“Hear my voice, O God, as I complain, guard my life from dread of the foe.” (Ps 64:1)
I prayed these words this week on the Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul as part of the Office of Readings. It was a wonderful way to start the day and reflect on these two great saints and the trials and tribulations they encountered following Jesus Christ. The Psalm is a plea to God to help when we are being slandered, abused and lied about and treated with contempt. It is a prayer of hope that all of these things will boom-a-rang on the people committing them and I will be given a life of peace. How many times have we prayed something similar?

Here is the same verse translated slightly different: “Guard me, God, I need protection. Everyone seems to be sharpening their sword agains me.” (Ps 64:1 from “Prayers before an Awesome God: The Psalms for Teenagers” by David Haas) It is often good to hear the prayer of our hearts said in different ways. It is the entering into a deeper conversation where our hearts become united through a common desire with the heart of our ultimate desire to be loved deeply and profoundly by God. In our crying out to God we also need to enter into the silence of God. It is listening with our heart and mind attentive to the reality that is around us because God is with us.
Cardinal Sarah in his book “The Power of Silence” shares these words, “The silence of God is understood by faith, in meditation on the communion that can exist between him and men. The divine silence is a mysterious revelation. God is not insensitive to evil. At first, we may think that God allows evil to destroy men. But if God remains silent, he nonetheless suffers with us from the evil that tears apart and disfigures the earth. If we seek to be with God in silence, we will understand his presence and his love.” (#165 p. 90)

“Listen and help, O God. I’m reduced to a whine and a whimper, obsessed with feelings of doomsday.” (Ps 64:1 “The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language” Eugene H. Peterson) Cardinal Sarah reminds us of two very important things…we need to cry out and we need to enter silence. God invites us to cry out to him in need. He commands us to ask for help, to seek reconciliation, to fight against the sin of the world but he also invites us into a communion of silence where the comfort of God touches the inmost heart. The perfect image of this is a child with a parent. The child wailing in anguish and hurt seems inconsolable until the mom or dad lift him into their arms. They comfort the child with whispers and gently kisses of love and the child enters into this same silence of love where ultimately no more words are spoken except the word of love that is only heard by the presence of one with the other. It is the word of love spoken again and again as husband and wife hold and embrace, as friends listen and bless as the stranger reaches out to serve and be grace to the other.

“O God, hear my anguished voice; from a dreadful foe protect my life.” (Ps 64:2) Each of us, as disciples of Jesus Christ, are blessed with the abundance of love and gifts that we are all called to share. In Matthew Kelly’s book “Resisting Happiness”, that we have shared before, he reminds us of the necessary movement is sometimes as simple as crying out in need. “When you are discouraged or caught up in procrastination, simply do the tiniest thing to move whatever you are working on forward.” (p181) The movement will ultimately be in holiness towards God. This is our destiny.
So don’t worry about crying out, complaining, or shouting at God…he’s a big boy he can take…but don’t forget, in the movement, in the going forward to allow the silence of his love to comfort and heal us as we sit with him in peaceful quiet.
God bless
Fr. Mark

It has been hot! Very, very hot! And boy can I complain with the best of them about the heat. And then I remember…my 3 years as a Marine mostly stationed in Mississippi and South Carolina, my summer in San Antonio TX, eleven weeks in Yuma AZ, my two week mission trip to Nicaragua and a few years ago a month in Ghana Africa…and then my complaining takes on a slightly different tone.
It has been hot and uncomfortable but we are always challenged to put it into perspective…don’t you just hate that. It is what God asks us to do when we look out into the world, seeing the joy and suffering, the justice and injustice and the beauty and evil and put it into perspective. I hope that we all wish to alleviate suffering, stamp out injustice and correct the evils of the world but it must be done in the perspective of human dignity, stewardship of the gifts of life and trusting in a goodness beyond our limited view of the world and particular situation.
We all know how this works in life and as the great Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote once “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Darn it! Life gives us a natural perspective on the things around us but life must be taken one day at a time and therein lies the rub.
My perspective on the heat has been learned from the many other experiences I have lived, do these experiences make this week any less hot, no, but then I place this alongside my other experiences of heat and move forward knowing this moment will be added to all the other moments.
Okay, now lets get back to seeking how God wants us to put all things into perspective…Old Testament here we come…perspective is everywhere as the people of Israel learn about God’s love for them and ultimately how He will send them a Messiah which does place everything into perspective. Jesus throughout the Gospel talks about the perspective of the Father’s love, mercy, and justice that envelops even the most powerful metaphors and images and makes them seem small in proportion to God’s love: The Cross…perspective.
Perspective today in our faith journey…how we learn about God and live with God and share God with others is found in a life lived, blessed and given over and over again. Because when we share our faith with others, the perspective of God’s presence in our lives and how God acts within our lives is always a challenge for so many of us. When I read, hear or experience something profound I often share it with friends and will at times be puzzled by their reaction from wonder and awe to a shrug of the shoulders or meh. Or just as frequently my response is less than what it should be…for example…over the past several weeks in the parish I have celebrated and attended more than the normal number of funerals: Nine (9) in total.
I can and do become a bit too comfortable with talking to the families and I am sure I miss some of the important signals about their grief and suffering in the moment and this is where stepping back in to the perspective of memory, and to use the memory of the sorrow of my own father or brother’s death and be present in this moment with the other as we open and share our hearts and gift of God’s love with one another.
Just as we experience God’s love day by day and like a couple married for fifty years who share the experience of love much different than newlyweds, our lived experience of God, especially when we choose to seek Him and be with Him and talk with Him and laugh and cry with Him gives us this living perspective.
God bless (and stay cool)
Fr. Mark

In conversation with a friend several years ago, who had become a new father, I asked him a hard but simple question, “What is the gift that fatherhood gives you?” I wasn’t trying to be funny because Father’s Day was coming up and I was hoping to get some homily material to share with God’s people.
His response was equally hard and simple. He shared that the gift he felt most deeply at this time in his young family’s life was hope. We had a wonderful and long conversation about hope and what he meant by it and it did give me some great homily material.
Which leads me to this quote from Pope Benedict XVI from his Encyclical “Saved in Hope.” As a father, a protector of child and family, men are called into a distinct hopefulness that sends them forth into the world in love of God and family.
“Love of God leads to participation in the justice and generosity of God towards others. God requires an interior freedom from all possessions and all material goods: the love of God is revealed in responsibility for others.” (#28 Spe Salvi)
We know that the trap of the working father (and mother) is often to begin to focus more and more on the “work” and the monetary gains of “work” at the detriment of family. God wants us to work hard. God desires that we be as successful as we can be in our life. But God also wants us to be family. God also desires us to grow in the unity of family and discovering this balance is always a challenge no matter what vocation of life we live.
On this Father’s Day weekend we look in a special way at the gifts that fathers share with us and how they are called to the “interior freedom” that allows them to live full the “responsibility for others” both for there wife and children.
My friend, whom I mentioned above, in our conversation mentioned how the birth of their child gave an added purpose to the work that he did, calling him to greater diligence and focus daily to provide for the growing family, he also noted though, how his desire to be at home with his wife and child also invited him into a more balanced view of living, especially in the not taking too much of his work home with him as he sought to share the responsibility of raising the newborn child.
Fast forward several years, to the family now with 4 children, the eldest getting ready for Jr. High and the youngest leaving behind diapers (at least that is the hope) in the near future. Over a beer and some hectic times in the house we began the same discussion as once more I was seeking some fresh perspective and insight for Father’s Day. I had reminded him of the “hope” he saw at the beginning of his journey as a father and he, with bride at his side, said the same thing but that the hope became tempered with the struggles, the sufferings and sacrifices of life. Unemployment, sickness, family deaths and children and marriage struggles. Pope Benedict once more shares with us, “Certainly in our many different sufferings and trials we always need the lesser and greater hopes too—a kind visit, the healing of internal and external wounds, a favorable resolution of a crisis, and so on. In the lesser trials these kinds of hope may even be sufficient. but in truly great trials, where I must make a definitive decision to place the truth before my own welfare, career and possessions, I need the certitude of that true, great hope…we need witnesses—martyrs—who have given themselves totally, so as to show us the way—day after day.” (#39 Spe Salvi)
I shared this below quote with him and he immediately focussed on the “witnesses—martyrs—who have given themselves totally.” He shared the story of his father, his immigrant grandfathers and the witness they and other men shared with him to strengthen his journey as a father in love with his wife and children.
Our fathers on earth may never be perfect but we are thankful for the witness they share in love and offer our prayers of support for these men that they may grow ever stronger in the virtues of fatherhood.
Happy Father’s Day.

God Bless
Fr. Mark

“There is one great question: how can man really be in the image of God? He must enter into silence.
When he drapes himself in silence, as God himself dwells in a great silence, man is close to heaven, or rare, he allows God to manifest himself in him.
We encounter God only in the internal silence in which he abides.” (p 21)
This quote comes from “The Power of Silence” by Robert Cardinal Sarah and is challenging to modern society in general but is especially challenging to us as individuals who are often surround by noise.
I received this book earlier this week and have begun the slow and long process of bringing the questions, the insights and the challenges into my spiritual life. This is how God often works in our life, He gives us a small hint about what we need to get closer to him (silence) and then follows it with another to make sure we know this is what we need to do. The second hint upon ordering the book was an article entitled “Social Media Could be Killing Your Spiritual Life” from www.relevantmagazine.com which simply reinforced what I already knew but kept avoiding…too much noise is surrounding my life.
Now admittedly I am not very far into Carinal Sarah’s book but we may I think interchange the word silence with quiet or peacefulness. Because silence isn’t just about audio noise, it is the constant distraction of the eyes and all the senses that bombard our souls with a “busyness” that does not allow us to stop, ponder and stand in awe of the great and small miracles God shares with us each day.
Just a small personal story. I normally start my morning with prayer, (I know a great surprise) followed by morning exercise. It is a wonderful way to be quiet, to sit in the silence of God and to allow the peace of God’s presence to enter into my life before the hectic pace of the day begins. Over the last month my silence has been disturbed…by my lack of self-control…and my spiritual life has suffered. I have been falling into the bad habit of picking up my phone and checking social media before I begin my prayer…this takes time away from prayer, from the spiritual and physical exercise I need to be the good man and priest God calls me to be. I can make the excuse of it only is a few minutes (or 30) but the truth is, when I can honestly reflect on the habit, it places the world before God. I am not following the great commandment, “The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mk 12:30) Simply put, I allow myself to live in the pain of sin that St. Paul described so well, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (Rm 7:15)
What are we to do? Well for me I must have the courage to begin once more the practice that I know feeds my soul and brings me into more fruitful and loving relationships with God and the people around me. We remember as Cardinal Sarah points out, “Silence is not an absence. On the contrary it is the manifestation of a presence, the most intense of all presences…the real questions in life are posed in silence. Our blood flows through our veins without making any noise, and we can hear our heartbeats only in silence.” (p 27)
Each of us is called into the great silence to hear the heartbeat of God’s love for us. It is entering into intense and fruitful conversations which only begins in the silence of the truth discovered in the eternal love of God.
How did I begin this morning? Once more in silence…resisting the urge to check the distraction of the phone (or whatever)…checking in with God: pondering, questioning and listening in the awe of silence. And then praying for the courage to do it again and again.

God Bless
Fr. Mark

This weekend we celebrate the great birthday of the Church, Pentecost Sunday, when the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples in the upper room and sends them forth into the world. It is a very powerful image of mission…going out…changing the world.
Pentecost falls on June 4th this year which is a very special day for me too. In 2005, on this day, I was ordained a priest for the Diocese of San Jose. And the Holy Spirit has a lot to do with how I remember the day, being prayed for and blessed by so many priest and lay faithful. Have my family and friends come and celebrate with me and the Church of San Jose on this day. Two moments remain vivid in my mind. The first is receiving the chalice and patten from the Bishop. The grace give was this was the same chalice and patten my Dad’s cousin (so I guess mine also) Fr. Ken Arnzen had used them over five decades earlier when he was ordained for the Diocese of Boise. The second was the priests laying hands and praying over me and my brothers, Fr. John, Fr. Joseph, Fr. Vincent and Fr. Andres ordained that same day.
I know that twelve years does not seem long…and it isn’t…but I would like to reflect on the blessing God has shared with me during this time by looking at three quotes below.
Pope Benedict XVI shares these words of wisdom, “The priest cannot be distant from the daily concerns of the People of God; on the contrary he must be very close but always with a view to salvation and of the Kingdom of God. He is the witness and steward of a life different from earthly life. He is the herald of the hope of Christ, by virtue of which we can face the present even though it may often be arduous.” (p 99 from “The Priest a Bridge to God”) I never imagined how growing up surrounded by God’s blessings grows grace in you. In my home town in Idaho is a Benedictine Monastery, St. Gertrude, and this spirituality of being among the people permeated my life in such away that the reality of being with the people, taking time with the people and journeying with the people as a symbol of God’s prophetic grace is undeniable in the priestly identity God desires for me.
Pope St. John Paul II reminds us how the Eucharist is at the center of the life of the priest, the people and the world, “‘Even if the Eucharist should be celebrated without participation of the faithful, it nevertheless remains the center of the life of the entire Church and the heart of priestly existence.’…The Eucharist makes the Church, just as the Church makes the Eucharist. The presbyter, having been given the charge of building up the Church, performs this task essentially through the Eucharist…he cooperates in gathering people around Christ in the Church by offering the Eucharist.” (p 65-66 from “Priesthood in the Third Millennium) I can count on one hand the number of days over the last 12 years that I have not celebrated Eucharist…sometimes because of sickness and others because of traveling, It is a central and vital touchstone of my daily life. It is the moment of grace with God and his holy people. It is also a school of charity and humility. I have spent these twelve years celebrating, almost weekly, with the MESST sisters, learning Spanish, sharing stories and participating in the grace of Eucharistic life and learning a ton of humility and charity. It is my heart sending me forth into the world.
Finally, this quote that has been on my mind these past four years, Pope Francis said, “This I ask you: be shepherds, with the “odour of the sheep”, make it real, as shepherds among your flock, fishers of men. True enough, the so-called crisis of priestly identity threatens us all and adds to the broader cultural crisis; but if we can resist its onslaught, we will be able to put out in the name of the Lord and cast our nets. It is not a bad thing that reality itself forces us to “put out into the deep”, where what we are by grace is clearly seen as pure grace, out into the deep of the contemporary world, where the only thing that counts is “unction” – not function – and the nets which overflow with fish are those cast solely in the name of the One in whom we have put our trust: Jesus. (Chrism Mass Homily 2013) Our Holy Father has presented many great challenges to us as a Church but especially to priests. The challenge to be true men of faith, joy and love is constant as is the challenge to see our priesthood in the generosity of mercy and forgiveness.
I do pray each day that I live up to this call to share my life with God’s holy people. Please pray for your parish priest, pray for me and pray for vocations.
God bless
Fr. Mark