Joan Sauro

I have spent hours outside with a camera, photographing life's simple beauty and developing the negatives in a photographer's darkroom.

"Don't say there are no good Samaritans left," Sr. Joan Sauro writes. "They come in all ages, genders, colors, beliefs."

"There are angels in our backyard," writes Sr. Joan Sauro. "They hover in the silence of the large maple tree, with now and then, a slight stir, just to say, we're here. Angels in our backyard tree." 

"It is Palm Sunday eve, and here comes a strange-looking Christ figure with a shovel walking past our house," Sr. Joan Sauro writes. 

"I, the writer, am a mirror," writes Sr. Joan Sauro. "My words on the page are a mirror — when you read them, I hope you see, not the author, but yourself. You are not reading a page; you are looking into a mirror." 

Another year begins. Time for New Year's resolutions. Can we remember what last year's good intentions were? Maybe yes, and we are delighted. Maybe no, and those intentions are consigned to a museum, so to speak.

I plead with Christ. "Once you raised a little girl from the dead. Now I beg you to raise my brother Joseph from near death." I keep begging, birds keep singing, my brother keeps sinking. Keep, keep my brother alive, I pray.

The book stays open and the story never ends. The Lover still climbs to reach the Beloved. We've all hung on a ledge one place or another.

Here is a lesson from two Gospel no-names. Get a grip on your need, whatever it is, wherever it may be. Carry it as far as you can with every strength and ingenuity in you. Then let go.

The deaths of beloved friends leave memories — and a soft spot near my heart.

There is no joy in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 innocents were slaughtered, and two teachers who cared for them. Nor in Buffalo. Even in the face of hate, the love notes continue, yesterday, today and tomorrow.

"Each day is composed of hours and we are in one. Pay no mind to the hour before and the hour to come, if indeed there be one. We have only this hour. Embrace it. Love it as best you can. Here is the face of God."

The Suffering Face of Christ is everywhere to behold. Two lesbians are being evicted. The grammar school teacher throws up his hands after a year's shutdown and moves out. A 60-year-old neighbor cares for his 98-year-old cousin. 

The voice is rapturous, out of this world, so that even the lips of Christ smile because nothing is set in stone, not joy, not tears, not yesterday and, certainly, not tomorrow. Sing, sisters, sing.

The window is mysterious, does not give up its secrets easily. Then one day, unpredictable and unexpected, the figures slowly take shape, clear enough so there's no mistaking who they are.

My three favorite men in all the Gospels are two husky no-names, carrying their friend who is comatose, dead weight, out like a light and very heavy. The two know exactly where they are headed.

Each moment is eternal. One by one they are offered to us. Some minutes we take hold of, some not. No matter, they all remain. I was awestruck by the beauty in one such moment.

Early morning the walkers appear. ... Unchanging in the upheaval of change. And if they should forget the upheaval, news bulletins puncture the air with dire warnings.

I fell, got up and made my slow way, looking for what I had no idea. I felt like Dante, lost in a "dark wood, a wild and rough and stubborn wood." Which was a fair description of the coronavirus, as well.

The feast of the Annunciation - Recently at my friend's funeral, I started to think of all the nods we give in a day, just a simple bowing of the head. Yes.