Anticipation: When I drive up to Idaho to visit my mother there is always a great sense of anticipation. The 15 hour drive seems at times to be endless but as the miles tick by the energy in the soul, of coming home to Idaho, begins to strengthen and as your roll down the grade out of the Eastern Oregon desert and see the simple sign, “Welcome to Idaho” there is a jump of joy where life is just a little bit better. It is a moment after this I remember there are still another 4 hours to drive.
Waiting: The joy, the adrenaline, the happiness begins to temper and settle down knowing there is now a wait. You are in Idaho but you are not yet home. A few deep breaths and a refocusing on the journey begins again.
Knowing the journey: I have driven this road dozens of times and knowing the journey helps you mark off the time as you inch ever closer. Driving through Payette and Weiser as I head north and then following the winding road up the mountains through Council and New Meadows. And finally heading back down the other side passing through Riggins to the bottom of the valley. As you head up the Whitebird Grade and peak over the top, the Camas Prairie comes into view with its patchwork of fields of green or gold; home is a smell so near.
Going home to Idaho: And while the journey is almost complete, driving up over the last rise and seeing my childhood home grounds me in a way that nothing else has ever done on this earth. It is home: full of memories, full of new blessings and full of love.
Which is a long and wonderful way to get to the second part of the letter. As we Californians know, our governor issued an order that has allowed houses of worship to gather once more. In a way, this news opened the door too many different feelings of hope, memory and blessings of love.
Coming home to the Eucharist: In the Eucharist we believe we touch heaven in the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. It brings forth so many spiritual gifts which nothing else can accomplish. It is the source and some of our faith and lives…it is the memories of the many celebrations, the joys and sorrows, the milestones of life…it is home.
Not knowing the journey: The most difficult part of this journey is not knowing. I don’t have landmarks or signposts to show me the way. It is the strange road where, you hope, every corner will be the final one. Where the next hill will reveal the sought after destination. In many ways it is the not knowing the road which has caused the most pain. It is new and difficult and seemingly without end. We don’t have a map, a gps signal, or even a stranger on the journey to ask directions. We get glimpses of possibilities on the facebook or youtube streaming events but the desire and long to be connected isn’t and cannot be satisfied.
Waiting: While the order by the governor was a wonderful welcoming sign, we all know there is a part of the journey we must still complete. And as we wait our hearts and souls should be preparing, emptying our sorrows and fears into the heart of Jesus and looking out with hope and joy to the inching forward in the hope of blessing.
Anticipation: We all know the destination: Heaven. We also know how the Eucharist helps us to live our lives and be connected to God in a unique and powerful way. The anticipation of the taste of the Divine food is what keeps us on the road forward. Let us all continue to seek our destination in kindness and love.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

A Parent Who Prays, By Katie Warner

Learning to listen to the feelings of others and walk with them, side by side, through the moments of life. How do I listen to my children’s feelings?

“Make your abode in Jesus’ adorable heart. Bring to him your troubles and disappointments, and your heart will be calmed. In his Divine Heart you will find healing for your ills, strength in time of weakness, and a safe haven in all your needs.” (St. Margaret Mary Alacoque)

It is all about where you choose to live. This is a reality we all must face. Something we must ask ourselves. Are we “happy” where we live? Most people would first and foremost think of the physical location, perhaps their house, the city, town or ranch they live on, or maybe even state or country to answer this simple question. Being content or happy with where we may be living physically is a transitory question but as St. Margaret Mary points out in the above quote, as Christians, we are called to make our “abode in Jesus’ adorable heart.”
When I was teaching at St. Lawrence many years ago I remember a family of a student were moving out of state. In the days before the move in conversation with the husband and wife they noted there was this great Catholic parish very close to their new house and this was one of the reasons they chose this particular house. It struck me as a little odd at the time but the more I have thought about it and the more this point has been brought up in many subsequent conversations the more the reality of the decreasing of the physical house is replaced by the increasing of the abiding in the heart of Jesus.
“One thing I have asked of the LORD, this is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and seek Him in His temple.” (Ps 27:4)
The psalmist gives us this wonderful image of longing. It is a desire to make our homes, wherever they may be into a dwelling place of peace, joy and charity. Looking again at St. Margaret Mary’s words above we recognize how healing and forgiveness must be in the heart of our homes. It is one of those little hints given to newly married couples, “don’t let the little hurts accumulate” or as St. Paul reminds us, “If you are angry, let it be without sin. the sun must not go down on your wrath; do not give the devil a chance to work on you.” (Eph 4:26-27) Where we choose to live is founded in how we then choose to live. The home, as the domestic church becomes the place where faith is practiced and passed on to the next generation, to visitors and to the stranger. Our home begins to reach outward in looking toward the greater home God has prepared for us in heaven.
During this terrible and crazy time, the home has been placed under tremendous stress and pressure. Even my own home, the rectory at St. Lucy, is not immune to the temptations of sin, hurt and isolation even as we are forced to live more closely together. Where there are blessings the devil will seek to “work on you” to twist these graces into the needles of sin that irritate the good will of the family.
St. John Paul II reminds us we are not alone but rather the unity of the family, even when it is difficulty, is the remedy and hope in these times of stress, anxiety and hurt. He writes, “All members of the family, each according to his or her own gift, have the grace and responsibility of building, day by day, the communion of persons, making the family “a school of deeper humanity”: this happens where there is care and love for the little ones, the sick, the aged; where there is mutual service every day; when there is a sharing of goods, of joys and of sorrows.” (#21, Familiaris Consortio)
Where do you live? Each of us has the choice of where we live. Do we choose to make our “abode in the adorable heart of Jesus?” Or do we choose a less desirable and more destructive place? These are questions we must ask and answer daily because while sin can tempt us out of the heart of Jesus, His grace, His mercy, His forgiveness will carry us back when we choose to embrace one another in care for the blessing of life.
“Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”” (Lk 9:58)
It doesn’t matter where we live as long as we choose to be with Jesus.
God bless
Fr. Mark

Spiritual friends don’t necessarily face each other. Instead, they look outward at the same goal, side-by-side. What goals are you and your spiritual friends facing together? What can you do to work towards those goals in partnership? (p 46)

A Parent Who Prays by Katie Warner

How do we reveal our true self to others? Do I allow others to see me as God created me? Do I act and interact in the purity of heart God gives me?

“I miss rain delays…I miss getting jammed in cold weather..i miss batting gloves…I miss long replay reviews that don’t get overturned even though he was safe.. I miss umpires..I miss long flights at 3 am after a tough loss… I miss the shift..I do.. I miss it all…” (a tweet from Matt Carpenter)

In case you don’t know who Matt Carpenter is; he is a baseball player who for 9 years has played for the St. Louis Cardinals. I am tired writing about the “shelter-in-place” the “quarantine” the sadness and heartache of “live-stream Mass” and not being able to see or be around those I am called to serve. I could talk all about this again but like Matt Carpenter, I miss baseball, I miss Mass and miss you.
You may have also noticed how the “miss it all” isn’t the glamorous side of baseball. The things he describes are those areas that are often the most onerous and frustrating to a ball player. But in many ways he is describing to us life and the fullness of life and how the annoying things of life give flavor, enrichment and understanding to the joys, graces and gratitude of life we all desire and wish to live in day by day.
Baseball, for me, is one of those blessings where life slows down. With all the talk about speeding up the game, some of it I do understand, my heart is always in the conservative romantic place of let’s keep the pace and grace of the game where it is. The meandering movements, the moments of excitement, the delays and the celebrations all fill the time and allow the emotions of the second to flow into the joy of the hours in recognizing the conversation occurring on the field and in the in-between moments of play.
And this is how, even during these strange and difficult times, life continues but is often missed too because so many of the personal interactions which fill life are missing. It is missing sitting next to another and holding the conversations full of both meaning and memory, sometimes profound and other times mundane. It is missing the slow movements of live interspersed with the brief moments of excitement drawing us deeper into conversations of knowing and blessing. It is watching others frustrate you, annoy you and anger you and then in the next moment cause you to jump with such great joy and excitement it seems impossible to contain the energy.

So, if as a priest I were to write this tweet…I miss people showing up late for Mass…and the people leaving early…I miss last minute questions as the opening hymn begins…I miss the multiple announcements at the end of Mass…I miss sitting in the confessional and no one comes…I miss the squirming kids, the bored teens and the distracted parents…I miss the glitches in the sound system…I miss the sleepy altar servers…I miss 7:00 a.m. Mass…I miss it all.
Just as I love baseball, I love life and with Matt Carpenter I miss those little things that can be distractions and annoyances because the in-between is so filled with God’s presence in serving others and sharing his love in the great and small blessings of life.
I look forward to seeing you all (hopefully soon) including my sleepy altar servers, the distracted parents and yes, even those who are a little late to Mass.
God bless
Fr. Mark

The Challenges of Friendship 2 Corinthians 9:11 To Conform or to not conform; that is the question? What am I willing to sacrifice? Growing towards the other who is not…

What is there to be loved and desired if friendship is not? St. Francis de Sales

How do we mirror the love of God in our friendships? Living and unconditional love in growing in our holiness.

How are do we dive deeper into understanding our relationship with Jesus Christ and God’s call to follow him…read a poem….learn how to describe love….move beyond a surface understanding to see beneath the waves of life.

There is an important illusion that must be exposed: we would like to present ourselves before the Lord only when we are presentable, well-groomed and content with ourselves! But there is a lot of presumptuousness in that attitude! In effect, we would like to bypass the need for mercy. But what is the nature of this pseudo-sanctity to which we sometimes aspire unconsciously and which would result in our thinking hat we no longer have need of God? True sanctity is, on the contrary, to increasingly recognize how much we absolutely depend upon His mercy? (p 66 “Searching for and Maintaining Peace” by Fr. Jacques Philippe)

Our Christian faith is an act of humility towards something greater and beyond our fully understanding the how’s and the why’s of life. The quote above tells us a lot about our human nature. If we think about it how often do we quickly tidy up the house if someone knocks at the door or as one friend once put it, “What does it say about me if I clean up my house before my housecleaning service arrives?” Being “presentable, well-groomed and content with ourselves” isn’t that hard exteriorly…it just takes time, the correct products and a little self-care and there are entire industries built around fulfilling these natural desires in our lives. Each of us know the underlying reality of this desire as we hear so many people talk about how on the outside everything looks fine but on the inside they are a complete mess.
Fr. Jacques Philippe reminds us this tendency always leads us into an area of isolation and ego where we put on a false bravado denying the need for help even as we know we are sinking deeper and deeper into despair. Which then will open us to two divergent paths: one of self destructive behavior and the other a deeper search for meaning in which we discover the truth of our need for God and others.
One of the catch phrases to come from this time of “self-isolation/shelter-in-place” has been “social distancing” but as was pointed out to me what we are in reality doing is “physical distancing” because we are staying apart but we are not alone. A smile can travel across the room, a wave of the hand can be seen from a great distance, the words good morning, thank you and have a good day can echo in our hearts for hours after they have been spoken and shared. Each of these actions are part of our human experience and must be part of our experience in our intimate and loving relationship with God. In the same way these social activities can be celebrated from a distance the blessings, the grace and the love of God we receive, express and live daily are not restricted to time, distance or space.
And yet, we do miss something when we “physical distance” and must reach out across the gaps without the normal human interactions that come with a handshake, a hug or a kiss on the cheek. Our faith is founded and lived on these very intimate human experiences where the Incarnation of God in Jesus the Son touches us in a real and physical way just as our faith dives deep within our soul.
Just as we long for the human touch, we also long for the sacramental touch. The dipping of our fingers into and being washed with the water of Baptism, the receiving of the Bread of Life in Communion with others, the words spoken and shared in Reconciliation, Anointing and Marriage, simple but profound and holy act of sharing a sign of peace.
We must depend upon His mercy, the mercy that reaches into the moments of despondent loneliness, the mercy seeking to heal the doubt and fear, the mercy lighting the darkness of frustration. It is the living of these few simple words: Jesus, I trust in You.
God Bless
Fr. Mark