For many today, “love” is little more than a warm feeling or physical attraction. These things have their place. But real love—love that endures and deepens and satisfies the human heart over a lifetime—grows from what we give to others, not what we take for ourselves. The Lord Jesus Christ died on a cross for our salvation. That kind of radical, liberating capacity to abandon our prerogatives and give ourselves to others is the thread that unites all Catholic teaching on marriage and the family. Authentic Catholic teaching on marriage and the family separates true love from all counterfeits.” (#35 Love is our Mission: The Family Fully Alive)

The sacramental life is hard. It places us on the cross of love. It calls for great and heroic sacrifice. This is the context of the above quote from the U.S. Bishop’s catechesis for the family. It doesn’t seem all that appealing and yet, we are drawn to this love.

I was pondering the above thoughts for two reasons. First, (1a) starting this evening I will help to present a Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend together with (1b) an article I read about concerning marriage and commitment.   Second, was a something I heard and saw as I watched a television show “Married at First Sight.” (Don’t judge me too harshly; one of Pope Benedict’s calls was for priests to understand the world people live in and Pope Francis asks the same. You know…smell like the sheep:)

On the television show one of the women as she talked about her relationship with a friend lamented the oft-heard phrase, “love shouldn’t be this much work.” In other words she loved her husband but the relationship was not all rainbows and buttercups it was a lot of work, it called for sacrifice and asked for change in attitudes and actions. In other words, she believed that love was a warm fuzzy feeling with physical attraction and when this began to fade and the relationship became challenging the only conclusion is…we must not love each other any more therefore the relationship is over.

On the other hand we, as a Church, believe in the work of marriage and a love that goes much deeper than the warm fuzziness and sexual attraction. Love is a gift shared by God that we participate in with the other. We understand that the “work” of marriage is of building bridges across the brokenness of sin and into the joy and truth of blessing in the unity of sacramental grace. In the article (http://www.catholicmatch.com/institute/2016/02/4-promises-that-lead-to-happily-ever-after/) one of the four promises is to be committed to the vows of marriage. It is a commitment to the better or worse, the richer or poorer, the sickness and health where we move beyond a moment of happiness and into the everlasting joy of eternal love.

It is in this radical gift of our self to the other where we find true peace and liberating love. It is our response to the promise of “I take you to be” where we find the joy of life. Choosing to give life over and over again in the self-gift of our whole self to the beloved. It is speaking the words of love that Jesus shared with us, “No longer do I call you servants…but I have called you friends.” (Jn 15:15) In friendship the husband and wife, in sacramental love, show forth the grace and holiness of God’s blessing.

“Friendship calls us to be self-transcendent. It “draws us out of ourselves and challenges us to be attentive not to our own immediate interests and needs but to the interests and needs of another.: Indeed, day after day, friendship in marriage requires us to overcome self-centeredness and move toward other-centeredness.” (from Project Holiness, p. 6) It is the work of marriage.

God Bless

Fr. Mark

“Illness and suffering have always been among the gravest problems confronted in human life. In illness, man experiences his powerlessness, his limitations, and his finitude. Every illness can make us glimpse death.” (CCC 1500)

As we continue our journey through the Year of Mercy I would like to look at the 5^th Corporal Work of Mercy: Visiting the Sick. As the above quote form the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes, illness and suffering can often be life changing events where we confront our mortality and our faith in the resurrection and life eternal in heaven. As people of faith it is the open question of how we live our lives and in the works of mercy how we care for and seek to comfort those who suffer illness in their lives.

One of the essential works of an ordained priest is the visiting and anointing of the sick. It is ministry that is both predictable and unpredictable in daily ministry. As a seminarian our Bishop asked us to do a summer of hospital ministry called CPE. I did my summer at Portland Providence Medical Center. I, like most people, was not comfortable around the sick and dying. That summer helped to stretch me in how I interacted and cared for the sick.

The mystery of caring and visiting the sick and suffering isn’t in what we can do but who we are called to be as faithful members of the Body of Christ. What we discover in caring for and being with the sick and dying the sacredness of life and the gift and blessing that comes from God in our daily interactions. Choosing to be with a person who is ill and suffering opens our heart to the reality that we are all destined for something much greater in the unity of love.

As a priest I have witnesses the true miracles of healing both in body and in spirit. The time we, as family and friends, spend in visiting and caring for a beloved helps our hearts to be open to the truth and dignity that life is truly a generous and holy gift given to be shared. Time given is caring for and visiting the ill and suffering can help us to once more cherish the small moments of life which we often, if we are not attentive, allow the blessings of presence and the joy of companionship slip through our fingers. The healing of body and soul comes from the recognition that we are not alone but that in God’s grace we are united to His son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who chooses to enter into our life and death. Because the healing does not only occur in the person who is sick but also in we who stand vigil and allow the prayer of life to move us closer to the hope of salvation.

The Corporal Work of Mercy: Visiting and Caring for the Sick, invites us into a moment of grace where we permit the suffering of our Savior Jesus Christ to rest in between us as we place our lives in God’s holy hands knowing that he is always with us. The vows of marriage are the promises of Christian hope where the husband and wife profess not only their love for each other but also their care, “in sickness and in health” united in this Sacrament of unity. As the family of God, united in the Sacramental love of Baptism, we too make the promise to be with the other, in sickness and in health, because it is there that we find Jesus.

God Bless

Fr. Mark

Many of us have experienced the moment in our life when we are confronted with a very difficult and hard truth. It might be when we were young and one of our classmates cried out, “He’s a liar!” I can remember that moment and the flush of red that ran up my cheeks and the shame that coursed through my body. If we are standing on lies and are confronted by the truth then the lie falls apart.

My parish is reading Matthew Kelly’s book Rediscover Jesus where he asks us on the second day to make a list of everything we know about Jesus. One word on my list was “truth,” because Jesus is the truth. Our life, given by God, is built on truth, which makes everything much easier.

At our parish staff meeting this week we were reflecting on this Sunday’s Gospel (Luke 4:1-13) where Jesus is tempted in the desert at the beginning of his ministry. We shared our dismay that the devil had been given so much power over the world. “The devil said to him, “I shall give to you all this power and their glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish.” (Lk 4:6) We have to remember one simple thing: the devil is a liar. In The Collegeville Bible Commentary they write, “The devil claims that the power and glory are at his disposal; his is a liar and not to be trusted, but many before and after Jesus have fallen for this temptation.” (p. 945) As Jesus, who is the truth, confronts the lies of the devil with truth the devil flees.

Our search for the truth always begins with the search for Jesus. He is the foundation on which we are called to build our life and the compass that directs our actions and good works. But, as was noted in the commentary, we often fall for the temptation and sin of the lie. In this Year of Mercy, our Catholic Church calls us to confront the lies that punishment and retribution are the pathway to security and peace where we are tempted into the isolation and fear of neither seeking and reaching out to the other in our life.

The path of mercy, the path of truth comes when we are in relationship with God and know the truth of God’s divine and everlasting mercy. This relationship comes when we practice the Works of Mercy as we yearn for the mercy offered by God. It is the unending work of choosing the truth of God over the deception of the devil. It is recognizing the reality that we all experience in that first conscious lie, where as we stammer the words of untruth into the world we are sure that, like Adam and Eve, we are exposed and naked before the truth of God’s ever present desire for our goodness. Mercy is the balm that heals this wound and continues to be offered again and again for the forgiveness of our sins.

Our invitation, as Matthew Kelly writes in the meditation for the third day, this first Friday of Lent, “is to stop looking for something and start looking to someone, Jesus of Nazareth.” (p. 26) When we look into the eyes of truth then the lies will melt away and we will, through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, be filled with true peace and become missionaries of God’s mercy.

God bless

Fr. Mark

If you live in the Bay Area, or many other parts of our country, you may have noticed that there is a football game this Sunday. Whether it is on the local news programs, our local papers and all other forms of media you may have gotten the impression that the rest of the world has stopped for in anticipation of this football game. The weather forecasts all deal with a certain time frame surrounding the game, the headlines stories all deal with what may or may not happen in or around the field of play and lest we forget even the food, drink and entertainment are all zeroed in on the game.

Yes, I know that this is a slight exaggeration of the events. Small bits of news slip into the light but the drumbeat of the games stories continue to be pounded into our minds as many of us become fixated on those few hours of play. It seems in life that big events can take over from our normal routines so easily and leave us a bit disoriented in the end.

This can and does happen in our faith life too. As a priest I can often become fixated on the super bowls of our year: Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Easter, just to name a few. At other times we get so focused on big life events, such as weddings, baptisms, first communions and confirmation, those super bowls of our sacramental life where, if we are not careful, we lose track of the constant call of our Heavenly Father to conversion. It is where we fall into the temptation and let the normal moments of life begin to be covered over and ignored as we look ever more constantly towards the big games, the photograph moments and the grand gestures of life and faith.

Don’t get me wrong, the super bowls of life, just as in sports, are important and should be life changing. None of the players who will compete in the game this Sunday will ever forget, whether they win or lose, the experience of playing for the ultimate prize of their game. But each one will also talk about the long road they traveled to get to where they are as both an individual player and as a team. The sacrifices endured in the long hours of study, practice and conditioning that allows them to preform at such a high level at the biggest moments of their game. And perhaps this is the lesson we can learn in our faith lives. Jesus said something about this when he reminded his disciples, which includes you and me, that we must be attentive to these moments in our faith, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mt 26:41) Being attentive in the daily work of prayer, service and sacrifice helps us to prepare for the super bowls of life where we appreciate and rejoice in the presence of God and others and respond in those moments of conversion with gracious love. It is being attentive to the stories that continue to go on around us and not allow our eyes to become closed to the joys and sorrows of relationship with God and His holy people. It is truly living as the Body of Christ where our super bowl is receiving and sharing in the divine life that God has given to us.

God Bless

Fr. Mark