These days are full of energy, anticipation, anxiety and hope for the holy Church around the world. For parish priests the next few days are blessings that fill us with each these emotions as we await the great celebration of Easter morning. It is a time of quiet and prayer in which the songs of joy enter into the silence we are called to enter into through prayer and contemplation.
It begins a bit weird for me each year because each Holy Thursday morning as I pray my Holy Hour in front of the tabernacle I realize the next few days will be different. I will go and pray but the tabernacle will be empty as we begin the Triduum of our faith. That night we will celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper with the washing of the feet and procession with the Eucharist to a place of repose. The church will be left silent as we begin to journey with Jesus to Garden of Gethsemane and into the darkness of the night. Jesus will invite us to be with him, to pray with him and to walk with him. We will hear him speak the same words of hope and blessing he speaks to the disciples when he asks them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch.” (Mk 14:34) It is his invitation to seek him as we are to be transformed into the gift of new life. He has washed us of our sins and invites us to live with him forever.
“Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him, went out and said to them, “Whom are you looking for?” They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.” (Jn 18:4-5) One of the eternal truths we know is our hearts were made for God and the search for God, even by those who do not believe, will always ultimately bring us into and encounter with the Cross of Jesus Christ. It is on the Cross of Salvation where we finally discover the true meaning of the peace Jesus offers to us each day. The peace which comes from dying to our sins and entering into a deep and intimate relationship with God in the Most Holy Trinity. “This cross is the destruction of enmity, the source of peace, and the chest of our treasure. Thanks to the cross, we no longer wander in the desert, for we have found the right way; we are no longer outside the palace, for we have found the entrance; we no longer fear the flaming arrows of the devil, for we have seen where the font of water is.” (St. John Chrysostom) This call to enter into the mystery of the cross is central to our Catholic faith which through the Eucharist we are united in love and blessing. As our Holy Father Francis echoing St. Paul reminds us, “Anyone who turns away from the Cross, turns away from the Resurrection.” (Pope Francis)
Our Paschal journey continues through Holy Saturday as we await in silence and contemplation the day of Resurrection. As we do with our churches, we are called to prepare our souls to hear and receive the Good news, “Jesus changes our sins into forgiveness and our fears into trust. In His Cross our hope is reborn again and again.” (Pope Francis)
Our Catholic Church prepares to welcome those searching and be renewed in the light of Christ. The church is once more filled with light as we sing and celebrate in prayerful hope the victory of life over death. “For the many great peoples who gather everywhere around the world to celebrate this solemnity in the name of Christ, the sun may disappear but the day does not end, for the brilliant Earth and dazzling sky take its place… allow the light to open our eyes, so that we may look upon the splendor of light with radiant eyes, able to see the causes for such a brilliant night with unclouded minds”. (St. Augustine)
May the light of Christ fill your hearts during the coming Easter Sunday and season that follows.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned” Those words are a powerful admission of our need for God’s healing grace. I have said them this past week and have heard them said many dozens of times in the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the numerous services I have and will be doing throughout Lent. This week I am scheduled to hear over 9 hours of confessions both at my parish and throughout the diocese. It is truly a great blessing.
One of the things, during these times of reconciliation, I have noticed is the number of people this year who have “confessed” to a difficult Lent. I may be noticing because of my own struggles this year or God has put it on my heart to be more attentive to this sin. Whatever the case we are never alone in our struggles.
A few years ago, during one of my more difficult Lents as a seminarian, I confessed my utter failure with my Lenten discipline. I had failed in prayer and in fasting over and over again. My giving of alms was done grudgingly and with little thought. The priest advised me to “bring your Lent into Easter.” This was not what I wanted to hear but it is good advice. Why? Because this is what the early church did.
Think about the Gospels. Peter failed spectacularly when he ran, denied our Lord and the walked away in despair. The Easter gift, bringing Lent into Easter, was the healing and the reconnecting with Jesus in feeding His sheep. The other disciples and apostles did much the same and in St. Thomas’ case, even disbelieved his friends when they testified to the resurrection…Jesus invited him and all the apostles into a new relationship: his Easter gift. If the goal of our Lenten journey is to become closer and more united with our Lord Jesus then Easter isn’t a “you’re done” day but rather it is a “let us continue in love” day.
Cardinal Robert Sarah shares with us this beautiful insight, “God is a discreet friend who comes to share joys, pains and tears without expecting anything in return. We must believe in this friendship.” (#175 from “The Power of Silence”) Let us continue in love because God is with us, as a discreet friend, in the journey, even when the journey may seem fruitless.
Where to we go from here? First, we begin again. Even in the dying light of our Lenten days we are still invited into the vineyard of the Lord. With only a few hours left a bountiful harvest can still be shared when we walk with Jesus. Take time in prayer to review your Lent with a spouse, child, parent or friend listening for the gifts and blessings God has shared…even if we think it didn’t go well. Allowing our hearts to hear Jesus speak to us we are often better able to see his abundant love and recognize the jewels that have been given to us which we often discard in our busyness. Last but not least, take time with the Passion readings these next days. Read them silently or as a family over and over again during Holy Week as we hear the voice of Jesus speak to us with grace and love. Prepare to break our hearts open to receive the Eucharist as Fr. Ronald Rolheiser OMI writes, “Eucharist, then, is meant not just to celebrate our joys and gratitude, but also to break us open, to make us grown in anguish, to lay bare our mistrust, to lessen our jealousies and break down the distances that separate us. What the Eucharist asks of us is vulnerability, humility, contrition, and forgiveness. Bitterness, hatred, and suspicion are meant to disappear at a Eucharist.” (p 111, from “Our One Great Act of Fidelity”)
Whether your Lent has been joyful or fruitful, whether it has been good or just okay, if it has been hard and laborious, or perhaps a failure and disaster, “bring your Lent into Easter” for it is here we continue to grow in grace as the Son who is our new Dawn shines the light of love into our hearts.

God Bless
Fr. Mark

As part of my work as a Worldwide Marriage Encounter priest I will often pick up and read different books about marriage, especially “devotionals” that seek to help the couple grow in love through prayer and acts of mercy in their marital life. One of the bonus points to all of this is what is asked of married couples in prayer and acts of mercy often apply to me as a priest in my relationships with the people of God. I have recently been going through one of these books “Forever: A Catholic Devotional for Your Marriage” by Jackie Francois Angel and Bobby Angel. I’m in the middle of the book, day 5 of week 3 where they write, “We promise fidelity not only in the “big moments” of marriage, but also in the little moments of daily life. In the daily grind of work, home life, raising children, and recreation, am I being attentive to my spouse? Am I recognizing the needs of the other person? Am I only focused on my own pleasure and desires? Do I allow little frustrations and annoyances to rob me of the joy of being with the person I love? We begin to live heroic, sacrificial love in the little moments of everyday life. Loving one day at a time leads to a lifetime of love.” (p 71-72)
I told you this works for priests too. Because while I may not be able to celebrate these daily trials as a husband or wife I do, as a priest, by changing the situations and focusing on turning the questions back towards God and the people I serve and serve with I can and do at times (daily) allow myself to love and be loved in the blessing of God’s Holy Catholic Church.
Faith and love are hard work. We need to allow this truth to sink into our souls. Faith and love are hard work but this does not mean faith and love are not joyous work, fruitful work, and of course holy work. When we focus on our acts of sacrificial love toward the other we then enter into the joyful work of love bearing much fruit in the image of God.
This is done, as they point out above, in fidelity to the promises we make towards God and each other. Our baptismal promises, the other sacramental promises we make whether as husband or wife, priest, religious or people journeying towards their vows to God and others. We do this in fidelity through choosing to work and love in unity rather than divisiveness in our lives. It is being attentive to the fidelity of love by not allowing the small sins to begin to creep into the greater loves we are called to share. It is the loving gift of healing I see so often in my ministry in Marriage Encounter in recognizing the reality of love…it is difficult but worth it to forgive in an act of love.
This means being attentive in our relationship with God and each other. When I was a sixth grade teacher at St. Lawerence the Martyr, before my call to the priesthood, my daily practice would be to get to school early and spend 15 minutes in prayer in preparation for the day. (Being attentive to God) But there were days when I “thought” I had too much to prepare for the day and prayer could be skipped. (Ignoring God) Inevitably those days didn’t seem to go a well as the days where I had taken time to pray. During the days where prayer began my work, I found that I was more attentive to hearing my co-workers, the students and their parents in the “daily grind” than at times can overtake us. It is a magic bullet…no…because…Faith and love are hard work. It seeking placing under us a good foundation to work upon, prayer and fidelity to our promises/vows, which allow us to build the loving relationship(s) God desires us to share.
After I had read the above reflection, I went to church to pray the Stations of the Cross and it focussed my prayer on the “hard work” our Savior Jesus Christ shared with us in carrying his cross inviting us to do the same. Why? Because the hard work of passion the leads to the joy of the resurrection and life in abundance. Yes, faith and love are hard work.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

“Do dogs go to heaven?” that is the question.

This question gets asked very often, especially with children but more and more with adults. The simple answer is according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, (CCC 1024 and 1043) that because animals lack eternal souls, they would not experience the “beatific vision” and therefore cannot experience heaven as we human beings would.
But…listen to one of the early church fathers, Tertullian in his treatise “On Prayer” where he writes, “ All angels pray. Every creature prays. Cattle and wild beasts pray and bend the knee. As they come from their barns and caves they look up to heaven and call out, lifting up their spirits in their own fashion. The birds too rise and lift themselves up to heaven: they open out their wings, instead of hands, in the form of a cross, and get voice to what seems to be a prayer.”
I think there is a bigger question which needs to be answered here and that is: “What do I expect in heaven?” Ultimately, all we do on earth, from the moment of conception to our natural death, should point us in the direction of heaven and God. That is the first and most important priority. God, in His creation, has given us stewardship over all of creation (Gen 1:26-28) and through history but especially in recent years the Church has spoken very forcefully over our need to be “good stewards” of God’s creation. So how does this answer the first question?
Simply put, does the companionship of your pet, bring you closer in union with God through the sacrificial love and service of our brothers and sisters in Christ? This is where we return to our Lenten discipline. Does our prayer, fasting and alms giving bring us closer to Jesus in living our life of loving God and our neighbor? If not, then our sacrifice is not a good thing.
The same goes with our pets and any other thing that I can and do love. If I make it an object that obstructs my walk with Jesus then this is not a good thing. But if it opens my life to greater service and love of others and stewardship of creation (including dogs/pets) then this is a good thing and those blessings us follow us all the days of our life…and continue in the life of heaven.
The struggle comes when these things (including dogs/pets) become obstructions within our relationships. Our call to treat, in good stewardship, our animal companions with care and love must always be weighed against the good we are doing. Do dogs go to heaven? Yes, but only if we get there with them. There are many stories of a pet becoming an object of obsessions in which a person fulfills what is a natural desire to love and be loved with the pet and pushes away the normal loves of family, friends and perhaps current or future spouses. Several years ago, in premarital counseling this was a large obstacle as one person felt that the “pet” was more important than their growing relationship.
Questions that can seem silly, often lead us to deeper truths about how God desires us to live our lives. We are called to love but always in the correct order…God, neighbor and then creation. This is our call to stewardship.
God Bless
Fr.Mark

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” (Lk 1:11)

Learning to pray is a life long endeavor. A blessing which seems to continue to fill us with joy and confound us at the same time. Prayer can be fruitful, vibrant and restful one day followed by the next day of dryness, drudgery and a struggle to focus the other days with everything in between as our life moves forward.
As our life changes in different circumstances; as we age, our relationships change or we find new ways to seek God our prayer life will also naturally need to grow and change too as we develop our love of God and others. In this we are invited to study and grow in our prayer life as we often make similar statements to that of the disciples.
“Teach us to pray,” This past week I have been learning about prayer once again. I have been watching a set of videos on www.formed.org about prayer entitled, “LECTIO: Unveiling Scripture and Tradition: PRAYER.” It is not that I am learning something new but in listening to the presenter talk about prayer I am better able to confront the areas of dryness and struggle I am facing in my prayer life and look at them with fresh eyes.
In one of the talks we are reminded that prayer is first and foremost listening to God and not the other way around. This can be a trap we too often fall into. We want to be heard. We have lots and lots of things to tell God. We know what’s best for our lives…we are living them…and God just needs to listen and cooperate. At least this is my reasoning at times. But…we need to place ourselves into the presence of God with a heart made ready and with a desire to be with Him. So coming to listen, isn’t about being and empty vessel but rather it is to be a vessel ready to be filled with something more.
Pope Benedict XVI in his beautiful Encyclical “Spe Salve (Saved in Hope)” shares with us a deep understanding of prayer focusing back on the great St. Augustine of Hippo, “he defines prayer as an exercise of desire. Man was created for greatness–-for God himself; he was created to be filled by God.”(#33)
We can often see this in our lives. We often for the very mundane when Jesus invites us to pray for greatness. “For prayer to develop this power of purification, it must, on the one hand, be something very personal, and encounter between my intimate self and God, the living God. On the other hand, it must be constantly guided and enlightened by the great prayers of the Church and of the saints, by liturgical prayer, in which the Lord teaches us again and again how to pray properly.”(#34)
It is the miracle of Jesus’ invitation to come and be with him. That God wants to converse with us in knowing him personally. It is there and only they we find the dignity of seeking the very best from ourselves and the great hope for the world and for our brothers and sisters.
In our Lenten journey we are invited into the greater communal aspect of God’s love. Our prayer is always a response to a God who calls us to come and be healed. Prayer is not about being “happy” but rather it is to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ, because if we can do that then joyful love will always be with us because we will be abiding in the heart of Divine love.
God Bless
Fr. Mark