“Some of my friends seem to me to be “restless for God”—always seeking this deeper love. They are present-day Saint Augustines, always probing for his will. They are not content with themselves or with the present. Their inner spirit seeks something more.” (p 50 “Everyday Virtues by Fr. John Crossin, O.S.F.S.)

Restlessness is a disease that can drive us in two different directions in life, sin or sacredness, in searching for the one ultimate plan we are invited to fulfill. As the quote above notes, and in Augustines case, this searching leads him through many mistakes and heartaches and finally to the “saint” part of this ultimate journey.
It is interesting to look around our world that is so restless and so very busy seeking to fill this emptiness we feel and wonder why so many of us miss the God moments that bring peace. We witness this often in the anger that consumes so many and fuels the false desires of momentary happiness in the midst of God’s offer for eternal peace.
When we look at our relationships and to others in the world we will often notice how this anger engages: the frustrated person is never more angry then when they are in the presence of a peaceful person, the anxious in the presence of contented person and the lonely in the presence of community. God’s call to peace, contentment and community is at odds with the worlds desire for more, mine and isolation.

“How can we take God for granted when he speaks to us so continuously?” (p 50)

My restless found its vaccine in daily Mass. After university I spent two years teaching at St. Bonaventure Mission in New Mexico. One grace I stumbled into was the routine of daily Mass. In the quiet rhythm of this prayer and sacramental encounter with Jesus Christ I began to hear the continuous voice of God in my life. I can now recognize it as the journey to my priestly vocation, but even then I began to see and understand the something more, not of restless searching, but the more of peaceful assurance that God desires us to act in love and generosity.
We can often fall into the trap of thinking that peacefulness indicates inaction or that contentment is a sign of unwillingness to engage in healing of suffering and sin in the world but it is quite the opposite. We are never more engaged than when as part of a community of love, faith and hope were we engage in the work of blessing, reconciliation and joining together as one. It is when our restlessness is calmed by the gentleness of love that we experience our dignity and sacredness and see our sisters in brothers with the same eyes which God sees us.

“People can’t easily take God for granted because he reaches out and touches them. Occasionally he speaks directly; often he whispers in the gentle breeze.” (p 51)

Modern American society is mobile and on the move. We are constantly engaging something and very seldom encountering someone. It is one of the greatest sins of our time. And yes, I fall into this sin too often for my own comfort. It was in daily Mass where I noticed the first whispers of peace calming the restlessness of my soul. As I began to practice daily prayer, not hit and miss of “I will get to it if I can,” but a practice of seeking God intentionally and actively that the whispers became the voice of my family, friends, students and strangers. It is where the sacramental encounters of discovering God blessings were found even in stalled freeway traffic or the clogged toilet. These too became moments of encounter with the peace and contentment of God’s desire to love me for who I am and for me not to corner God into what I want at the moment.

“As Christians see things, our freedom is for the good, for the true and for the beautiful. It is the freedom to be our best selves. What are we free for? Put succinctly, we are free to be holy. Nothing else matters. We are free to be holy—to be like Christ. We are free to give everything—tragedies, scars, successes and even our inmost thought to God.” (p 51)

Ultimately this is what we discover: our call is to holiness. This is the true peacefulness, contentment and gift of community. To become saints among saints joyfully sharing the goodness of God’s love. It is the freedom to be holy!
God bless,
Fr. Mark

I don’t know how often life interrupts life but it seems to happen to me all the time. I like to think I have at least 20% of my life under control but the rest of life almost always takes the 20% and flips it on its head. This isn’t a bad thing but I am constantly battling my desire to remain in control of the 20%.
Why isn’t it a bad thing? Well, mostly it’s because God’s plan is much better than my plan (even when I’m disagreeing with God) because the surprise of life shows me a new and different way to serve God, obey God and carry my cross with God in a productive and life-giving manner.

God’s plan v my plan
It all begins with the call last week calling me to Idaho for a funeral. My plan was to celebrate with Mauna my older sister for her birthday with family. God’s plan was to celebrate the funeral of my Uncle. What was the blessing? First, was the blessing of the air flight. I had planned to read a specific book but in my rush to get out of the house (I’m a last minute packer) it remained sitting in my room, I found another book in my computer bag, Bishop Robert Barron’s book “The Strangest Way”. It has been sitting in the bag so long I had forgotten I had it…but being given the time to read it was truly a little blessing from God. Then there was the flight from Seattle to Boise. As I settled into my seat and pulled out the above mentioned book I heard in the seats behind me the beginning of a conversation. I really didn’t eaves drop but hearing the two passengers who met on the plane carry on a conversation for the totality of the flight (90 minutes) was uplifting because normally the experience on planes was what I was doing…reading…to my right a person playing video games, to the left someone working on the computer and to the far left another watching a movie on a tablet…in other words…no interaction. This may sound weird but it was a moment of grace two connecting and sharing life. The next gift was because of one funeral (my Uncle’s) I was able to be at the funeral of my Aunt Anne and see many cousins and share stories and time together, truly priceless. At both funerals I was able to hear words of life and love and of the histories that slip away with time but are remembered when two or three are gathered in His name.
And the 20% that would have been the wonderful celebration with my sister and her family, and I truly was saddened by missing this time with family by trusting in God goodness and in prayer being able to open my heart to these moments, the blessings kept rolling in more and more. I chose to stay a few days with my brother after the funeral, sharing a good beer with him and my sister, some early morning walks, celebrating Mass with the community, a breakfast with my high school math teacher, visiting an elderly childhood neighbor in the hospital were all small moments of God’s generosity. Of course having a conversation with my Mom with the ultimate blessing of hearing from her that my godson George and his wife Rachel announced there would be a new addition to the family this spring was the icing on the cake….
But there was one more gift to be shared…on the flight home as I sat waiting for my flight from Seattle to San Jose I looked up and say Fr. Joseph Benedict, the pastor of our Cathedral Parish, walking through the airport. After greeting each other we sat down for a wonderful chat…as they called our flight to board I asked what seat he had? He responded 32D…me 32E. Coincidence…nope…God-incidence.
God’s plan is always better than mine.
God bless,
Fr. Mark

By praying the rosary, we express our gratitude to Jesus and Mary by “calling to mind” the tremendous sacrificial love that they have for us. This act moves the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary to pour out countless graces upon us. Expressions of love from us are reciprocated by gifts of love from heaven.” (p 16-17 “How to Pray the Rosary” by FR. Donald Calloway, MIC)

This week I will be traveling home to Idaho for a short visit to celebrate the funeral of my Uncle Shorty, who was my father’s youngest brother, and my Aunt Anne, the wife of my mom’s brother Henry. While it may be a sad occasion it is also a gift of love from heaven to be able to be with family and friends in remembering both my Uncle and Aunt.
After my brother called early in the morning to tell me that my Uncle Shorty was not expected to live through the day, I almost immediately began to pray the rosary for the repose and protection of his soul and the peace for his family. For me, it is the natural beginning of a conversation as Fr. Calloway notes, in the above quote, we begin “calling to mind” the blessings shared and given.
This is one of the great treasures of faith and hope at the time of death. There is a blessing of meaning and grace to be shared as we remember our love for each other. When the news of each death came, I pondered and reflected on the blessings of Aunt Anne and Uncle Shorty, the joy and generosity of life God shared with us. In this generosity we encounter the living Christ. St. John Paul II reminds us, “The Rosary is also a prayer for peace because of the fruits of charity which it produces. When prayed well in a truly meditative way, the Rosary leads to an encounter with Christ in his mysteries and so cannot fail to draw attention to the face of Christ in others, especially in the most afflicted.” (Rosarium Viginis Mariae #40) It is encountering the face of Christ in our brothers and sisters, especially those in death, where we are able to find true and lasting peace.
In prayer, and in the rosary, we are able to open our hearts to see God’s face, place ourselves in his arms and walk into the experience of peace even as sadness surrounds us. It is not so much that we trust in the more of the eternal but we trust in the more of the love we now offer in hope. It is being surrounded by the love we experience as we gather to share our stories as we cry and laugh in life that is such a blessing. We are able to do this now, in the moment of sorrow because we have practiced it in life together as family and community.
Pope Francis in “Amoris Laetitia” offers us this hope, “It is a profound spiritual experience to contemplate our loved ones with the eyes of God and to see Christ in them. This demands a freedom and openness which enable us to appreciate their dignity. We can be fully present to others only by giving fully of ourselves and forgetting all else. Our loved ones merit our complete attention. Jesus is our model in this, for whenever people approached to speak with him, he would meet their gaze, directly and lovingly (cf. Mk 10:21).” (Amoris Laetitia #323)
It is in Jesus that we truly are able to give “fully of ourselves and forgetting all else” and his mother Mary who offers us the perfect example standing at the foot of the cross in prayer.
In the coming days, as I pray the rosary, I will contemplate with Mary the face of Christ seeing my Uncle Shorty and Aunt Anne in Jesus’ Most Sacred Heart and holding my cousins and family deeply in the Immaculate Heart of Mary our Mother.
God bless
Fr. Mark

One of my younger sisters, Mary Cay, in responding to a string text messages earlier this week where my family was sharing photos and messages about the fires in the Pacific Northwest wrote this, “Holy cats!!!!!!! This year is something else!!!!! Wow.” Amen.
St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans shares these words of hope and grace with us as a Church, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit; whoever serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by others. Let us* then pursue what leads to peace and to building up one another.” (Rm 14:17-19) It has been one of those weeks and yes, one of those years where we await the second hurricane in less than two weeks to cause devastation, where in many parts of the country fires are ravaging the land, where political intrigue and violence seem more common than debate and discussion or in other words “Holy cats!!!!!!! This year is something else!!!!! Wow.”
As Catholic Christians how are we called to respond? When everything seems out of control, how do proclaim, “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”? There are no easy answers but one consistent answer that calls us back again and again to life giving service. It is prayer. I know that many people will say, “Is this the answer to everything?” and quite frankly, yes. It is the same as asking what do we need to live and are given a simple one word answer, “air”. It is the foundation of a relationship with something greater and life giving, a relationship where we are drawn out of our limitedness and invited into the eternal work of love.
The small quote from Romans reminds us of this. If we, in response to tragedy, in response to hatred and violence, in response to suffering, only respond with the “food and drink” necessary for the day, then we absent our lives from the healing and caring for the greater person. It is important that we reach out to the immediate needs of our brothers and sisters, but in responding we are called, as Christians, to also reach out in prayer…in the blessings and mercy of God that draws us into a longer and sustained blessing of the other.
Pope Francis, on the first day of his apostolic visit to Columbia, shared with the Catholic Church how we are not an organization of this’s and that’s but the person of Jesus Christ. Pope Francis said, (the Gospel is not) “a programme at the service of a trendy gnosticism, a project of social improvement, or the Church conceived as a comfortable bureaucracy, any more than she can be reduced to an organization run according to modern business models by a clerical caste.” (Pope Francis in Columbia 2017)
This idea of being of service, not as a project but as a person allows us to hear the second part of the quote from Romans with greater clarity. Our service should and must be one of prayerful engagement with the deepest needs of our brothers and sisters. It is the blessing St. John Paul II shared with us in “Rosarium Virginis Mariae” as he meditated on the power of the rosary in our life, “In Christ, God has truly assumed a “heart of flesh”. Not only does God have a divine heart, rich in mercy and in forgiveness, but also a human heart, capable of all the stirrings of affection.” (#26) This is what each saint understands and in our call to holiness (sainthood) we too must strive to grow in: to become the heart of Christ in the world we must, in prayer, know the heart of God’s love for us, to be active in hearing the call of God in our lives where we are engaged in heart to heart service. To be drawn into the deep waters of faith where we hear and move in active service of our brothers and sisters.
In other words, prayer is not a cold and sterile act that removes us from the world but rather it is a heartbeat, the call to active service in the sharing of our time, talent and treasure and sons and daughters of the living and true God. Prayer is the food feeding the dreams of hope changing “Holy cats!!!!!!! This year is something else!!!!! Wow.” from a statement of fear and doubt into hopefulness, mercy and love. This is the true mission of life where Pope Francis reminds of Jesus’ Gospel message, “We are called to set out on mission not with cold and abstract concepts, but with images that keep multiplying and unfolding their power in human hearts, making them grain sown on good ground, yeast that makes the bread rise from the dough, and seed with the power to become a fruitful tree.” (Pope Francis in Columbia 2017)
God bless
Fr. Mark

(Quotes from Pope Francis come from Catholic News Agency’s article http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-lays-out-his-vision-for-churchs-mission-in-latin-america-61182/

If you, therefore, are Christ’s body and members, it is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord’s table! It is your own mystery that you are receiving! You are saying “Amen” to what you are: your response is a personal signature, affirming your faith. When you hear “The body of Christ”, you reply “Amen.” Be a member of Christ’s body, then, so that your “Amen” may ring true! (St. Augustine of Hippo, from Sermon 272)

St. Augustine lived his deep and boundless passion of love for our Lord Jesus. He reminds us that we become what we receive in the Eucharist. Which follows the tradition of “Lex orandi, lex credendi”, (what we pray we come to believe) and then we follow this with what we do is who we truly are and women and men of faith who seek the face of Jesus Christ in each and every person. I mentioned a few weeks ago how it seems so long ago we were talking and seeking to grow in the works of mercy and how the hatred and violence seemed to easily to flow back into our hearts.
I have been reflecting on this small portion of St. Augustine sermon this week as well as reviewing the Works of Mercy and I asked myself a very simple question, “Am I a work of mercy?”
With the terrible and life taking destruction brought about by Hurricane Harvey (and by many other natural disasters around the world) I watch, look and wonder how do I respond? It is easy enough to say I will donate to an aid organization or give some clothing or other goods to be shared with those who have lost everything. Those are all actions of mercy and I am doing something good but as a Christian am I called to more?
And the answer is yes. How? One answer is to pack up your bags and head down to serve. But for many of us, this is impractical and in truth would probably cause as many problems for the recovery effort as it would solve.
The second “how?” can be summed up in one simple word: prayer. Yes, here it is again. But it isn’t just prayer for prayer sake but rather it is the unitive prayer St. Augustine writes about above. We say it so often as Catholics, “we are the Body of Christ” and we “celebrate in union with all” that we forget the power of intercessory prayer and how this prayer can unite us in mercy and love with God and with each other. It is a prayer of attentiveness. St.Louis de Montfort wrote these beautiful words about praying the rosary, ”In order to pray well, it is not enough to give expression to our petitions by means of that most excellent of all prayers, the Rosary, but we must also pray with real concentration…How can we expect God to listen to us if we ourselves do not pay attention to what we are saying?” (p 103, The Secret of the Rosary)
In prayer, and especially the rosary, we find ourselves on a journey of love and blessing with Jesus Christ and we then become the very work of mercy we desire because we unite ourselves in the Body of Christ with our brothers and sisters both near and far, both in suffering and joy, in love and holiness. The work of mercy we become is the prayer that blesses those who can do what we cannot at this moment. This does not excuse us from direct action of the work of God but it reminds us that united in love and offering hope in prayer we do change the heart of the world because our heart is broken and blessed and made into a new creation.
This is only possible with a deep and profound relationship with Jesus Christ. Hearing the words of St. Augustine above echo in St. John Paul II reflection on the rosary we begin to know our call to walk the mysteries of prayer, “At the same time, it becomes natural to bring to this encounter wit the sacred humanity of the Redeemer all the problems, anxieties, labors and endeavors which go to make up our lives. “Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you.” (Ps 55:23)” (#25 Rosarium Virginis Mariae.)
Jesus is present with us as we place our heart in His Sacred Heart of love. Let us pray together, work together and bring together the Body of Christ in becoming the work of mercy God calls us to be. And through the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary may we unite ourselves to her son in the service of all.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

As we unite ourselves in prayer with our brothers and sisters in the areas affected by Hurricane Harvey our Bishop Patrick, in unity with all bishops in the United States, has asked that we reach out to those suffering in Texas and the Gulf Coast.
Bishop Patrick has asked, as a church, we direct or donations through Catholic Charities who are on the ground in the 9 dioceses impacted by this storm. There is a link below to make an online donation. St. Lucy will have an in pew collection in a few weeks for those who wish to donate in this manner.
If you have already shared of your time, talent and treasure through different relief agencies, thank you and God blesses your generosity. We know from experience the recovery will take not days or weeks but years so let us continue to be united in the works of mercy in sharing God’s blessings with those in need.

Donate now and help families recover from Hurricane Harvey