“It was to be necessary for God himself to become that one righteous person. And this is the mystery of the Incarnation: to guarantee a just person he himself becomes man. There will always be one righteous person because it is he. However, God himself must become that just man. The infinite and surprising divine love was to be fully manifest when the Son of God was to become man, the definitive Righteous One, the perfect Innocent who would bring salvation to the whole world by dying on the Cross, forgiving and interceding for those who “know not what they do” (Lk 23:34). Therefore the prayer of each one will find its answer, therefore our every intercession will be fully heard.” (Pope Benedict XVI and all quotes from the General Audience 18 May 2011)

One of the most common requests I receive as a priest is the simple phrase, “Father, would you please pray for…. The requests are varied and range from very urgent and at time grave to the small and continuing troubles of family, country and world. This request for intercession is something we need to be attentive too and hopefully bringing prayers into the center of life. Because our call to intercede in prayer goes deeper than the response we find often in the secular world where to “I will keep you in my thoughts” is the pail response to prayer.
Pope Benedict uses the famous story of Abraham seeking mercy for the people of Sodom. The reality is this conversation between God and Abraham is greater than the surface bargaining and testing that are first noticed, rather as he notes, “In this way he brings a new idea of justice into play: not the one that is limited to punishing the guilty, as men do, but a different, divine justice that seeks goodness and creates it through forgiveness that transforms the sinner, converts and saves him. With his prayer, therefore, Abraham does not invoke a merely compensatory form of justice but rather an intervention of salvation which, taking into account the innocent, also frees the wicked from guilt by forgiving them.” (Pope Benedict)
The greatness and deepness of intercessory prayer is we place ourselves inside the suffering and hurt were we participate in the lives of those we pray for even when they are on the other side of our planet. Abraham steps in and takes up the cause of not only the just but the sinner too and we are called to do the same as disciples of Jesus Christ. As noted in the first quote above, God becomes one of us in the presence of the second person of the Most Holy Trinity, Jesus, where he intercedes, he steps into the world to be present to all where he reminds us, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (LK 5:32) The call we have to intercede for others, in prayer, is an invitation to move more deeply into their lives in a relationship of love where we begin to see them as sisters and brothers worthy of love because this is how Jesus/God sees us.
It is important, as Pope Benedict reminds us, to remember our prayers are for those in need…including our enemies and even those who commit the most heinous crimes against society, “Yet the Lord does not want the wicked to die, but rather that they convert and live (cf. Ez 18:23; 33:11); his desire is always to forgive, to save, to give life, to transform evil into good. Well, it is this divine desire itself which becomes in prayer the desire of the human being and is expressed through the words of intercession.” (Pope Benedict)
Whether the intercession of prayer is for a person suffering from cancer or another suffering from the self imposed prison of addiction our call, as disciples of Jesus Christ, is to reach out, to step into, to walk and be with the other in the unity of love. It is only here that we find the fullness of God’s mercy and healing grace.
Please pray for me…I am praying for you.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

“Dear brothers and sisters, the prayer of intercession of Abraham, our father in the faith, teaches us to open our hearts ever wider to God’s superabundant mercy so that in daily prayer we may know how to desire the salvation of humanity and ask for it with perseverance and with trust in the Lord who is great in love. Many thanks.” (Pope Benedict)

“The problems that weigh heavily on the hearts of men are the same today as in the ages past. What is man? — [who am I?] — What is the meaning and purpose of life?” (Pope Benedict XVI from General Audience 11 May 2011)

The above statement by Benedict XVI is an age old reality. As we grow from childhood dependent upon our parents and family and begin the search for “who we are” as individuals we begin to ask these very important questions. And the reality of this great question on the purpose of life is that it is a good and necessary question. The willingness to look beyond the superficial and into the deepness of the heart and soul where relationships are discovered is the difficult and often avoided area by many people, including people of faith.
And in truth, the superficial is much easier and often more sensually satisfying in the short term moments of life. The idea of delayed gratification is thrown away quickly with the rationalization of; “Why wait for something that may happen when I can take and do the lesser of the something right now?” But at the same time, we know deep down the goods that come from preparing, sacrificing and waiting are what truly brings peace and joy into our hearts.
Pope Benedict XVI in the same audience continued, “The “digital” man, like the cave man, seeks in the religious experience ways to overcome his finiteness and to guarantee his precarious adventure on earth. Moreover, life without a transcendent horizon would not have its full meaning and happiness, for which we all seek, is spontaneously projected towards the future in a tomorrow that has yet to come.”
This seeking, this quest for the greater is a found in the discovery of a relationship of love that is “beyond” the natural experience and into a conversation that draws out a reality of the infinite in the lives of each person. It is a discovery of a relationship of movement towards a greater desire for unity where the joy and happiness God calls forth in life is lived to the fullest.
There is an experience I will often share with young men asking questions and discerning a call to the priesthood or those young women doing the same for consecrated life. In my first year in seminary one of my classmates and someone who became of good friend announced he was leaving formation. Personally, for me, this was devastating. He was a good, positive and genuine man who I believed would be a great priest and yet in seeking the greater with an open heart to God’s call he knew God had a different plan for him, (and I am sure his wife and children would agree). But it was only in prayer, a deep conversation of relationship with God and others, was he able to discern and choose the path God called him to live. Pope Benedict reminds us in this same talk, “St Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest theologians of history, defines prayer as “an expression of man’s desire for God””
God has called each of us to a mission in life, a mission that is unrepeatable by any other person and we discover this mission in our prayer of blessing and adoration…in our desire for God’s presence and relationship…our response to the greater. It is a discussion of love where Jesus calls us his friends (Jn 15:15) and invites us to speak with him and search him out in prayer as a friend. As Pope Benedict points out, “I can be forced to kneel — a condition of indigence and slavery — but I can also kneel spontaneously, declaring my limitations and therefore my being in need of Another. To him I declare I am weak, needy, “a sinner”.” It is in the recognition of my limitations where I search for the other in hope and blessing—through conversation, through prayer knowing it is here the glory of love, the glory of God is found.
God bless
Fr. Mark

Man bears within him a thirst for the infinite, a longing for eternity, a quest for beauty, a desire for love, a need for light and for truth which impel him towards the Absolute; man bears within him the desire for God. And man knows, in a certain way, that he can turn to God, he knows he can pray to him. (Pope Benedict XVI)

“We know well, in fact, that prayer should not be taken for granted. It is necessary to learn how to pray, as it were acquiring this art ever anew; even those who are very advanced in spiritual life always feel the need to learn from Jesus, to learn how to pray authentically. We receive the first lesson from the Lord by his example. The Gospels describe Jesus to us in intimate and constant conversation with the Father: it is a profound communion of the One who came into the world not to do his will but that of the Father who sent him for the salvation of man.” (Pope Benedict XVI from 4 May 2011 Audience)

A little while back a young couple came to visit me because of some problems in their relationship. I asked some questions to get to know them, to find out what they did and how their home life functioned and after about 30 minutes of this conversation I asked them a simple question, “How do you pray at home?” There was a few moments of silence and she then asked me, “Did I mean like the ‘Our Father’ or something else?” This began a very wonderful conversation about prayer: praying for each other, talking to God, asking for blessing and giving thanks through prayer.
Pope Benedict reminds us in the quote above about the reality of the work of prayer. While prayer is a natural outpouring at many times during our life, we also need to be attentive to the continual practice of prayer so we may not just run to prayer when we need it but allow prayer to draw us deeper into relationships of love, thanksgiving and care for God and others in our life.
Prayer takes attentiveness on our part so we are ready because as I stated above it is a natural gift to share but when we are not attentive to prayer it can’t atrophy much like our physical nature. A great example of this is our children’s summer break and the slide backwards many of them experience in their reading and math skills so when they return in the fall for the next grade they often need to relearn what they knew because throughout the summer they did not pick up a book to read or do a math problem to keep the mental growth increasing. The spiritual growth of prayers works the same way…if we don’t use it daily.
We are reminded there are five major types of prayer: Blessing and Adoration, Petition, Intercession, Thanksgiving and Praise. Each of these types of prayer have a place within the prayer life of each person and family/church. We need to practice each type to once extent or another because if we don’t, then we can begin to fall into the mumbling of the great prayers, like the “Our Father,” where they become just words rattled off without thought rather than the deep and profound conversation with a loving God, loving family and community.
As we talked about prayer, this couple began to ask the harder questions about their desire for a deeper and more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. But they wanted to know, how do we do this? For each of us the answer will be a little different and yet looking at the five-forms of prayer we all have the same compass pointing towards Heaven, pointed towards God who is love.
In my prayer chest I always like to start with blessing and asking the question, “Where did I experience/see/feel/hear God’s blessing today?” Trying to be as specific as I can by just not noting the beauty of the day (which is important and a wonderful blessing) but seeking to be very specific, especially in the who and when, in naming the blessing(s) as I recall my day and more importantly begin to offer blessing and then thanksgiving when I have these little experiences of the miracle of God in my life. Pope Benedict XVI notes in the same audience, “Human life is a fabric woven of good and of evil, of undeserved suffering and of joy and beauty that spontaneously and irresistibly impel us to ask God for that light and that inner strength which support us on earth and reveal a hope beyond the boundaries of death.”(Benedict XVI)
This young couple has a long and holy journey in front of them full of growth with all the sufferings and blessings of life and relationships. Please pray for them as they seek to live as God’s son and daughter it is part of the great intercession we can offer as family, as the Body of Christ.
God bless,
Fr. Mark

God Bless America
God bless America, land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with the light from above
From the mountains to the prairies
To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home

As we celebrate the 4th of July this week and look back at our history and forward to our future as people of faith we may call to mind the blessings of life and the hopes and dreams we see in how we are to go forward. As a Catholic priest one of the first “tempest in a teapot” I was faced with was the song “God Bless America.” I can’t remember which national holiday it was but directly after Mass I was confronted and excoriated by several parishioners about why we didn’t sing “God Bless America” at the end of Mass. Later on in my priesthood after another national holiday I was confronted and excoriated by several parishioners on why we did sing “God Bless America” at the end of Mass…and throughout the years this has continued because it is not something I think too much about and often it slips by my notice. But it has been something I do think about from time to time and seeing this song as prayer (to sing is to pray twice according to St. Augustine) is important…because the call to blessing is very important no matter who we are and to whom and where our prayer intention is headed. Jesus reminds us, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Mt 5:43-45) It is where our prayer/song becomes the reaching out of healing and blessing towards all people.
“God bless America” specifically in this song, The United States of America, if we added this to a list of prayers we may not have any objections but yet at the end of Mass there are many. If we consider the prayer we may begin to see the blessings is simply offered. I often pray these words to many people during the day. As a sixth grade teacher I would often say to my students, “God bless you Peter” to which in the beginning they would respond, “I didn’t sneeze.” It is a short prayer that we hopefully utter many times in our lives and days to family, friends and yes, enemies. It is a short prayer we send towards many parts of the world and many peoples in different situations and places in times of need. It is because we understand that whether it is “America” or any other country, place or group…it is the people who we seek to bless because the second phrase is about love, “Land that I love.”
Love is the understanding that with faults and failures we still love. I bless and desire my family, friends and each person I meet to be blessed because I hope for the better, the more holy, the fuller dignity to grow within that particular person but also in the community and world we inhabit. It is because we understand whether an individual person or a land, we love through failures and faults, not dismissing or forgetting them, but forgiving and moving forward in the growth of generous love. I will never be 100% in-sync with any person, I know my own faults and failures and know them also in family and friends and yet it is in love I draw closer because I know their presence makes me a better man. In the same way we should have this same hope for our communities, our country and our Church…not because any are perfect but because we are made better when we seek unity rather than division. It is here we have the desire, as Christians, for our God to guide and lead us through the darkness into the light of charity and justice. And I would hope this is where we all desire to be.
Just some thoughts about a simple song shared and blessed.
God Bless you and America
Fr. Mark