“I Vote, Therefore I Am?” Not Exactly, But…

Yes, I already voted some weeks ago. In fact, this past summer I made a formal commitment to stand as one of a slate of thirteen “electors” in the State of Virginia for the certified write-in candidacy of the American Solidarity Party: Peter Sonski for President and Lauren Onak for Vice-President. The picture shows how to write-in Sonski and Onak on an election ballot in most States (including Virginia), where they are not listed among the printed options. Color in the dot next to “Write-In Candidate” and write in their names in the manner shown. My vote this year was an interesting and peculiar civic exercise: if you look carefully at your ballot, you will see that you are not voting directly for the President / Vice-President candidates; rather, you are voting for the slate of “electors for” the candidates. Each ticket (including write-in candidates, if they want their votes to be attributed distinctly to them) must put forth a slate of electors who are pledged to cast “electoral votes” for the ticket if it wins the most popular vote in that State. So, in Virginia, each ticket that wants to be officially tabulated has a group of 13 people who are committed to represent officially its candidates for President and Vice-President if these candidates win the most votes in the State. The “official election” of the President takes place on a day in December when electors for the popular-vote-winners in each State gather (usually at their State capitols) and cast these votes as members of the Electoral College. Thus, I realized that I was actually “running” in this election—running, that is, for membership in the Electoral College. As one of the 13 electors officially pledged to the American Solidarity Party ticket, I understood that in writing-in our candidates on my own ballot I was actually voting for myself (along with 12 other people) in the 2024 Presidential election.

That was not a position I ever imagined I would find myself in. Needless to say, I don’t expect to be making a trip to Richmond in December, nor do I have any other illusions regarding the significance of my vote for the results of this present election. Since 2016, however, I have been a member of the American Solidarity Party (ASP), and have voted for its presidential candidates and participated (virtually) in some of its events. Voting for President of the United States is a way of participating in a vast political process. However, as the practicalities of this process (and the “choices” it offers) become more superficial, unseemly, and remote from our own experiences and opinions and (most importantly) the convictions of our consciences, I think the time has come to be more “creative” in the way we participate.

The ASP is far from perfect, and at present it is very, very small. But it is a party in which the “platform” represents in detail a politics that aspires to put the dignity of every human person at the center of its concerns. It is a party that aspires to uphold the rights of persons and relationships as they are given in this wonderful mysterious reality that is our existence in this world: whether the person or persons are the poor on the margins of society who require our special concern, or desperate migrants and refugees who seek mercy from the world’s richest nation, or persons who exist as frozen embryos in a laboratory, or a mother and her unborn child (who both deserve protection and care that also continues after birth), or families which are the organic (“given”) foundation for maturing in the experience of interpersonal communion, or workers who collaborate in what is always a human enterprise, or persons who make up communities and build the institutions of civil society, or the sick and the elderly who need care and affirmation that their lives have meaning, or even criminals who need punishment and correction but also respect for their fundamental human dignity from a merciful society that doesn’t put them to death or subject them to cruelty. Then there are the issues involving war and peace, our responsibility for the environment entrusted to us, an economy on a human scale, and a wisdom regarding “progress” that serves the enrichment of whole human persons who have a transcendent destiny.

The ASP at least tries to be a personalist and communitarian political organization (perhaps this is a better word than “party”). In my opinion the United States of America will either develop toward a personalist and communitarian democracy or it will cease to exist as a nation.

I realize that there are many concerns involving this election, and that most people who vote believe it is necessary to choose one of the two “major” candidates that have been imposed upon us by a corrupt and increasingly dysfunctional political system. These voters focus on concrete issues that, in their opinion, will be better served—or at least less imperiled—by electing or preventing one of these candidates from becoming President. I understand and respect people who make this judgment regarding their own vote.

But I do believe that some of us have to begin now the preparation, organization, and procedural requirements for a new kind of politics in this country. Perhaps it’s quixotic to help build the foundations of a “new party,” but we will never know—and we will never even have a chance—unless some of us try to make a beginning. The reasonable way to make this effort is to enter the political process.

If there is to be any hope for moving in the direction of a politics that respects the dignity of every human person, a politics of solidarity, a politics of mercy, then some of us must begin to move in distinctive ways. We must try new approaches, cast votes and commit ourselves to political processes that—for now—are admittedly “symbolic.” Symbols are pedagogical for ourselves and for others, and they can suddenly become very practical in times of rapid change and instability. In my opinion, the ASP is making an effort to begin traveling this path, and I believe that I am called (in my own necessarily limited and very small capacity) to walk with them. For me, it’s worth the “risk” of my “one vote.”

This is an important point: even if we can’t do much, we can do a little. We can take a step. We can detach ourselves a little from the pervasive delusion that we live in a basically “healthy country,” or that our endemic problems can be “fixed” by a few changes in a legal system that has become unmoored from a dependable foundation in human personal dignity and the “common good.” Those whose efforts attempt to ameliorate the dangers of the present system should not place all their hopes in work that is important, but tenuous and all-too-easily uprooted by the inevitable shifts of power politics.

All of this accounts for why I have decided, with much prayer and deliberation, to stand as one of the Virginia “electors” for the Presidential candidacy of Peter Sonski of the American Solidarity Party, and to vote for him as a write-in candidate in the general election of 2024. I have a conviction that a movement in this direction is necessary for our nation. For me this is a way to be faithful to that conviction, and to the fundamental human needs that inspire it.

"Room" For Every Person in His Heart

Here is a prayer/reflection that I’m jotting down here for my own reference (and, of course, to share with anyone who might find it helpful):

“Jesus, on the cross you wholly embraced every person. You alone have given yourself for us with a ‘totality’ and ‘intimacy’ beyond anything we could possibly deserve or expect, beyond the measure of our understanding, yet supremely “attuned” to the depths of our humanity—our origin, our destiny, and the great desire that drives us to engage with reality in search of the fullness of meaning and goodness. 

“Jesus, you alone understand the mystery of every person, because your emptying of yourself has made ‘room’ for every person in your Heart. Guide our steps, Lord. Draw us to yourself. Draw us by the inexhaustible beauty and goodness of your total gift of Love for us.”

Also, I record here more quotations from Pope Francis’s powerful new Encyclical Dilexit Nos on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as I continue to dwell on and study the text, seeking nourishment for my own seeking, begging heart—and for every human heart:

“Our hearts are not self-sufficient, but frail and wounded… We need the help of God’s love. Let us turn, then, to the heart of Christ, that core of his being, which is a blazing furnace of divine and human love and the most sublime fulfilment to which humanity can aspire. There, in that heart, we truly come at last to know ourselves and we learn how to love.

“In the end, that Sacred Heart is the unifying principle of all reality, since ‘Christ is the heart of the world, and the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection is the centre of history, which, because of him, is a history of salvation’ [John Paul II, 1998]. All creatures ‘are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things’ [Francis, Laudato Si, 2015].”

~Pope Francis, encyclical Dilexit Nos [“He Loved Us”], 30-31

Chiara Luce: “Wrapped Into a Wonderful Design”

October 29th commemorates Blessed Chiara "Luce" Badano, an Italian girl who died of osteosarcoma (bone cancer) in 1990, a few weeks short of her 19th birthday. She was declared "blessed" in 2010. 

Chiara Luce was a young person of my generation, which means she was a “modern girl” in terms of the sensibilities of this emerging new epoch, and her life has much in common with young people today. She had a great passion for life, and was full of aspirations. She loved to sing, play tennis, and swim. She enjoyed popular music, and even had an appreciation of Bruce Springsteen. She was a bright and thoughtful student who loved literature but had a hard time with math. She had a boyfriend and experienced heartbreak, like countless other teenage girls. She cherished her family and friends, and had a great heart for people going through physical or spiritual troubles. She was shocked when the pain she thought was a tennis injury turned out to be bone cancer. The possibility that she might die at such a young age was very hard for her. She wanted to live. In the long odyssey of her cancer treatments, she knew the force of her own human hopes that she might be cured. 

But Chiara Luce was also a girl of great faith. Shaped since childhood by the charism of the Focolare movement, she recognized in her illness a deeper calling from her suffering Lord. She accepted and even embraced this new, arduous, painful path, and offered her life in union with Jesus's cry of abandonment on the Cross. She said:

"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."

She was able to endure beyond her own capacity for endurance, because she trusted in Jesus, because deeper than all the very real pain was the mystery of relationship with Him.

"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!'"

 

The Event of Love Gives Us Hope

We live in a world of poverty.

We can see the desperation of the materially poor. But we do not see the immense inner poverty that afflicts so many of us who live in what are supposed to be the "rich nations" of the world.

We live under so much ruthless pressure. The relentless demand to obtain "results," the constant changes and the resulting ruptures of place, routine, employment, and relationships, the enormous, unprecedented power that enables us to construct the material world but also to escape problems and isolate ourselves: an environment so intense, so stressful, so overwhelming has never existed before in the history of the human race.

And we wonder why so many people suffer from debilitating physical and mental illnesses?

Some people succeed in managing all the power and possibilities placed in their hands, or they fail and get up and try again and again. But they sustain wounds and sometimes they try to hide them or ignore them. Being wounded and vulnerable are obstacles to success.

But many people are simply crushed.

Perhaps they can't be "fixed" by any of our techniques. But they still deserve to be loved. Indeed they, especially, remind us that every human person deserves to be loved simply because they are a human person.

When I say "Never Give Up," I mean never give up on the human person. And never give up on God, on Jesus.

Love people. Start with this love and maintain this love. In an environment of love we will be able to appreciate the real possibilities of a person. In this way our love can become many different kinds of "help" without becoming conditional or just another project measured by the criteria of power.

But people who are beyond any of this "help" — people who have been crushed  — can still love, even if their love doesn't "produce" anything we can see, even if their love is hidden deep inside their brokenness.

Love awakens the possibility for love in others, but this is not something we can keep tabs on. We don't know the "success rate" for "producing love" because we don't produce it. We have to just throw away our measure, and replace it with hope and trust in the God who is Love.

Jojo Turns Eighteen Years Old!

When I began this blog in 2011, Jojo (Josefina) Janaro was a little over four years old. If you’ve been here since the beginning, you’ve watched her grow up. There are lots of stories about her little kid adventures, especially in the earlier years of the blog. You know how cute she was in those days. (I think she’s still “cute,” but I’ll get in big trouble if I tell her that, because she thinks I’m looking at her like a child if I say “cute.” That’s not what I mean, but… whatever. I can tell her she’s pretty, which is true.) Jojo still looks a bit young for her age, but she has grown a lot. She has reached the 5’ foot marker, and may yet pick up a couple more inches. She no longer stands out in a whole family of short people (I was once 5’10” but I’ve shrunk a bit over the years).

I’m amazed that she’s 18. She made it! I need not tell again the story that has been repeated on the blog many times and is also recounted in my 2010 book—that Jojo was a “pre-mie,” who spent the first seven months of her life in the NICU. It seems so long ago. Before she turned two, my days as a classroom teacher came to an end. So I had (and still have) a lot of time at home with her since I went-on-long-term-disability / “retired” in 2008. I have watched her grow up, and she has had a lot of special attention from her Dad. We’ve always gotten along really well, even during her adolescence. Jojo has tried to explain to me what “goes on inside the head” of a teenage girl, while I have tried to help her “interpret” the chaos that is the mind of a teenage boy (I still remember, and it hasn’t changed that much). For at least the past dozen years, Jojo and I have been watching TV together and having discussions of the themes that come up. We’ve had some really good conversations, and I hope we will continue for years to come.

Daddy and Jojo, from a long time ago (2017)

We are so grateful to God for her. She has been a mysterious and wonderful gift entrusted to us by Christ along with our other four grown-up “kids,” and now—of course—the grandchildren too. So many great gifts! 

Happy Birthday Josefina! We love you!

What Do We Mean By “The Heart”

I have begun to read what promises to be a monumental encyclical letter that Pope Francis issued this morning, which aims to renew our devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The encyclical Dilexit Nos locates the significance of the Heart of Jesus in the context of the mystery of the human heart, of each of our hearts. Here are some quotations and notes from the first part of the text, which I cite here—if for no other reason—for my own benefit as I study the encyclical. Perhaps they might be useful to others as well. Among other things, I want to quote sections of the text that struck me in a way that provokes my desire to “go deeper…”

In the first part of Chapter One, Pope Francis takes up the question: What do we mean by “the heart”? He tries to lead us to appreciate the existential centrality of the heart for the human person. “In classical Greek, the word kardía denotes the inmost part of human beings, animals and plants. For Homer, it indicates not only the centre of the body, but also the human soul and spirit. In the Iliad, thoughts and feelings proceed from the heart and are closely bound one to another. The heart appears as the locus of desire and the place where important decisions take shape. In Plato, the heart serves, as it were, to unite the rational and instinctive aspects of the person, since the impulses of both the higher faculties and the passions were thought to pass through the veins that converge in the heart. From ancient times, then, there has been an appreciation of the fact that human beings are not simply a sum of different skills, but a unity of body and soul with a coordinating centre that provides a backdrop of meaning and direction to all that a person experiences. (DN 3)

[The heart can be concealed or ignored, but it ultimately reveals the truth of who we are as persons.] “Mere appearances, dishonesty and deception harm and pervert the heart. Despite our every attempt to appear as something we are not, our heart is the ultimate judge, not of what we show or hide from others, but of who we truly are. It is the basis for any sound life project; nothing worthwhile can be undertaken apart from the heart. False appearances and untruths ultimately leave us empty-handed. (DN 6)

“Instead of running after superficial satisfactions and playing a role for the benefit of others, we would do better to think about the really important questions in life. Who am I, really? What am I looking for? What direction do I want to give to my life, my decisions and my actions? Why and for what purpose am I in this world? How do I want to look back on my life once it ends? What meaning do I want to give to all my experiences? Who do I want to be for others? Who am I for God? All these questions lead us back to the heart. (DN 8)

“The heart has been ignored in anthropology, and the great philosophical tradition finds it a foreign notion, preferring other concepts such as reason, will or freedom. The very meaning of the term is imprecise and hard to situate within our human experience. Perhaps this is due to the difficulty of treating it as a ‘clear and distinct idea’, or because it entails the question of self-understanding, where the deepest part of us is also that which is least known. Even encountering others does not necessarily prove to be a way of encountering ourselves, inasmuch as our thought patterns are dominated by an unhealthy individualism. Many people feel safer constructing their systems of thought in the more readily controllable domain of intelligence and will. The failure to make room for the heart, as distinct from our human powers and passions viewed in isolation from one another, has resulted in a stunting of the idea of a personal centre, in which love, in the end, is the one reality that can unify all the others. (DN 10)

“If we devalue the heart, we also devalue what it means to speak from the heart, to act with the heart, to cultivate and heal the heart. If we fail to appreciate the specificity of the heart, we miss the messages that the mind alone cannot communicate; we miss out on the richness of our encounters with others; we miss out on poetry. We also lose track of history and our own past, since our real personal history is built with the heart. At the end of our lives, that alone will matter. (DN 11)

[The heart is is the vitally integrated center of all our faculties, the core of our whole person from which we give and receive love.] [My faculties of the] “mind and the will are put at the service of the greater good [of the heart] by sensing and savouring truths, rather than seeking to master them as the sciences tend to do. The will desires the greater good that the heart recognizes, while the imagination and emotions are themselves guided by the beating of the heart. It could be said, then, that I am my heart, for my heart is what sets me apart, shapes my spiritual identity and puts me in communion with other people.” (DN 13-14)

Saint John Paul II Helps Married People and Families

Happy Feast of Saint John Paul II !!! 

This is a very special day in our family, because of the great grace we received at the very beginning of our married life. Eileen and I met this tremendous Pope on our honeymoon, on July 3, 1996. 

We spoke to him and told him that we were from the Communion and Liberation movement in the U.S.A.—which seemed to please him very much—and we hugged him and told him that we loved him. He was by this time at the beginning of his long struggle with Parkinson’s disease, and it also seemed like he carried in his heart all the profound sufferings of the Church and the world. I sensed the powerful and vulnerable reality of his humanity, and his own need for love and solidarity. I wanted very much to “stand with him” in that moment, when I said, “We love you, Holy Father.” He responded very deliberately and personally in English, “Thank you.” We then asked him to bless our marriage, and he traced the sign of the cross on our foreheads and said, “God bless you.” 

Thus he blessed our marriage from the beginning, some 28+ years ago. Since then we have felt the strength of his accompaniment and the great compassion of his humanity as a sign of the closeness of Jesus Christ in all our trials and our joys. This became something new and greater after his death in 2005, and we are grateful now that we can call upon him daily as a saint in the Church. 

And every night, before we go to sleep, Eileen and I still bless each other by tracing the cross on each other’s forehead. We did the same with the kids when they were growing up and we still bless Jojo, our youngest, who lives with us. 

John Paul II is a saint who intercedes especially, I think, for the strengthening of the Christian and human vocation of families, for their living communion in Christ. He also helps married couples to grow in love, to forgive each other every day, to persevere through trials, and to live together the grace of the sacrament of marriage through all the stages of married life, so that we can experience the many changes in our married life and in each other as persons as a continual “calling” from Jesus to remain in Him together, to trust in His merciful love, and to be open to each other in such a way as to be “surprised” by renewed and deepened affection, understanding, and gratitude to God and each other. .

I want to encourage people—especially young people—to take up this vocation of marriage, especially in a society that fears permanence, where people think they want to “keep their options open” forever, to “hold on to their freedom” even though freedom is meant to be used for the good. Freedom is made for love. Freedom is the capacity to give one’s self away, to take the risk of love of an “other” person, to move beyond ourselves and bring us to find ourselves again in relationships and communion. We can be sure that Saint John Paul II continues to say “Be not afraid” to commit yourselves to the lifelong human adventure of walking together with Jesus in the fundamental human companionship of marriage, which the Lord “supernaturalizes” by the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony into a sign of His healing and transforming love. Be not afraid to get married in Christ, who remains with you and whose grace is stronger than all your inadequacies, and who will bring you sustenance and joy in the Holy Spirit all through your married life. He will never abandon you and will give you the grace to endure together, with love, the many sacrifices and sufferings that come, building you up in His wisdom even when life feels like a whirlwind and you’re confused and you think you’re doing everything wrong. You will mess up a lot, which will humble you and teach you to ask for forgiveness and to give and receive forgiveness.

Dear young people, young married couples and those discerning marriage, be not afraid. Jesus has a strong hold on you; He embraces you in His crucified and risen arms and He won’t let go. Trust in Him, pray together, and never give up. Marriage is a step toward eternal life and a commitment to the continuation of human history—the history that belongs to Jesus, the history in which He has chosen to dwell. We also have the friendship of the saints on this journey (as we do in every state or circumstance of life). John Paul II is truly one of the great ones. He is a great help to anyone who seeks the presence of Christ in their lives, in the humanity of themselves and others, in the truth and beauty that draws them, in the suffering that Christ has taken upon Himself.

Saint John Paul II, pray for us, pray for married people, and for families! Pray for us all, for the Church, for the whole world. Pray for us to experience the mercy of God our Father who really loves us and wants us to live forever; to experience the mercy of Jesus Christ His Son who took our human nature to become one of us so that He could save us and transform us and dwell with us because He wants to be with us now and forever; to experience the mercy of the working of the Holy Spirit who transforms our way of seeing reality, so that everything reveals itself as a sign of the mystery, gratuity, and purpose of God who draws all things to Himself. The One God—a Trinity of three persons in ineffable communion—pours out gratuitous love so that we come into being and exist and seek the fullness of life, and pours out a greater gratuitousness in the grace that calls us, stirs up our hearts, gives us the desire for God, and draws us into a participation in Divine life, now and forever.

Begging For Abandonment to the Love of Christ

We all have this place where we suffer, where we face our own inadequacy, where we discover the smallness of our hearts and the pettiness of all our deeds.

And it is here that Jesus asks each one of us, in the most penetrating and poignant way, to believe in Him, to trust Him.

I do believe that He loves me with an infinite love, giving Himself for me on the Cross, pouring Himself out in the Eucharist, and drawing me to Himself through His ongoing companionship with me in the Church. He summons me from within the relationships entrusted to me, and the cries of the poor and the powerless whose afflictions wound my heart, whose need I recognize as my own, whose desire awakens me to share their struggles and their patience.

The love of Jesus is within the fabric of my life. It is mysterious and yet I know it constitutes “who I am” and draws me toward “who I want to be.” The love of Jesus gives meaning to everything and opens up the possibility for hope in every moment.

Why do I fail to entrust everything to this Great Lover? Why am I afraid? What more could He possibly do to deserve my trust?

Jesus, I entrust to You what seems so often to me to be such a complicated business, namely the abandonment of myself to You, the giving of everything over to You, the surrender of everything to You...even my weakness.

Jesus, I entrust "my-entrusting-of-myself-to-You" TO YOU! 

That's an awkward way of putting it. But I'm sure He knows what I mean.

I will not give up. Even if I am broken, God is still God, and still Glorious – even more clearly so, for He takes my brokenness upon Himself. Here, more than anywhere, it is clear that He is worthy of all my love. He has proven Himself. Thus, in every circumstance – even in the face of the prospect that I have nothing to give, that I am worthless, that all my aspirations in life may end in failure – the only reasonable possibility for me is to love God.

So even if I am nothing, I still have the desire—the need—to love Him. I beg that I might be able to love Him.

From nothing, God creates, God brings forth life. Jesus I trust in You. Convert me. Conquer me. Recreate me in Your merciful love. Give me a new heart.

Saint Luke, Apostle and Evangelist

Happy Feast of Saint Luke, Apostle and Evangelist. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, he was the human author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. He was also the companion of Saint Paul on some of his missions.

“I handed on to you first of all what I myself received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures; that he was buried and, in accordance with the Scriptures, rose on the third day" (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

The Radical Trust of Ignatius of Antioch

Today we celebrate Ignatius of Antioch, a man who was killed violently over 1900 years ago. We have the texts of his last letters, in which he expressed his love for Jesus Christ, whom he believed would bring him to a fulfillment beyond anything he could attain in this world, and beyond anything that could threaten him in this world. 

He understood his death as the gateway to eternal life, his martyr’s death in union with Jesus who was crucified and is risen, whose love conquers sin and death and gives meaning to all of life. Ignatius, reflecting on his approaching martyrdom for Christ, said, “Then I shall truly be a man.”

"Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching to God. I am God’s wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ" (Saint Ignatius of Antioch, while heading to the Colosseum for martyrdom, 110 AD).

Countless others from every nation and people have faced death with the same confidence, the same hope, surrender, and love for Jesus Christ. On this very day, Jesus is transforming peoples’ lives. Even today, the Holy Spirit is giving people the faith, hope, and love for God that enables them to experience suffering and death in Christ—the One who reveals that God is our Father, that He loves us, that He wants us live forever.

October 17: Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr, circa year 110.

Saint Teresa of Avila and Bernini’s “Ecstasy in Stone”

HAPPY FEAST OF SAINT TERESA OF AVILA (the "O.G. Teresa" of all the Teresas).

Here is a glimpse of the incomparable art of the baroque-era sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680): a detail from "Saint Teresa in Ecstasy" (just so you notice: that's made out of stone, everybody). This is in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, which is, of course, in Rome! The sculpture is inspired by Teresa's account of a mystical experience in her autobiography, of being wounded by the love of God.

But Teresa was very “down-to-earth” in much that she said, and she offers words of hope for all of us. She reminds us that the Lord is “never weary of giving and never can [his] mercies be exhausted. Let us not tire of receiving” (Saint Teresa of Avila).

The Grandkids Are Growing and Growing!

In this picture you can see how big Anna is getting. She likes to pull my beard and squeeze my nose. In fact, after this pic was taken she tried to bite my nose. She does have a couple of teeth, but that doesn’t matter. Still, I don’t want her to put her mouth over my nose, because my nose is full of “old man germs” or whatever. And what if I sneeze? So I told her, “no, Anna, we don’t put Papa’s nose in our mouth.”

Anna doesn’t quite walk yet, but she gets around—oh boy does she scamper. And she is purposeful when she’s on the move. If Papa puts down his coffee mug, he’d better keep an eye on it. She will lock in on that mug like a target and start to move in for “exploration.” But she is a sweetheart, full of smiles and cheerfulness (except when she’s hungry / tired / etc etc etc… all the usual caveats for a nearly 11 month old baby).

Then, of course, there’s Maria. This Fall is a bit different because Maria has begun going to Montessori School at the “Primary level” (for 3-6 year-olds) on weekday mornings. Montessori Primary is a serious enterprise, where “preschool” children learn through guided interaction with an environment specially structured for them. I am amazed when I remember Josefina starting her first year of Primary in 2009, i.e. fifteen years ago. Now Maria has embarked on her Montessori adventure, and I know she will benefit from this remarkable pedagogy—which I have written about numerous times on this blog over the years (see, for example, HERE)—a pedagogy that educates the child’s whole person.

Maria communicates pretty well, and she also has quite a sense of humor. Thank God for both of these precious grandchildren! Here is a recent video (accessible only through this link) of Papa and Maria hanging out in the afternoon. More and more, we are having “two-way conversations.” Watch below:

True Wealth is Being Loved By God

The Gospel reading for Sunday, October 13, 2024 challenges us to remember that being loved by Jesus, belonging to Jesus, and following Him are our true wealth. And since the Father has sent Jesus as the gift of His love to bring us to salvation, we must never lose hope. If we allow Him to free us from our illusions of mastery over reality—from all the ways we grasp at things and seek to wrench some sort of (ultimately always inadequate) "happiness" from them—then our arms will be free to adhere to Him every moment, every day, every step on the road to the Kingdom of God. In hope we have confidence in Him for whom all things are possible.

Consider the opinion held by some biblical scholars that this rich man who encounters Jesus and goes away "sad" doesn't necessarily stay away from Him. He remembers Jesus's "look of love" and eventually does become a disciple. In fact, he may be Saint Mark the Evangelist himself, the author of this Gospel, the only one of the evangelists who mentions in this story that "Jesus, looking at him, loved him."

God loves us, and all things are possible to Him. Never give up hope. Trust in Jesus, always.

"As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, 'Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus answered him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.'

"He replied and said to him, 'Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.'

"Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, 'You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.' At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

"Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, 'How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!' The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, 'Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.'

"They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves, 'Then who can be saved?' Jesus looked at them and said, 'For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.'"

~Mark 10:17-27

The Simplicity and Courage of Saint John XXIII

Today is the celebration of the saint who was Pope when I was born in 1963. In part, my parents named me “John” in his honor (as well as my grandfather and Saint John the Baptist), so with his canonization in 2014 I acquired “another patron saint.” (My son John Paul and my daughter Teresa similarly acquired “retroactive patrons” when St John Paul II and St “Mother” Teresa of Kolkata were canonized.)

St John XXIII’s celebration is today, not because it is the anniversary of his death, but because on October 11, 1962 he officially opened the Second Vatican Council. His papacy only lasted five years, but it was momentous for the Church and the world. The 1960s saw the rapid emergence of “the new epoch” of unprecedented global interconnectedness and interdependence driven by the gigantic scope of technological power with all its vast possibilities and dangers. This world was (is) more desperately in need of God, but also more enthralled than ever with ideologies of allegedly “scientific” materialism and human self-sufficiency.

John XXIII attributed the idea of the Council to an inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and he surprised everyone by announcing it in the first months of his papacy—on the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, January 25, 1959. In addition to opening the first session of the Council and shaping its fundamental orientation, John XXIII wrote two landmark encyclicals (Mater et Magistra and Pacem in Terris) developing Catholic social teaching in light of worldwide challenges that remain with us today:

“Man is not just a material organism. He consists also of spirit; he is endowed with reason and freedom. He demands, therefore, a moral and religious order; and it is this order—and not considerations of a purely extraneous, material order—which has the greatest validity in the solution of problems relating to his life as an individual and as a member of society, and problems concerning individual states and their inter-relations.

“It has been claimed that in an era of scientific and technical triumphs such as ours man can well afford to rely on his own powers, and construct a very good civilization without God. But the truth is that these very advances in science and technology frequently involve the whole human race in such difficulties as can only be solved in the light of a sincere faith in God, the Creator and Ruler of man and his world.”

~Mater et Magistra 208-209 [May 1961]

My Latest Portrait in Honor of Christina Grimmie

Remembering the astonishing, magnificent, heroic Christina Grimmie after eight years and four months.

Life, Possibility, and Surprise

Flowers in the Fall. Every year I find more of them!

I have been getting out in this beautiful October weather. The days are getting cooler, the sun has been bright, and the air is fresh.

So I made a video with a few reflections on getting old, how it feels peculiar and difficult, but also on the wonder contained in every moment, the sense of abundant experience and also the possibility to grow, to be surprised, to discover more and more that — whatever the circumstances we face — life deep down yearns to say “yes” and to express gratitude.

Here’s the VLOG:

Prayer and Fasting for Peace

“On this day, I have urged everyone to observe a day of prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting are the weapons of love that change history, the weapons that defeat our one true enemy: the spirit of evil that foments war, because it is ‘murderous from the beginning’, ‘a liar and the father of lies’ (John 8:44). Please, let us devote time to prayer and rediscover the saving power of fasting!” (Pope Francis).

A Rosary For Peace

This evening, Pope Francis assembled at the ancient Basilica of Saint Mary Major with bishops and others from around the world who are in Rome for the current Synod. They prayed the Rosary for peace, anticipating tomorrow’s feast of Our Lady of the Rosary and also the first anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack that precipitated the ongoing, terrible war in Gaza. This war continues to rage and has now spread to Lebanon. With the Israeli military fighting Hamas and Hezbollah—proxy forces of Iran—the specter of further escalation and even open war between Israel and Iran is a grave concern. Millions of innocent civilians find themselves in the crosshairs of destructive forces that seem willing to attack them with indiscriminate and disproportionate means that some say amount to “total war.”

Meanwhile, the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with Russia occupying a third of Ukraine’s sovereign territory while it continues to push west along the front and rain down bombs daily all across Ukraine, targeting civilian infrastructure so as to break down the Ukrainian people’s access to water, heat, and electricity. The Pope has spoken of his closeness to the people of what he always calls “Martyred Ukraine.”

Francis has invited Catholics, Christians, and all people to observe tomorrow’s feast as a day of prayer and fasting for peace. “Invited” means it’s not obligatory, dear Catholics, but it’s still worth doing and much needed. It’s a plea to the Lord, a work of mercy, and a sign of our solidarity with those who are currently suffering greatly from the evil effects of these wars and others that we never hear about. 

We need miracles in this world that is so dominated by violence. Let’s humble ourselves, make sacrifices, pray and beg the Lord for miracles of grace, forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing. The tenderness of the great heart of Mary reawakens our trust in Jesus who is Lord of these difficult times and of all history.

In today’s Rosary, Francis once again showed his particular devotion to the Mother of Jesus through the ancient icon specially venerated by the people of the city of Rome and know as “Maria Salus Populi Romani.”

Here is a portion of a prayer he addressed to the Mother of God after the Rosary:

Turn your maternal gaze upon the human family, which has lost the joy of peace and the sense of fraternity. Intercede for our world in danger, so that it may cherish life and reject war, care for those who suffer, the poor, the defenseless, the sick, and the afflicted, and protect our Common Home.

We invoke you for the mercy of God, O Queen of Peace! Transform the hearts of those who fuel hatred, silence the din of weapons that generate death, extinguish the violence that brews in the heart of humanity, and inspire projects for peace in the actions of those who govern nations.

O Queen of the Holy Rosary, untie the knots of selfishness and disperse the dark clouds of evil. Fill us with your tenderness, uplift us with your caring hand, and grant us your maternal caress, which makes us hope in the advent of a new humanity where “… the wilderness becomes a garden land and the garden land seems as common as forest. Then judgment will dwell in the wilderness and justice abide in the garden land. The work of justice will be peace…” (Isaiah 32:15-17).

O Mother, Salus Populi Romani, pray for us!

Saint Francis on Being "Servants" of Everyone

Happy Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi!

"We must be simple, humble and pure. We should never desire to be over others. Instead, we ought to be servants who are submissive to every human being for God’s sake. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on all who live in this way and persevere in it to the end. He will permanently dwell in them. They will be the Father’s children who do his work" (Saint Francis of Assisi).

“I Say I’m Just Fine, But I Don’t Feel Alright on the Inside”

I want to ask for your prayers, in light of recent circumstances.

Yesterday afternoon, I fell in the kitchen. I'm not entirely sure what caused me to fall, but I fell down, full body, on my left side. I immediately got up again and looked myself over. I knew I hadn't broken any bones and I felt no evidence of any strains or sprains. There seemed to be nothing more than just a few bumps and bruises. It wasn't the first time I've fallen, obviously – I have had a broad range of very peculiar mobility problems since the year 2002, but I haven't fallen in quite a while.

I've been very careful. I've been in the process of gradually trying to build up my strength by daily walks, trying to get a stride going. I bring my cane for assistance, but I find that sometimes, when I have a good stride going, I can do alright without it, and I tuck it under my arm. I don't take long walks, but I have been working on trying to strengthen my general mobility. So it was disappointing to fall in the kitchen yesterday. However, I felt fine. I should have remembered more clearly that a fall like that could blossom into other symptoms typical of my condition. I have most recently referred to this condition as “Long Lyme,” and indeed – in light of troubling cases of “Long COVID” that have emerged in recent years since the Pandemic – the medical profession in the United States seems more open to researching whether there might be enduring physical causes of what some have called “post-Lyme-syndrome.” There is, of course, lots of research showing that borrelia bacteria can remain in the body, and that they have their own protective mechanisms for evading the immune systems of at least some people. Then, of course, there is the fact that for years and years a significant percentage of Lyme patients have consistently complained about recurring and sometimes debilitating symptoms even after completing the standard course of antibiotic treatment.

But I digress. Let me return to “the fall.”

I should have taken it very easy (physically and mentally) for the remainder of the day. But instead, I “shook it all off” and continued with my day, mostly doing work in a sedentary position or laying on my bed surrounded by books and my usual gadgets. And then, at around six o'clock in the evening, I decided to go out for my walk. I had not noticed significant pain in any part of my body – by which I mean “no new pain”; just the same old, same old pain. 

And I am very much accustomed to pushing through pain, the normal kind of pain that comes from whatever residual abnormal factors remain from my health condition or have gradually arisen and increased with age. So I'm used to “pushing myself through” these usual aches and tiredness. I took a long walk, and pushed myself. I knew I was pushing myself, and I wanted to push myself. Usually, it's worth it.

But at the end, as I approached my house and began to slow down, I began to realize that I had pushed myself too far. Nevertheless, I still had things to do. I continued to slow down in order to regain balance in my body, and I drank plenty of water in order to make sure I was well-hydrated. 

Then I had a meeting on Zoom. During that meeting, I was sitting and feeling very, very uncomfortable. I was beginning to feel pain all through my body, but especially in the left thigh. Maybe I’d sprained something. But also, maybe I’d started to “relapse.” There’s always the possibility of triggering a “flare-up” of the Lyme disease bacteria that are presumably latent and inactive in my system, or triggering whatever-else-it-is-that-causes-renewed-symptoms (“Chronic Lyme,” “Post-Lyme,” “Long Lyme,” or maybe even a new infection from some recent tick bite I failed to notice — this is the Shenandoah Valley, after all). I’m used to periodic flare-ups, and I generally know how to get through them. But some flare-ups are more severe than others. .

This is what a big Lyme flare-up feels like: pain comes rolling down your body “like an avalanche,” as Avril Lavigne – the famous singer-songwriter “pop-punk-princess” and fellow Lyme sufferer – describes it in another of her poignant and compelling songs (“Avalanche”). This song dispenses with the unnecessary “emphatic-profanity” that Avril has used in too many of her songs since her third album (sorry, Avril, but it's too much, and it just projects vulgarity and anxiety – not the “tough-rock-chick” …ah, but this is another story for another time).

The pain was still predominantly in my leg. It was not the kind of pain that was going to make life unbearable. But it was enough pain to make me have a new source of discomfort. The fact is that I'm not very good at handling pain. I don't like pain, obviously. Who does? I am not very good at handling pain, especially acute localized pain.

I've had to slowly sort of manage the aches that are customary in my life and learn how to deal with them using various different “tricks”: Deep breathing and slow movement exercises (not Yoga or any particular system). Careful stretching and making sure I move around all through the day, taking Tylenol when I need it (in measured quantities) and some key supplements, as well as some of my other medications, which are also good for pain management. There is one firm rule: No Opioids Allowed! I had lots of those in the early 2000s, but when they had to raise the doses, I developed intolerable “side-effects” and had to stop them. Thus I was saved from the “Opioid Crisis” that the pharmaceutical industry recklessly foisted on my country’s population near the beginning of the 21st century. Dealing with the “side-effects” was wretched, but it took me out of the opioid-prescription-circus long before it spiraled out of control and caused so much suffering. I don’t know how it would have turned out for me, but I thank God that I was removed from that dangerous model of pain management. I would have been too weak and too stupid to handle it on my own.

But back to my present story of falling in my kitchen, and straining my left leg by trying to “walk it off,” and the concerns I have at present.

Last night it was difficult to find a position to sleep (or, I should say, it was more difficult than usual, for more precise reasons). Blah! There was a new and troubling experience of pain in my legs, primarily in my left upper thigh. It felt like a stretch pain, like I had stretched or strained a muscle, with maybe some interior bruising. (Meanwhile, the “avalanche” was rumbling —musculoskeletal pain was rising in both legs, the back, and both shoulders.)

Why would anybody want to analyze a strain on a blog post? It's kind of funny in a way, because it's like, okay, I stretched that muscle a little too much, and I got a strain. I have compresses, I have magnesium, vitamin C, etc. etc. But when you have “Long Lyme” disease, you can't ever just take it for granted that a strain is a strain, a fall is a fall, and that's it. You have to pay attention to how things are going over the course of the next week or two to see if other parts of your body are starting to act “strangely.”

Very few people understand what this is like—this up-and-down disease combined with all my other problems, my OCD and depression. I felt like I was recuperating from the difficulties of the summer. Now I’ve got to start over. Other people express sympathy, but it’s only natural for them to think, “it can’t be that bad; he looks fine.” I’ve been dealing with this for over 20 years. What use is there in bothering other people about it? I get why Avril sings: “ask about me, I’m quick to change the subject” or “I say that I’m just fine, but I don’t feel alright on the inside…”

So it's back to bed rest again (mostly laying on my right side), and trying to take shelter from any “avalanches” of pain. I hope I don't find myself singing, “I think I'm running from an avalanche, I think I'm running from an avalanche, I think I'm running from an avalanche…”

“Whoa-ho-ho, whoa-ho-”… NO!