Seeking peace in life is one of the ongoing mysteries we grapple with each and every day. Seeking peace and justice is, for the Christian, the continuing discernment of God’s call to serve and offer our lives to the other in love. I pray for peace daily within my own life and in the world. It can often seem like a fruitless and hopeless task and yet daily in prayer, morning, noon and night the seeking of peace fills the different prayers in my life.

In a powerful way the prayer for peace presented itself to me through a video shared about the “White Hats” rescue team in Aleppo Syria. The great tragedy and failure of justice and peace is vividly and terribly presented to us each and every moment as we watch this once thriving city being slowly ground to dust beneath the bombings, the shelling and the death of so many of its residents. It can seem hopeless…but then there is hope. The “White Hats” have been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. This group, “White Hats,” are members of the Aleppo community who have chosen to place their lives at the service of their fellow residents to conduct the dangerous rescue work of seeking survivors in the rubble and destruction that is overwhelming their home. The danger in their work is very real and present to them each day, as over 130 members of their teams have been killed during their work of rescue. It is a work of mercy that they choose to carry out in love of both neighbor and enemy.

It is a choice to stay, to serve and to offer their lives that brings the hope of peace to my prayers and actions. Within the rubble of their town, the rubble of daily lives for those who remain the service of the “White Hats” brings the reality of peace to this violent place. Their work of peace in seeking the broken, wounded and dead amidst the rubble and destruction caused by hate and violence brings hope to those who see their white hats walking the streets moving towards the injury of life to homes that once were full with the vibrancy of life but now lie vacant and ruined.

How can our prayers and actions help? Many people would simply say that they cannot help. Others will say that the destruction will never stop so why even try. While others may think that the death and violence are somehow deserved. As disciples of Jesus Christ we must flatly and emphatically reject these answers and we seek in the words of Blessed Pope Paul VI, “For that reason we think it extremely important to have an exact idea of Peace and to divest it of the false concepts which too often surround and thus deform and distort it. We say this to the young first of all. Peace is not a stagnant condition of life which finds in it at the same time both its perfection and its death. Life is movement, growth, work, effort and conquest, things such as these. Is that what Peace is like? Yes, for the very reason that it coincides with the supreme good of man as he makes his way through time, and this good is never attained totally, but is always being newly and inexhaustibly acquired. Peace is thus the central idea giving its driving force to the most active enthusiasm.” (From the 1972 World Day of Peace Message)

Our invitation from Jesus is to go out and seek to plant peace, justice and life into the ruins of sin and destruction. To be agents of hope whose foundation is one of prayer and conversation with our Lord Jesus who calls us each to service of one another. Pray for peace.

God Bless

Fr. Mark

I am way too busy…I have no time…I am up to my neck in everything…and the busy time of year hasn’t even begun. Deep breathe and pray. We have all experienced a day or week (month or year) like this in our life and during this time we can feel like the proverbial hamster on the wheel. A couple of Fridays ago, I commented to a parent waiting pickup their children “Aren’t you glad it’s the weekend.” I was met with an almost audible groan and slumped shoulders and this parent listed the litany of activities and things that needed to be done between 3:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon and 8:00 a.m. on Monday morning. Listening to the grand list made me groan.

Our faith tradition invites us over and over again to take pauses in life: a few minutes, a few hours, a few days and every once in a while a few months to reflect, rest and renew the eyes of our heart to see the wonder of God’s blessing that surrounds us in our lives. It is funny what we are willing to sacrifice to our busyness—we begin with sacrificing prayer and connection with God, we follow by sacrificing time with family and friends, we offer on the altar of sacrifice our time in exercise and healthy eating and we then end up burnt out, crabby and empty of life with the wonderful excuse of “I was too busy.” Yet, we know from experience, when we do pray, spend time with family, eat and exercise and the other activities that rejuvenate the body, mind and soul we seem to “have” enough time for all those busy things in our life.

How do we circle around to remember to pause and take time in our lives especially in our busyness and our routine forgetfulness of the need for pausing? The answer is very simple and believe it or not the answer is very natural…find a friend who will hold us accountable. Yes, it is the advice that every diet program gives, every exercise program, every relationship program and even every spiritual direction program offers and it is not new. “After this, the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of Him to every town and place He was about to visit.“ (Lk 10:1) God understands the need for community, companionship and support.

As a Catholic priest, I too seek out the spiritual direction in my life, taking time on a monthly basis to pause and talk about the health of my spiritual life as well as the many other aspects of ministry that cause me anxiety and worry. After years of pooh pooh-ing the idea, I now have a good friend who checks in with me weekly and to ask about my exercise time. Still working on the diet thing… because it is one small step at a time. The point is, when we choose to pause and do the work and actions that feed the body, mind and soul we are happier and healthier in our call to serve God and neighbor.

It is the joy of finding and discovering the generosity of time given. When we take time to pause, each short moment and each hour brings a fuller knowledge and understanding of how we are called to serve God through our brothers and sisters utilizing the talents God gives to me and to each of in the call to serve.

It has been one of those weeks…but…when I have taken the moment of pause, the breathe of pause and the prayer of pause, my Heavenly Father has been present, inviting and offering to me and to us all the joy of peace that is only found in Jesus Christ.

God Bless,

Fr. Mark

New shoes are always a little hard to get used to in the beginning. This week I bought my new sandals (two pairs) because I finally came to the conclusion that the old ones had finished their productive life and needed to be replaced.

Some people find it exciting and actually love getting new shoes. This isn’t my path. I like the old but true…the well worn and comfortable…the familiar…even when they become uncomfortable. I knew that I needed new shoes for work for many months; my feet were sore after a long day, the soles had begun to fail and many other indicators told me…new shoes. And if you know me, you know that I like walking sandals…so I ordered them and they arrived.

It is amazing what a difference new shoes make in a life. It does take some time to break them in…I need a little time to feel comfortable as the shoe stretches, molds and surrounds the foot. And there is the moment when you wonder why it took you so long to ditch the worn-out and old and replace it with the new?

In some way our spiritual life can follow this pattern as God invites us to step out of the old and into the new over and over again. Our spiritual growth invites us to try on the new shoes of prayer, service and sacrificial love in the ever-expanding relationship with Jesus Christ.

This often happens in a very natural way as we grow in age and wisdom or at least this is what we hope. It is why our continued seeking of God in prayer, service and sacrificial love need to meet the needs of our time in life and our relationship with God and his holy people.

For example, my relationship with God through the praying of the Rosary has changed throughout the years. The new shoes of the Rosary I now wear in prayer are much different than the shoes I wore as a young child praying with my family. In truth when I threw out the old shoes of the Rosary sometime in high school I never went to the closet to put on new shoes for many years but as time went on I discovered them in the treasure trove of our closet of faith and now the shoes of the Rosary have become shoes of meditative and thanksgiving that I slip on daily in the spiritual exercise of my soul.

It is searching out the presence of God that we renew and rediscover how we are called to walk in the shoes of life as we follow in the footsteps of Jesus. And don’t get me wrong in thinking we need to change just for change sake. Change comes as we begin to experience the deeper longing for something greater that draws our heart into the eternal love of God. The new shoes of prayer will be uncomfortable and challenging at first as we seek to wear them with joy and thanksgiving…it may even be hard to move out of the old and into the blessing of the new because the true danger lies in when we become comfortable in the un-comfortableness of the way things are and do not seek to grow towards God and away from sin. Jesus in the Gospel reminds us of this, “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while there is still a beam in your own eye?“ (Mt 7:4)

Jesus invites to not be afraid to move forward in our life of faith, hope and love, where we share willingly of our time, talent and treasure in the prayer, service and sacrificial love of discipleship. It is here we recognize how we walk with Jesus carrying forward the blessings of life.

God Bless

Fr. Mark

During this Jubilee Year of Mercy we have been month-by-month working our way through the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy. This September we are looking at one of the most tangible and perhaps the one that we most frequently confront, share and are blessed with: Comfort the Sorrowful. It is the work of mercy that we meet everyday in our relationships with our brothers and sisters in life.

Comforting the Sorrowful comes very natural in many ways. We can often watch a father or mother with a child who is in the midst of a small sorrow that seemingly consumes all happiness around them quickly come to the child’s comfort. We see spouses, the husband or wife, reach out quite naturally to the hurt the other is experiencing in the moment. The problem comes when we begin to think about it, worry about it and then withhold ourselves from the moments of comforting or receiving comfort from another.

The examples in my life, as a priest, are numerous as I am sure they are within yours. Death is always the hardest whether it is offering comfort to a couple whose child has died or a husband or wife whose spouse has died. It may be a divorce, the abuse of drugs, alcohol or infidelity or pornography in a relationship. And the list could go on. The hardest part in my life is the tendency to seek to fix the problem—to look at the sorrow of the person as a problem rather than the reality of what they are feeling and experiencing at that particular moment.

Comforting the Sorrowful invites us to simply be present to the other in a moment of grace. It is helping the person in sorrow search for and discover the presence of Jesus Christ by our presence in love, mercy and prayer. We hear this again and again in our Sacred Scripture and in the tradition of our Church. When we begin to allow the presence of God to rest in the sorrowing heart then we begin to search for Jesus, ““Everyone is looking for You.”  He said to them, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.”  And He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out the demons.” (Mk 1:37-39) He offers us rest, coming to meet us on the Day of Resurrection, giving us life by giving his very self. God does this. He is our rest. (p 153)

This is what God does when we don’t try to fix sorrow but rather allow God to heal sorrow. God comes to us as we are, where we are and when we are—no matter who we are.

Comforting the Sorrowful is choosing to act as God acts. It is being with the other in the moment choosing to be the simple blessing of grace by embracing and holding with the other their sorrow for the eternal moment of love. We recognize this as the blessing of life. “So we are weak and weary, but we hope in God, who comes to meet us in the person of Christ. For the weak he becomes weak, to win over the weak—just as St. Paul followed in his steps and modeled for us (cf. 1 Cor 9:22-23).” (p 152)

God Bless

Fr. Mark

quotes are from, Grace in the Wilderness by Br. Francis de Sales Wagner, OSB

This past week I spent time with my family in Yellowstone National Park as we celebrated one of my younger sisters’ 50^th birthday. Happy Birthday Melissa (in November) It was a wonderful time and being able to experience the grandeur of God’s creation in such a beautiful place is truly a awe-inspiring and faith filled moment.

Each year in our Catholic tradition September 1^st is designated as a day of pray for the Care of Creation. In Pope Francis’ Encyclical, Laudato Si (On Care for Our Common Home) he teaches, “Whether you are a person of faith or not, we all agree today the earth is a shared inheritance, meant for the benefit of everyone. This is especially true, however, for people of faith. We defend the right to private property but also teach that all such property has a social dimension to it.” (#93)

Being stewards of God’s gift of creation, and all of God’s gifts beginning with life, are at the center of the Gospel message and the invitation to follow Jesus.

During my vacation in Yellowstone we listened and saw how the stewardship and the care for this small part of God’s creation has been transformed over the years. A good example is the place of wolves, bears and coyotes in the overall ecosystem of the park and world, the understanding of how forest fires are part of the necessary life cycle of the park and ultimately how we as visitors to the park can effect and change the natural cycles and what we can do to minimize our impact. It is the stewardship of the treasure through our time and talent, appreciating the gifts given and seeking to share the wonder of creation with all people especially those who will be born in future years.

In the same way our spiritual stewardship and the care for our soul and those around us is transformed and made new over and over again as we grow in the love and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The gift of our time, talent and treasure is seen new when we begin to understand how each gift is not independent of the other but how my gift weaves into the gifts of others to form, as St. Paul says “so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.“ (Rm 12:5) This is the true gift of stewardship; the recognition that shared gifts brings greater abundance and peace to our lives and the life of the world. The stewardship of our relation with God through the Church, through family and through the creation that surrounds us is the continual growth in offering our life through prayer and presence to one another.

“The world around us is filled with wonder and mystery. Every leaf, raindrop, or mountain trail holds within it the meaning we seek (#233) We do not separate beauty, awe and wonder from God. God is present in all things noble and beautiful. This is all part of the encounter with God. (#234) Such encounters with God do not require that we abandon the world but rather that we embrace it. The sacraments are filled with similar signs that move our hearts toward God.” (#235)

We discover our blessedness within God’s great plan when we seek the blessedness of others through the shared gifts God extends to us. The Eucharist we celebrate, especially on Sundays, is the embracing of the world through the recognition of God’s presence in our brothers and sisters through the sharing of life we live daily in the joys and sorrows we experience.

The invitation in stewarding God’s gifts is to share them through prayer and sacrificial offerings of love. Our call to be good stewards is participating in the invitation of all to come with us to the table of blessing where true life is found in the shared caring of life.

God Bless

Fr. Mark