The calendar year is coming to and end and the New Year of 2016 is ready to begin. It is a time of excitement and change as many people make their resolution on how they will begin to live their lives anew by changing long standing habits and promising with great sincerity to begin new things that will bring more joy, peace and happiness into their lives. Wonderful.

The truth is we all need to remove the bad habits from our lives and begin to practice the good habits that bring joy, peace and happiness into our lives. This is the challenge that we face: becoming the better person. In faith language we can take the above sentence and by changing a few words hear this: we all need to remove sin (vices) from our lives and begin to practice holiness (virtue) that brings true joy, true peace and true happiness into our lives and the life of the world.

I propose to you these very simple resolutions.

1. Celebrate Confession monthly: if you go to confession regularly…amen…if you don’t take time to begin. I know it can be hard to find time and parishes don’t always make it convenient to celebrate…but…resolutions are supposed to be a challenge and change in the way we do things. Just try. If you haven’t been in years or even just a few months, God’s mercy awaits you in this beautiful Sacrament of healing. Remember this: sin is bad and holiness is good. God made us holy and Confession renews our holiness.
2. Celebrate the Eucharist weekly: yes, GO TO MASS. More importantly celebrate Mass. Mass is a participatory prayer that is an ongoing conversation of love between God and His people. It is a conversation of thanksgiving and hope. If you don’t understand the Mass, then take time to read, learn and talk about the Mass with someone. Just begin and go…it is amazing how it will change your life when we, you and me, participate in the gift of the Mass rather than just observe it. Remember this: sin is bad and holiness is good. God made us holy and the Eucharist strengthens our life of holiness.
3. Celebrate your vocation daily: How have you lived your vocation today? What blessing did you bring to your spouse, children, family and friends through your vocation today? These are questions we should ask ourselves each day whether we are married or single, vowed religious or priests. All vocations are vocations to love in sacrificial service to the other. Service isn’t a bad thing…it is a great act of love. Choosing words, actions and thoughts that build rather than destroy are stepping-stones of love. We help build the pathway when we choose to love and forgive. Remember this: sin is bad and holiness is good. God made us holy and in our vocation we are called to be God’s sign of holiness in the world.
4. Pray hourly: Pray, pray, pray, pray, pray and then pray some more…if you don’t know how to pray then ask for help…if you get bored in prayer then ask for help…if you don’t have time for prayer then ask for help. Prayer begins with an attitude of thanksgiving in both good times and bad, as the great Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, ““There are two ways of waking up in the morning. One is to say, ‘Good morning, God,’ and the other is to say, ‘Good God, morning’!” Prayer helps us to slow the overly busy days and experience the love of God. Remember this: sin is bad and holiness is good. God made us holy and we spread holiness when we choose to be in conversation with God.

I pray that you and your family have a holy and blessed New Year.

God Bless

Fr. Mark

We are at the eve of Christmas. It is almost here. I am sure there are some of us who have last minute shopping to do and the last errands to run before Christmas day is here. If your experience has been like mine the time has slipped by and we cannot believe that the day is almost here. We now fall into the traditions of the year when we slip gently (or not so gently) into the time-honored blessings within our families.

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Lk 2:14) The words of prayer the angels proclaim in Luke’s gospel are words that rest in our hearts as Christians. We hear these words and are reminded of why we celebrate, why we give thanks and why we share the blessings of life with one another.

Christmas Eve and day are some of the greatest blessings for parish priests. It is extremely busy and the duties of the day often keep us away from our own families and yet we also see the glory of God’s holy people on full display. I, along with my brother priests in parishes, see the great possibilities that God places in our lives. We see families gathered and searching for holiness and hopefulness in their lives. We see young and old dressed in their Christmas finest seeking to bring the very best to give honor and glory to God. We see the smiles and embracing of good cheer and community of the possibilities of the family of God gathered in prayer and worship. We see churches overflowing with blessings.

We also experience the great dedication and love given by the volunteers and staffs at parishes around the world. The hard work of preparing and making ready for the celebration of the birth of Jesus our Savior and Redeemer is done by many people and is a blessing beyond all measure.

But there is an even greater blessing that we share…it is the continuing of Christmas in our lives. As a parish priest, we witness the numerous blessings that follow Christmas. Admittedly, we worry and fear for those who choose not to attend Mass and the celebration of the Eucharist throughout the year. We struggle with how to engage the seekers and doubters in a deep and profound conversation with God and his holy people. Yet, even in this, we continue to witness the grace and blessing of our Heavenly Father’s Christmas gift, his Son Jesus Christ, in the life of the world.

The poet Christine Rodgers, in her Christmas poem O Radiant Dawn, begins with this question “What could possibly come from this?”

We see Jesus, in his mother’s arms, surrounded by the heavenly host and the earthly wonder and as we sit and share our Christmas day and ponder God’s Word made flesh, “What could possible come from this?” Can true peace and blessing begin to grow in the world? Can true love and mercy flourish in our hearts and the hearts of all? Let us together pray as we celebrate the joyous coming of our Savior Jesus and know that our God is here with us in our journey because as Rodgers writes in the last line, Jesus has come so that through his coming as man in his passion, death and resurrection it is he “who would buy back the entire world.”

May God bless you with a holy and happy Christmas

Fr. Mark

Sometimes we can fall into the trap of becoming tasked orientated. That everything we do must have a definite and defined purpose and how we go about achieving the purpose becomes an objectified goal that must have a plan, timeline and end date. I often fall into this temptation.

Advent, in preparation for Christmas day, can fall into this task orientated routine very easily, from the celebrations we attend to the shopping we must do, to the planning of vacation for a few days of rest, it all can become more work and less peace that is the goal of Christmas day.

Peace, for all of us, is the discovering of true happiness and we contemplate something greater. The trick becomes discovering where the greater lies hidden in our lives. This discovery cannot be planed or mapped out, it cannot be tasked out or placed as an item on an agenda, it is found in a moment of discovery and awe that takes us out of routine and places us in the eternal. It is because the greater is often hidden in plain sight when we have “eyes to see and ears to hear” (Mt 13:16) and a heart to understand.

Happiness is searched for because we are not automatons that can simply be programed for happiness. Our desires change and how we communicate those desires to others changes too. No one asks for the same gift as a 25 year old that they asked for as a 5 year old. It is much the same way in our relationships, our sharing of love changes in the growing and deepening of relationships we have with friends, family, spouse, children and neighbor and yes, in our relationship with God. How we express and receive these acts of love in relationship change and grow and deepen with time and care both in prayer and in actions.

What is also true is the deeper our relationship of love becomes the greater the gift in the smallest things. We desire to give more out of love and choose to receive less. Our sharing of life and love pours out in the giftedness of life. And yet, knowing this we can often fall into a pattern of taking the love and the giftedness of life for granted where we loose the joy within the wants of daily concerns.

In this final week of Advent, these last days of preparation, we are invited to open our eyes in the search of the peace of true happiness grounded in our relationship to God. It is a reminder that presence in more important than any present in life. Being present to God, to family and to friends in the interchange of love is the true gift of peace. It is in this Jubilee Year of Mercy that we, in our presence of love to one another, become the embodiment of peace, love and mercy. Our presence doesn’t come with a plan, a task or an outcome. Our presence simply comes with the peace of Jesus Christ, born to us on Christmas day as we celebrate and sing out: Joy to the World.

God Bless

Fr. Mark

“For his mercy endures forever.” (Ps136)

Pope Francis in his Papal Bull Misericordiae Vultus gives us Psalm 136 as of understanding God’s mercy through the experience of the people of Israel. God is a God of salvation. This refrain “for his mercy endures forever” is repeated again and again as sign of hopefulness and grace in our Lord Jesus. When I first read the Papal Bull I was interested in this quote because in English it is often translated “for his love endures forever.”

In our understanding of mercy and love our Holy Father invites us to recognize that love is an essential part of mercy and mercy without love is empty and without hope. In our understanding of God’s love for us we recognize that he who is love offers us the gift of Mercy full of love. Through his son Jesus Christ who comes to us this Christmas, the face in the light of mercy shines forth in our lives and the lives of the world.

Throughout the Papal Bull we are challenged to see how mercy and love, intertwined through our relationship with God and how mercy calls us to the grace of the movement towards the great other in our lives. The call to mercy is to a deeper understanding of how we live in relationship with God and with our brothers and sisters. Mercy, in the lives of the Church, is not simply an abstract idea but concrete realities that are lived out in relationships of love. Mercy shines forth in brokenness and comes to completion in the healing grace our heavenly Father extends through the cross of Jesus Christ.

A simple example of how we can understand the gift of mercy is to look within families. A child, while throwing a ball in the house…a big no no…breaks a lamp. There must be some justice, the child needs to be punished but also shown mercy and forgiveness. The act justice, tied to mercy, shows forth an action in proportion to the hurt caused…you will go to your room and loose this months allowance…but in love the child is invited back into the grace of the family through forgiveness and mercy. This action of life giving mercy and love reminds the child that their dignity as a child of God, as a member of that particular family, is much greater and can never be lost through any one act of sin.

This is why mercy and justice must always be tied together as Pope Francis reminds us, “God’s justice is his mercy.” (20) All this can be very theoretical until we step forward and embrace the work of mercy and it is a blessing to have within the tradition of our faith the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy that lead and guide us in the active participation in the life of the family of God. (more on that later)

God Bless

Fr. Mark

Why do you pray? That is a question that is being posed in a very forceful way as a newspaper headline shouted out after the latest tragedy in San Bernardino this past Wednesday. “God Isn’t Fixing This” was the headline. I can agree on some level because God doesn’t fix us. He has given us free will to choose good or evil, to be with Him or the walk away from Him in sin. It is the fundamental question that all men and women of good will struggle with daily in our journey of faith.

Why then do we pray? I can remember clearly the first time that I encountered a person who didn’t believe in prayer. In college a young woman I knew was going through some very difficult times and in a brief conversation with her I simply said, “I will pray for you.” It is phrase I had said many times to many people. Her response was, “I don’t need your prayers.” I was stunned and shocked and did not know what to say. I did pray for her and even now, over 20 years later, I continue to pray for her.

Why do we pray? We believe as Catholic Christians that prayer changes us and through us changes the world. As our Church teaches, “Prayer in the events of each day and each moment is one of the secrets of the kingdom revealed to “little children,” to the servants of Christ, to the poor of the Beatitudes. It is right and good to pray so that the coming of the kingdom of justice and peace may influence the march of history, but it is just as important to bring the help of prayer into humble, everyday situations; all forms of prayer can be the leaven to which the Lord compares the kingdom.” (CCC 2660) It is in our conversation (prayer) with God that we see His will and how we are called to respond to the needs of our brothers and sisters in the world. Simply put, prayer changes our lives, as we become the compassionate and loving children created in God’s Divine image.

Prayer, for us, is the first response to all situations in life and not an afterthought. Thanking God, praising God, imploring God’s mercy and healing, desiring God’s peace and compassion are first responses that help us and drive us to be the instruments of love in a world torn by violence and sin.

Prayer leads us to action where God will not “fix us” but God will heal us if we place our lives in His hands. That is why we pray, by entrusting our lives into the greater love that brings true and lasting peace we discover God and discover true life and we move towards the greater, the holier, the true and lasting peace that is only found in Jesus Christ. Why do we pray? Because prayer does change lives. Pope Francis believes this as he continually asks for our prayers. I believe it…pray and pray with confidence that God hears and responds to heal us in love.

God Bless

Fr. Mark