all she was committed to God's will, and she knew that in the embrace of the crucified Christ, even her suffering was endowed with meaning for the salvation of the world. She offered her powerlessness and pain in union with "Jesus Abandoned," and endured everything with an increasingly transfigured joy in the awareness that the mystery of the Cross was at work in her even as her prognosis grew more grim and her condition more painful and paralysing. 

Friends who came to see her were struck by this mysterious strength-in-weakness. "At first we felt like we were going to visit her in order to support her," they said, "but quite soon we noticed that whenever we went into her room, the feeling came over us that we were being projected into the splendid adventure of God's love. And yet, Chiara didn't say any extraordinary words, she didn't write pages and pages of diary. She simply loved."

Near the end, she said, "I have nothing left except my heart, but with my heart I can still love!"

We are all called — as the Lord wills, through the various circumstances of our lives — to embark upon this "splendid adventure of God's love." Blessed Chiara Luce is a light to guide us along the way, and to intercede for us that we might know the surpassing love of Jesus Christ who changes us and enables us to share in His death and resurrection and live forever in His glory.

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

The “Hard Roads” of Chinese Poet Li Bai are Our Roads Too

It is my understanding that the idiomatic and linguistic beauty of Chinese poetry cannot be conveyed through translation, and I am sure this is true. Nevertheless, something of the poet’s meaning and imagery can be grasped. In the case of the great Tang Dynasty era poet Li Bai (701-762), whatever way we can perceive his poetic intuition is worthwhile. Li Bai still resonates deeply with the souls of the Chinese people today, after 1300 years. But in the segment cited below, I was struck not only by the classical style of China’s golden age and China’s enduring heritage, but also by the basic humanity expressed in these words about the struggle of a journey. How hard it is to persevere when the path grows steeper, darker, exhausting: “harder than scaling the blue sky.”

Human persons of every era and place and culture: we are all brothers and sisters.

Hard Roads in Shu (excerpt), by Li Bai

The Mountain of Green Clay is formed of many circles - 

Each hundred steps, we have to turn nine turns among its mound -

Panting, we brush Orion and pass the Well Star, 

Then, holding our chests with our hands

and sinking to the ground with a groan,

We wonder if this westward trail will never have an end.

The formidable path ahead grows darker, darker still, 

With nothing heard but the call of birds hemmed in by the ancient forest, 

Male birds smoothly wheeling, following the females; 

And there come to us the melancholy voices of the cuckoos 

Out on the empty mountain, under the lonely moon.

Such traveling is harder than scaling the blue sky.

Even to hear of it turns the cheek pale,

With the highest crag barely a foot below heaven.

“A People Made Up of Beloved Children…”

“The Church is the visible sign of the union between God and humanity, where God intends to bring us all together into one family of brothers and sisters and make us his people: a people made up of beloved children, all united in the one embrace of his love” (Pope Leo XIV).

“Saint John Paul II” — So AWESOME!

HAPPY JPII DAY! Today is the memorial of Saint John Paul II (Pope from 1978-2005) who was a “witness to hope” for our generation, and for today and the future:

“Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Do not be afraid. Christ knows ‘what is in man’. He alone knows it.

“So often today man does not know what is within him, in the depths of his mind and heart. So often he is uncertain about the meaning of his life on this earth. He is assailed by doubt, a doubt which turns into despair. We ask you therefore, we beg you with humility and trust, let Christ speak to man. He alone has words of life, yes, of eternal life.”

~Saint John Paul II (Papal Installation, October 22, 1978)

Ukraine’s Suffering and the Life-Giving Cross of Christ

War remains a horrible reality for some and a threat to us all in the Fall of 2025. There is relief and hope, for the moment, in Gaza and Israel with the recent cease-fire. The process for anything resembling a more permanent peace, however, involves unknown contingencies and obscure demands of powerful groups who are not known for being reliable.

Meanwhile, Russia’s unconscionable invasion of Ukraine goes on. Russia has made small gains in the Donbas region at great cost while continuing attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure and consistently refusing any cease-fire proposals that won’t hand over to them all the territory in Eastern Ukraine that they seek. The Putin kleptocracy has no interest in genuine dialogue, much less any intention of admitting its war crimes. If the Russian regime’s savagery is rewarded, it will mean the fall of the current framework of international law, and ongoing danger for the rest of Ukraine and Europe. The aggressor is relentless. What can be done?

Ukrainians suffer and pray for peace even as they continue to defend themselves. Their nation is enduring a long and mysterious trial, with the hope that their humiliation will bear fruit through faith and love.

Here are some excerpts (in bold type) from the homily given by His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Primate of the Ukrainian Greek (Byzantine) Catholic Church, on October 20 in Oslo at the “Ecumenical Prayer for Peace” with religious leaders of Ukraine and Norway:

To these Philippians, the Apostle Paul proclaims Christ, who “though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8). To those striving to ascend, Paul preaches the One who chose to descend….

The goal of this descent of the Son of God is death on the cross—the most shameful and humiliating of deaths, reserved as punishment for slaves and known as servile supplicium.

To the Philippians, Paul proclaims “Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:23–24). The Apostle reveals a divine paradox: the crucifixion on the cross—the lowest point of humiliation in Christ’s descent—becomes the very moment of glorification and ascent. What appears to human eyes as shame becomes the hour when the Father glorifies His Son, bestowing on Him “the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil 2:9-11).

Dearly beloved in Christ! Today Ukraine—our people and our Churches—are walking the path of kenosis proclaimed to us in this Word of God. Every loss of a loved one, every destroyed city and village, leaves in our hearts an irreparable emptiness that nothing can fill. The whole world witnesses Ukraine’s tragedy: some with awe, others with indifference; still others raise their hands in helplessness and turn our pain and suffering into material for media battles and manipulations, using it to polarize their own societies and gain political advantage.

Today our nation endures its own crucifixion before the eyes of the world community, and it seems to us that the Apostle Paul speaks precisely about us when he says: “We have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals” (cf. 1 Cor 4:9). Yet the power and glory of the Lord’s Cross are revealed in our sufferings—and in our word of hope, both for Ukraine and from Ukraine, to contemporary humanity.

We are bleeding, and once again we ask ourselves: God, why? Perhaps this question—Why must we, Ukrainians, be crucified before the eyes of the whole world today? — stands at the very center of reflection for all people of goodwill, both believers and non-believers alike. God, why do other nations live, develop, rejoice, and flourish, while we must die night after night? Why does the blood of infants flow on Ukrainian soil? God, why?

Perhaps the final answer to this question will be revealed only at the Last Judgment, when all that is hidden will come to light. Yet even now, the key to understanding this tragedy lies in the holy and life-giving Cross of Christ.…

In us today, this divine paradox is being fulfilled once again: the crucifixion on the cross—the lowest point of humiliation in the descent—has become the moment of glorification and ascent.

Today, together with representatives of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, we wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to all Christians of Norway and to all people of goodwill for their solidarity with Ukraine. Thank you for showing in your compassion toward us “the same mind that was in Christ Jesus” (cf. Phil 2:5)... [O]ur shared mission of Christian mercy [is] to end the war and to save Europe from yet another catastrophe.

May our suffering, and our common witness to the Gospel of Christ, serve the purpose that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Amen.

In Memory of a Friend

“He didn't seem like he was depressed and was always smiling. This is shocking” (Anon).

A bright autumn day

colors

crisp

sunlight flashing on the windows.

A clear day, blue with painted hues of leaf.

I stood strong and tall

in the breezy wind

and felt life once again

like great power

from my head flowing down through me.

With large strides

I passed over the fields

drinking fountains of expansive air.

And with the red sun playing on my head,

I burst through the door

but her face was bloodless white.

I stopped, and suddenly

the October air froze on my skin.

She searched my face

with a gaze of shiny wet cheeks

and spoke your name,

and this single word

had a weight

that said everything.

Fire arose in my bones

and spread all over me

until it found my eyes.

And the sun flickered in the shadows.

              --in memoriam, jp, +october 17, 2005

.

**************************************************************************************************

Friday marked the twentieth anniversary of the death of a dear friend, a close friend of our family — in fact, my parents’ godson. I remember when he was born, and I remember standing next to my parents in front of the baptismal font (I was only a little taller than the font at the time).

This poem was written some years ago, but I am presenting it again here. My friend, whom I loved like a brother, suffered from crippling depression for several years before his tragic death by suicide. My wife answered the call the next morning, and broke the news to me after I returned from a brisk Autumn outing.

Twenty years is a long time. Much has changed. His godparents have joined him in death — in that final passage through the purifying mercy of the Heart of Jesus into eternal beatifying communion with the Trinity.

There is some consolation in the expectation and hope that my parents are with him. I pray for them all, and I grieve for them, begging God to heal all our wounds.

Lord, embrace us all in the unfathomable abyss of your mercy.