A lot of different things can go right or wrong during any given day. We can often wake up in the morning with a gloomy disposition that is turned around is a few moment by the recognition of a gift of grace seen and received. The same is true in the opposite direction, a good morning can be soured by an unkind word, action or thought that intrudes upon the moments of peace.
I was out on one of my early morning walks earlier this week. I had finished my rosary and was pondering how well the Dodgers would do against that other team this week. Lost in the reverie and hope of a sweep, (2-2 split was reality) I wasn’t paying much attention to my surrounding. Out of the blue the ferocious sounds of barking came springing towards me as I jumped back in alarm. Soon after was the panicked call of the owner and then the embarrassed asking of forgiveness. The pause, the words “not a problem” and then laughter. The ferocious dog was about 10 pounds in weight and not much danger to anything larger than himself.
In reality, I could have let this moment cloud my day to the negative. I was startled and it did bring my heart rate a tad bit higher. But there was also comedy in the moment that I could choose to live with too. I chose the later. In choosing the later I was able to hopefully bring a bit of peace to the dogs owner instead of the feelings that may have arisen.
Please believe when I say that this isn’t always the way I react. I could also use an example from this week when following a busy morning and knowing the afternoon was also heavily scheduled, a person stopped me before I exited the church and spoke those six words…”Father, do you have a moment?” Blood began to boil, pressure began to rise, eyes began to stare…I cold almost feel her recoil. I ruined my afternoon remembering and regretting the moment but I am also sure that her afternoon was not as joyous as it could have been if I had listened with grace rather than listening with my heart closed and turned away.
“Their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.” (Lk 24:16)
These words come from our Sunday Gospel and are written in the Road to Emmaus story in St. Luke’s Gospel. They are words that speak of a choice to see the good or the bad of any given day. What prevents our eyes from recognizing God’s presence in our life? What prevents our hearts from responding to recognizing God’s movement in the daily challenges set before us?
For me, and for many of us, it can be when I let the busyness of life become the all consuming focus. I won’t and can’t see anything else. I become so focussed on what I “want” to be done that I loose focus on what God wants of me.
How do we overcome this? We can look once more to Emmaus and Jesus’ patience and untiring love as he walks with them in their hurriedness to get home, their worriedness in what to do next and their disappointedness that things didn’t work out the way they had wanted them to do. Instead, he let them walk away from all of this and into the blessing of the Eucharist, the blessing of God’s presence.
We are reminded time and again how God uses our roads to bring us home when we choose to seek the blessings, even when they are hard blessings, difficult blessings and sad blessings. When we choose to walk with him then we will get it right most of the time because we are with him who is love and thanksgiving.
Many people say, “Of course they got it, it was Jesus with them. We don’t have Jesus with us.” My response was to remind them, myself and all of us, Jesus walks with us always because he has promised the he has “got us” until the end of time.
God bless
Fr. Mark

Sacraments are “powers that comes forth” from the Body of Christ, which is ever-living and life-giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in his Body, the Church. They are “the masterworks of God” in the new and everlasting covenant. (CCC #1116)

Many times in life we can begin to take the Sacraments for granted. We become lackadaisical in our practice and prayer of the Sacraments. Yes, even priests can fall into this trap. Then we are awoken again and witness the power of the sacramental grace God shares with us.
Many of us witnessed during the Easter Vigil at or parish the blessing a grace of the Sacraments of Initiation, Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist being celebrate with those who were being received into the Catholic Church. That moment is always one filled with joy. You can almost hear the Holy Spirit laughing with us as the new Catholics are washed, anointed and fed with God’s sacramental joy.
It is a joy coming from the Body of Christ and as the Church teaches above, it is “his Body, the Church” which we are participants in this life giving action of love. The wonder of the sacramental unity we share is our witness to this joyful blessing rather than a dour and listless action of ritual. When we simply become bystanders to these moments of grace, we begin to take God for granted and fail to live the practice of our faith.
The power of these sacramental moments are undeniable.
This past Easter Monday as I sat in and listened to many of the adults who had received the Sacraments they shared their experience with each other and the team that had prepared them. Each person began with a simple thank you and then talked about the “learning of the faith” through the long preparation of classes, retreats and prayer. Many of them then talked about the sacramental moment when the “powers that comes forth” touched them, transformed them and awoke them to a new and powerful moment of grace. They became living witnesses to faith as they talked about the Holy Spirit at work at the moment of Sacramental movement.

“The purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the Body of Christ and, finally, to give worship to God. Because they are signs they also instruct. They not only presuppose faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen, and express it. That is why they are called ‘sacraments of faith.”’(CCC #1123)

When we become living sacraments we begin to instruct with our very lives. We are living, breathing sacraments of grace in the world. What a wonderful gift. The question begins with: Am I practicing my sacrament with fervent joy and blessing or have I placed it on the back burner ignoring and allowing grace to be inactive in my life? This isn’t a casual question, for the Christian is is a question of life an death. And here is the good news, no matter where our practice of our sacramental life is at this point, God continues to invite us to allow His Holy Spirit to ignite us again and again and again and again… He gives us Sacraments of continual grace, Eucharist and Reconciliation to sustain us and enliven those moments of sacramental love as we recall our Baptismal, Confirmation, Marriage and Ordination vows and promises we made to bless God with each breath we share.
To be made holy, “to sanctify” is a blessing beyond all blessings. Jesus says to us in the Gospel, “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Lk 12:49) In practicing our faith, the sacramental grace, the holiness God has created us each to be our challenge is to be the fire burning with the love of Jesus Christ. A fire that attracts, invites and welcomes all into the presence of the one true God.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

“Our Lord guided the Twelve and led them home to was their feet. He signed them their role as heirs, and then rose to serve them as their friend.” (from “Hymn on the Washing of the Feet” by Cyrillona)
The beautiful words above begin our Triduum celebration this Holy Thursday as we celebrate The Mass of the Lord’s Supper. The words and actions from the Gospel of John this evening (Jn 13:1-15) remind us of this great act of service and love for a friend. It is also an action we are called to carry out in our relationships of love toward friend, neighbor and even our enemies. Jesus is preparing his first disciples and all who would follow them in the example of sacrificial love. The act of washing the feet of the disciples is met with dismay, confusion and for St. Peter refusal. How often in receiving the gift of love from God do we respond in a similar way?
We can find ourselves responding in these negative fashion because it calls for us to change our lives, to enter into conversion where we follow Jesus as a friend and brother in returning to him the gift of sacrificial love we have received.
Will you follow me? This is the question that Jesus poses again and again in the Gospel. Will you allow me to wash you clean? This is Jesus’ sacramental call to follow him through the refusal, dismay and confusion. Will you trust in my Father’s will for you? He asks us as a friend as a friend willing to give everything to us.

“Thanks to the Cross we no longer fear the tyrant, for we are by the side of the King.” (from Discourses on the Cross and the Thief by St. John Chrysostom.)
Our response to Jesus’ command to be washed and to wash is magnified as we celebrate the Good Friday of our Lord’s Passion. The confusion, dismay and refusal are magnified tenfold in the watching and participating in the movement of Divine Suffering and Divine Love. Even in the practice of love we will fall down and fail. But there we discover the true mercy and compassion, the reconciliation and friendship of Jesus Christ. “The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, “Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.”And he went out and wept bitterly.” (Lk 22:61-62) What did Peter see in the eyes of Jesus? Compassion, mercy and love…and he wept. He wept not because of fear and anguish but in repentance and hope, in the knowledge of reconciliation and forgiveness. On Good Friday as we come to venerate the Cross we echo the words of grace quoted above where our fear is turned to hope because we see in the eyes of Jesus the gift of life shared even in suffering and death. And then we enter into the great silence.

“Allow the light to open our eyes, so that we may look upon this splendor of light with radiant eyes, able to see the cause for such a brilliant night with unclouded minds.” (from Sermon Guelpherbytanus 5 by St. Augustine of Hippo) We have prayed through the hours of silence to the moment of resurrection and hope. In the obedience to Love we have lived, through these past forty days and all our lives, our eyes unclouded by fear see God as he truly is and how He participates in each and every moment of our lives, not as a puppeteer pulling strings but as a beloved embracing and lifting su up in love through grace. Jesus stands with us and calls us by name with the voice of peace. Jesus walks with us and invites us to hear him whispering joy. Jesus walks through the locked doors of our souls to free us from the sin of self imprisonment. He is with us for one reason…He loves each of us with the greatest love.

God Bless
Fr. Mark
All quotes come from “Lent and Easter with the Church Fathers” by Marco Pappalardo

This Sunday is “Palm Sunday” or as it is officially known “The Sunday of our Lord’s Passion.” We call it by this name because we traditionally hear the Gospel of Matthew about Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem and then the Passion Narrative from the Gospel. In this we begin our Holy Week. In our prayer booklet “Refresh and Renew Your Life” the Sunday reflection is entitled “It’s been one of those weeks!” (p 41)

We have all suffered through one of those days, weeks, months, years, decades that surely try our faith and challenge us to see things differently in life. The author advises us, “Accept that setbacks and bad news aren’t what matters. But our response does, as we look at how we can change things. Tough times don’t last, but opportunities for great things to come do. Just ask someone who’s been there.” (p 41)

Take time to think about this a little. Often times I pray for more patience. It never seems to be enough and I know for the confessional that many people, in their family, professional and recreational life suffer from this same sin. But in the end, the sin isn’t impatience, the sin is our response to being impatient with others. It is a hard thing to do, but to be gentle in our impatience, to be merciful in our impatience, to be loving with our impatience and ultimately to be patient with our impatience is the call of discipleship. Following the quote above…accept that the impatience I suffer from isn’t what matters…it is what I do when I am impatient that truly is the gift (good or bad) given to God and his people from me.

How does this look? I was watching the Masters Golf Tournament of a short while yesterday (Thursday) and Justin Spieth, one of the best golfers in the world, shot a quadruple bogie on a hole…that’s bad…but he responded with a birdie on the following hole…that’s good. The reality is the quadruple bogie was terrible and will live on his score card forever but the blessing come from not allowing the quadruple bogie to define the next hole, the next shot, the rest of the tournament. Because this is often what we allow sin to do…it has been one of those days so when I arrive home….I drink too much…watch television instead of talking with my spouse…argue with children/parents…complain about whatever….and we can each name a behavior that we allow to dominate the rest of the day rather than seeking to goodness of life and turn to the gift of love.

This becomes the Christian response to hurts and sufferings…no we do not want to be hurt or suffer nor do we hope others are in suffering and pain in their lives…but we understand that even there God is with us and wants us to turn to him and see the love that He shares with us in abundance. And this takes practice…no, not practice in suffering but practice in loving our way through our sins in prayer and communion with one another and God. It is the practice of those old fashioned but alway new virtues that strengthen our hearts and wills in the exercise of seeking God.

These words from St. Francis de Sales may sum it up for us. “We must hate our shortcomings, but with a hate that is tranquil and peaceful, not with a hate that is fretful and troubled; and, yes, we must have patience to see our shortcomings and to profit from the saintly abasement of ourselves. Failing that, my daughter, your imperfections, which you see very acutely, will trouble you even more keenly, and, by this means maintain themselves, as there is nothing which sustains our defects more than a sense of anxiety and haste to eliminate them.” In other words, the practice of virtue isn’t magic but rather the gentle growth in the virtues of holiness drawing us ever closer to God and the holy people he calls us to love.

God Bless Fr. Mark

“The Cross of Christ is the sacrament of the true and prophetic altar on which, through the host of salvation the offering of human nature is celebrated.” (from St. Leo the Great, Oration 55,3)

As we move closer to Holy Week we move closer to the Cross of Christ. It is a natural progression and one that is a true and joyful blessing for each of us. Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, in his book “The Passion and the Cross” remind us that at the center of the quote from St. Leo the Great, the passion and the cross are not about the physical suffering of Jesus but the transformative trust in a relationship of love with God, who is our Father.
This continues to be our passion we follow through out the 40 days of Lent in the sometimes painful and lonely growth that comes from our discipline of fasting, prayer and giving of alms. It is a moment of trust and opening our hearts to the sacrificial grace and love we are called to participate in through giving and receiving. Wonderful and beautiful thoughts…but how does it work in the world we are called to participate in as transformative disciples of love?
Okay, let’s thinks about his and break it down a little.
The Cross of Christ is a sacrament: “it is important to recognize that the Sacraments have a visible and invisible reality, a reality open to all human senses but grasped in its God-given depths with the eyes of faith.” (p 168 US Catholic Catechism for Adults) in other words, a sacrament shows a reality that is hidden. God’s love of the cross, the obedience to love on the cross is the reality that is offered, a love not hidden in darkness but on display to the whole world. We are challenged to live the same obedience to love in following the will of God in our daily life…that carrying the cross thing.
The Cross of Christ is true: It is not deceptive or a lie. It shows God’s gift of love. Bishop Robert Barron in his video series “Catholicism” states that looking on the cross of Jesus, if we truly see with the eyes of faith we see a man consumed in joyfulness because Jesus has done the will of his Father. It is the joyful obedience to follow him because it brings lasting peace.
The Cross of Christ is a prophetic altar: prophetic words change lives and the altar, in our Catholic liturgies, is were lives are changed, transformed and made new each and every Eucharistic celebration. When we choose to place our lives on the altar with Jesus, we embrace the cross and become living prophetic word sent into the world.
The Cross of Christ is salvation: forgiveness flows from the cross. We know we cannot forgive and be forgiven alone, Jesus reaches out to us from the cross and seeks to gather us as one. He speaks words of forgiveness and mercy from his pierced heart as we come and drink from his thirst for our presence with him.
Humanity is celebrated by the offering of the Cross of Christ: “I will see the image of God in everyone whom I meet. And I will love them as Jesus loves each one of us. In this is to be found the great secret of charity.” (from “Before the Altar” by Concepcion Cabrera de Armida) When we see God on the cross in this great passion of love then we are able to see our true humanity and seek out the suffering brothers and sisters in the works of mercy Jesus calls us to be and live each and every day.
It is really very simple if we begin to practice virtue daily in our lives but it is also the most difficult act of love you and I will ever participate in because it requires to the full and complete self-donation Jesus offers to us from the cross and invites us to imitate.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

Earlier this week I was on retreat (yes, retreat again) with our 8th Grade graduating class. It is always a blessing to share some time with our children from our parish school and recognizing the gifts these wonderful young people share as they talk about their faith and pray together for each other and the world.
One of the activities they were asked to do was to write a letter to their future self, next year, which they will receive. Of course we should all look forward to who we wish to become, what we wish to do, how we accomplish the ultimate goal which is always heaven and holiness.
Adults continually do this with work, family and play. I talk with families who have vacation and plans laid out sometimes years in advance. High school students who have goals of college and career well into the future. And, of course, shorter term wishes by the children who look forward to camps in the summer of presents at Christmas.
But what happens when life interrupts our plans, goals and wishes? What happens within our lives and especially our relationships with family, friends and God?
These are important questions because life is always full of interruptions. Plans are great but as the famous saying goes…we make plans and God laughs. He laughs not because he doesn’t want us to succeed or be happy, he laughs because he knows us and knows plans are always waiting for the next interruption to occur.
In my own life I can go down a long list of plans that have been interrupted by many things. We can start in high school. I wanted to be a Marine. I did become a Marine but during the time I was serving I found out that being a Marine wasn’t my dream…I wasn’t called to serve above the four years of my enlistment. The plan of being a Marine was interrupted by reality. In college I wanted to study German. I did go to Germany, and the University of Constance, for a year but I soon discovered that my language ability was not great and I enjoyed the beer tasting as much as the learning of language. After graduating Holy Names College (now Holy Names University) I was at a loss of what to do…I really didn’t have a plan or focus…and this is where interruptions and God happen…I went to New Mexico to work for a summer at a wilderness camp and stayed two years as a teacher…which led me to seek a teaching credential…be employed at St. Lawrence the Martyr Middle School in Santa Clara…which challenged me to grow in my faith as I talked, taught and learned with my sixth grade classes and their parents…ending with finally hearing and accepting the call to priesthood.
I know that at times of being lost, if we have our hearts open to God’s gentle voice, we are able to hear the plan God has for each of us. And don’t get me wrong, I continued to try and plan out God’s plan for me over and over again…being frustrated with God, angry with God but always in conversation with God knowing that in my call to serve God as a priest, just as we are all called in our proper vocations, we find peace, joy and happiness in the life we are called to live.
Our Sunday Gospel and Reflection remind us of this truth, of seeing and hearing the presence of God within our lives. It is the faith based hope that goes beyond the ordinary and mundane into the glorious and eternal life with God. Our true goal is to align hour hearts with God’s goal for us….and sometimes the only way to find this goal is to become lost and then listen for the gentle whisper of love.
God bless
Fr. mark

This weekend I will be away on a Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend celebrating the joy of God’s call for man and woman to live in grace filled and joyous relations within the sacramental blessing of our Catholic tradition.
Our reading, this Sunday of the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:5-42) is a wonderful reflection on Christian conversion, hope and relationship with Jesus Christ. It is also a blessing to reflect on our sacramental life, especially the life of husband and wife as we sit and listen to the words Jesus speaks and the responses of the woman.
When we thirst, as the woman at the well thirsts, it is only satisfied in the plan God has designed for us, especially the design of the sacramental marriage of man and woman. The thirst of life is satisfied in the union of love with God as He is united to the couple in the unity of marriage.

Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen shares this wisdom with the Church, “The basis of unity is the fact that in this bond two persons are joined together so as to become “one flesh.” this inviolable bond according to our Divine Savior…The unity of two in one flesh is not just biological, as it is in animals, Rather, it has a spiritual and psychic quality understood by few.” (“Three to Get Marriage” p 123-24) We are reminded that made in the image and likeness of God we choose to seek unity and to seek it within the exclusive and holy relationship of spousal care. It the call to holiness by which our thirst is given a direction to be satisfied with not simply the earthly desire but the ultimate goal heavenly love.

St. Pope John Paul II continues this understanding proclaiming the divine love and the sacramental love given and shared is the life giving water energizing and bringing hope into our family relationships. He writes, “This communion is rooted in the natural bonds of flesh and blood and grows to it specifically human perfection with the establishment and maturing of the still deeper and richer bonds of the spirit. The love that animates the interpersonal relationships of the different members of the family constitutes the interior strength that shapes and animates the family communion and community.” ( Familiaris Consortio #21) It is the reality of a maturing love, a love growing and deepening in the vital gifts of sharing faith through acts of charity, forgiveness and mercy, receiving and giving in the joys and sadness of life.
The United States Bishops in their catechesis on marriage help us to see, as noted above, the unity with God, a life of faith draws us deeper into eternal life and love of marriage, where the permanent bond shared in life is sustained in embracing the cross of Jesus Christ in the divine “yes” echoing in the marital vows of love. They write, “No mortal can satisfy all our longings. Real marital unity is based on God’s covenant, a covenant which welcomes erotic desire, but which even more fundamentally commits mean and women to each other in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer. Christian marriage is not a romantic audition or a conditional arrangement “until further notice.” A so-called trial marriage.” (Love is Our Mission #58) It is in the passionate bond, where the hopes and dreams of life are shared and fulfilled that grace in built upon and the image and reality of the Most Holy Trinity shines forth in life.
Finally, Pope Frances shares with us this beautiful and powerful understanding of marriage, where marital love goes beyond the passions of the moment and deepens into the friendship which supports the growth of holiness in the spouse. He notes, “After the love that unites us to God, conjugal love is the ‘greatest form of friendship.’ It is a union possessing all the traits of a good friendship: concern for the good of the other, reciprocity, intimacy, warmth, stability and the resemblance born of a shared life. Marriage joins to all this an indissoluble exclusivity expressed in the stable commitment to share and safe tougher the whole of life.” (Amoris Laetitia #123) It is a friendship that endures through the vows prayed and shared built upon in the enduring love of God.

God bless

Lent is a time of great spiritual work…but we can and do at expect too much of Lenten spiritual growth at times. Many people, me included bite off more than we can chew. At least that is my tendency. We try to do too much, fail and then can become afraid of picking up the pieces and beginning again.
I had the pleasure (painful as it was) to watch the Golden State Warriors lose the other night to the Boston Celtics. Their 4th quarter was simply awful. You may or may not know that one of their four all stars is injured and since his injury they have played, to put it kindly, not so well. In many ways it looks like the remaining three all stars are doing too much and dropping the things that they do well because of this. It is a very natural tendency and something that the world encourages us to do…take on more, multitask and grab as much as possible. We do this at work and play. We are encouraged to keep our children scheduled and booked solid in the desire to impress some future high school or university admissions department. We can do this as families with busy schedules that separate and divide us throughout the days. Jesus reminds us, this is not the way to holiness.
Mathew Kelly, in “Rediscover Jesus” in Chapter 18 shares with us how we get out of balance and how the lifestyle of the world can lead us away from the unity of relationship with God and others. The simple fault is we begin to prioritize things (objects) above people (subjects) which isn’t new…happens all the time in my life. It isn’t that God doesn’t want us to be successful or have nice things in our life. God desires that we live in abundance and generosity. What is different, of course, is the abundance and generosity God desires is one of sharing and sacrifice with others. It is not simply the accumulation of “stuff”, “honors” or “experiences” to be filed away or to fill an empty nook in our life, rather it is the entering into the blessings of love and truth that offer us experiences of sharing life and love. It is the joy of entering into loving relationships that bear great fruit in our life and in the life of those we touch.
Our reflection this Friday is about “Excusing our bad habits” (p 11) which leads to the “AHA” moment of Sunday (p 13). During Lent we are encouraged to look at those parts of our life that do not produce joy and blessing, the “bad habits” that often have built slowly over the years but now have become anchors holding us apart from the love of life and the blessings of relationship. We are encouraged to not bite off too much but rather make a plan, a diet from the bad habits leading us towards the “aha” of this is how God invites me into joy. Because we cannot simply remove the “bad habit” without replacing it with the virtuous activity, the work of mercy, the blessing of love filling the void left by sin with the love of God’s truth and grace.
After this first full week of Lent, we may wish to reevaluate our resolutions and ask the question, “Is what I am offering God in prayer, fasting and alms this Lent bringing me closer to God?” and if not, then “What must I change?”
This change often means letting go of the extra and going back to the basic. Not trying to do more, but doing what we are called to do with greater intentionality and love with those around us. It is to embrace God’s plan, God’s grace, God’s joy and share it in the sacrificial love of life.
In the end, when we follow the path God has called us to follow, we live and find true peace and joy in our hearts. It is a path of generosity and love.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yZsjKuL3kQ&feature=youtu.be

“Praying is stretching a hand toward the Infinite! It is a loving dialogue between our own impoverishment and the greatness of God. Our meager words, silence, and abandonment, and meditation rise and go to the heavens. God will never hold back his hand when we turn to him with a sincere heart, with our limitations, and with our journey of faith.” (Origen, Prayer 33,1) from “Lent and Easter with the Church Fathers (p5)

Origen, a priest of the early Church, shares with us this peace of Lenten wisdom and hope in a God who is always present and wishes to be with us. If we take the image of the outstretched hand, it is a sign of hopefulness to many. We can think of how many times throughout the day we stretch out our hand towards others: to give, to receive, to thank, to greet, to help, to be helped, to pray, to bless, to protect, to console…..
We understand the power of the out stretched moment because it is truly an exchange of life, sometimes simple and at other times profound but always a connection of grace found in the human experience.
Our Gospel this Sunday, (Mt 4:1-11) is the story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert. In the story Satan, in his three temptation, wants Jesus to stretch out his hand towards him, and thereby deny his relationship with God. In each response Jesus gives to Satan he points back to his Heavenly Father. Stretching out his hand towards truth, compassion, justice, mercy and love. This is the center of Origen’s thought above.
We can see how this can work in our own lives, especially during this season of fasting, praying and giving of alms.
Fasting is not simply an interior exercise where we feel hunger or abstain from eating certain foods. Fasting is choosing to be in communion with those who do not share the abundance we have in our own life. It is not simply abundance of goods or food but also the abundance of peace and freedom so many people do not have but long for with hopefulness. It is our hand outstretched in the quest for justice.
Praying, too, is not only a spiritual exercise removed from the day to day reality of life. Prayer, united with fasting, helps us to enter into the communion we share as sons and daughters of the living God. Prayer places us in the heart of a greater community united in purpose and direction of gratitude for the blessing of life. It is our hand outstretched in the desire for oneness.
Giving of alms is more than the sharing of our treasure, time or talent, it is, united with prayer and fasting, the donation of our very self. We first and foremost share the alms of who we are with God and then this blessings flows forth from our lives to those around us. It is our hand outstretched in sacrificial love.
Jesus speaks to each of us with these words, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (Jn 15:15) To stretch out our hand is to acknowledge the other as worthy of love and of friendship. This changes everything. Our Lenten discipline of prayer, fasting and alms giving become acts of friendship with Jesus and with each person we meet. It is truly an act of love.
Matthew Kelly reminds us of this truth in “Resisting Happiness” when he writes, “Your friendship with others is not to be taken lightly. You are changing the direction of your friends’ lives, for better or for worse. Sooner or later, we all rise or fall to the level of our friendships.”(p155)
Friendship changes each persons life.
Jesus wants to change your life this Lent with his friendship. Whose life are you changing this Lent with your friendship?
God Bless
Fr. Mark

What are you giving up for Lent?  That question is burnt so deep into my Catholic imagination that no matter how often I talk about this phrase being backwards and the wrong way to approach our Lenten devotion, I still go back again and again…What are you giving up for Lent?
Yet, it remains a good question.  Lent is a time to take on but also to ”give up” certain things for Lent.  The trick of course remains the reality that what I choose to “give up” during Lent is bringing me closer to God and transform our lives into the image of the divine.  When we do the “give up” things it often ends with the binge at the end.  As a child my family’s go to “give up” was chocolate.  We would suffer for the 40 days of Lent and then on Easter morning gorge on the chocolate of the bunnies, eggs with the addition of the jelly beans and other sweets.  The problem with this was the suffering and fasting from chocolate was only pointed towards the end product…Easter Sunday…then everything went back to the way it was on Fat Tuesday the day before Ash Wednesday as we began the long and dreaded wait for the next Ash Wednesday to begin Lenten journey and the sacrifice and “give up” chocolate again.
I am sure in some way, this practice did have a good effect on my spiritual journey but it certainly did not seem that way during my childhood. So how should we think about our Lenten discipline and what should we “give up” for Lent?
What we sacrifice (give up) for Lent should be difficult and should lead to some sort of spiritual transformation.  One way of doing this is to tie the sacrifice (fasting) to our prayer life during the season.  The discipline of fasting should empty us to allow the presence of God, found through our prayer, to fill us and sanctify who we are as God’s holy children.
This, of course, takes planning a daily work. Matthew Kelly’s “Resisting Happiness” which we have been reading and talking about these past two months is a good way of thinking how we can accomplish this work of love.  Much like we are called to identify those moments of resistance, we may look at the list we have written or the area where we have encountered the greatest resistance and see if this is an area of fasting and sacrifice for Lent.  If we are able to identify a specific goal of fasting from the particular resistance, then we can begin to bring it to daily prayer in recognizing the blessing that flow from “giving up” this resistance to happiness.
So, what am I going to “give up” for Lent?  Well, I am going to be fasting from a particular computer game that I love to waste a little bit of time with each day.  I often play Mahjong tiles to procrastinate from the often needed work that needs to get done.  Is the worst thing in the world, no…but it does lead me away from both work and prayer times and it is wasting time…so that is what I am giving up.  How will I link this to my prayer? I will use my “wasted time” to pray with two small devotionals that I am using this Lent.  One which will be shared by my entire parish community “Refresh and Renew Your Life” and a second Lent and Easter with the Church Fathers”.  Rather than play the game I will take time pray and be with Jesus.
Attached a brief video from Busted Halo about the meaning of Lent.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

Ash Wednesday & Lent In Two Minutes