I was sitting in our beautiful parish church of St. Lawrence the Martyr when I realized, like a bolt of thunder, I was praying the wrong prayer! It was a moment when you realize you are asking God for something you want and not what God’s will is for his Holy Catholic Church.

Two simple things helped me understand how wrong my prayer was: first was the wonderful stained glass window of St. Lawrence and the second was reading Pope St. Paul VI apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Nuntiandi (On Evangelization in the Modern World)”
What was the wrong prayer? It had been a prayer I have prayed at every parish I have been assigned as pastor…it is a simple prayer….a prayer I rattle off a dozen times a day…it goes something like this…”Lord Jesus, through the intercession of St. Lawrence the Martyr, may you fill our parish and school with many happy and holy families.”

Pope St. Paul VI wrote about evangelization as a complete and full way of life. We as part of the Body of Christ, as living stones of the Church are evangelizers of the world. How we live our lives and how we participate in the society surrounding us is a necessary step of bringing the word of God to others. He writes, “The Church is an evangelizer, but she begins by being evangelized herself. She is the community of believers, the community of hope lived and communicated, the community of brotherly love, and she needs to listen unceasingly to what she must believe, to her reasons for hoping, to the new commandment of love.” (#15)

To be a community listening is part of the Synod of the Diocese of San Jose as well as the greater Church. Sitting quietly and listening in prayer and offering the prayer for the Church to be filled was an important part of the epiphany that I was praying the wrong prayer. It is the realization you have, when you are young, that God isn’t going to get you the new bike as if by magic but rather God, when we listen, will help us discern the needs we have and open our hearts to discover the greater good.

We are called to be more than just good listeners. Listening to the God in the quiet of the heart is important and vital, but if this is all we do then the active ministry of love and service will quickly descend into a crutch of hoping some one else will fix the problem. Rather St. Paul VI reminds us, “Having been sent and evangelized, the Church herself sends out evangelizers. She puts on their lips the saving Word, she explains to them the message of which she herself is the depositary, she gives them the mandate which she herself has received and she sends them out to preach. To preach not their own selves or their personal ideas, but a Gospel of which neither she nor they are the absolute masters and owners, to dispose of it as they wish, but a Gospel of which they are the ministers, in order to pass it on with complete fidelity.” (#15) To often we can fall into the temptation of preaching ourselves rather than Jesus Christ. We let humility be put into a box and the ego of “people are attracted to me” becomes our guiding light. As I sat in the quiet of the Church, looking at the beautiful and powerful stained glass windows, it was a reminder of the legacy which we have inherited and how this history and tradition forms our hearts and the message forms us to speak with wisdom and love.

So what is the new prayer? If we are called to listen carefully to the whisper of God in prayer, if we are invited to actively participate in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, the we are called to be transformed. To see the world a little differently and with a joy and blessing that goes beyond the world and into eternity. It is the “amen” of belief. Fr. Mike Schmitz in the Catechism in a Year in one episode reminded us, when we as Christians utter the “amen” of belief we should be doing this as if our very life depended upon our “yes” to God. St. Paul VI shares this same conviction when he writes. “Yet, one can never sufficiently stress the fact that evangelization does not consist only of the preaching and teaching of a doctrine. For evangelization must touch life: the natural life to which it gives a new meaning, thanks to the evangelical perspectives that it reveals; and the supernatural life, which is not the negation but the purification and elevation of the natural life.” (#47)
What is this new prayer I have begun to Prayer…imagine the stained glass of St. Lawrence in our church and pray with me: Lord Jesus, through the intercession of St. Lawrence the Martyr may we go out and work to fill our parish and school with the treasures he brought to you…the poor, the broken, the wounded, all those we are called to serve. Amen (as if our lives depended upon it!)
St. Lawrence the Martyr….pray for us
God Bless
Fr. Mark

My Alma Mater is closing….

I hadn’t realized how hard this post would be to write until I sat down and couldn’t find the words, couldn’t express my feeling and couldn’t understand the depth of loss. But…a few months down the road from hearing the my Alma Mater was closing at the end of the school year, I hope to find the words with God’s grace.

I was accepted to Holy Names College (later University)in Oakland in the spring of 1986. It was all happenstance and something of God’s providence that led me to this small Catholic liberal arts college in the hills of Oakland. After my discharge from the Marine Corps, I was living in Seattle and going to Community College and had decided that I wanted to go to a small Catholic liberal arts college/university. So I applied to several (I think 10 or more) institutions throughout the United States.
As luck, happenstance, or God’s divine providence would have it, the first acceptance letter I received was from Holy Names…I took that as a definite sign and wrote back my “yes” and all the other acceptance letters that followed were declined as I prepared to move from the northwest and down to the Bay Area I still call home.

And although I was 25 years of age when I began my studies at Holy Names, I like many people, made life long and deep friendships that sadly I do not always cherish in the way I should. I studied under dedicated and great professors who were true teachers and mentors in every sense of the word. The small and intimate size of the college and of my major, philosophy, led to deep and life changing encounters of seeing the other as a child of God. I remember being asked to meet with Dr. Richard Yee, one of my philosophy professors, where he gently scolded me for my callous and unkind words towards a fellow student and how he expected more of me. How leaving his office humbled and ashamed I continue to hear his voice in many of my interactions even to this day…seeking a more gentle and kinder way of knowing the other.

Or Dr. Tricia McMahon and her invitation into the joy and playfulness of children’s theater and how I can even today remember some of the songs which we sang and how this helped me to be a better teacher by incorporating the experiences I had in shaping the children I was honored to teach.

Then there was the day in class when a friend and I were discussing the merits of a certain “Calvin and Hobbes” cartoon and how Dr. Shelia Gibson, walking into our Ethics Class and hearing us began to discuss the historical figures Calvin and Hobbes with us. And when discovering we were discussing comic strip characters graciously asked for the book and read it. Teaching me and all in the class to look a little deeper into the culture around us and begin to see the depths of God’s fingerprints to be found even in a comic strip.

The last memory, I will share, is of Sr. Irene Woodward and her time in my last undergraduate year at Holy Names College…her teaching and leading me through two philosophy courses. Her torturing me into using fewer words that I wish to use and then to answer questions that seemed impossible but became clearer through discussion and correction. How learning to listen carefully to the hints and proddings shared in weekly discussions opened my mind and life to greater and more profound encounters with God.
And I could go on.

In the years that followed Holy Names went from College to University…added sports programs that were non existent in my undergraduate years but more importantly continued to outreach to the local community and in a special way looking for and helping those first generation college students.

I graduated from Holy Names College in the spring of 1989 after spending a year studying in Germany. I later returned to work towards my teaching credential which ultimately led me to my call to the priesthood.

Shortly after I heard the news, I was up at dinner with my sister and her family and my godson’s wife, who works at a local community college in helping students transition to 4 year institutions lamented the loss of Holy Names and shared how hard the Holy Names Sisters worked in these final years in seeking to help students graduate debt free in understanding the burden student debt can be to many graduates.

The local community of Oakland and the greater community of the Catholic Church will surely miss the gift of mission that is/was Holy Names University. Begun with the joy, the grit and the passion of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the courage of the Holy Names Sisters, whether in the mid 19th century founding or their continued service into the beginning of this 21st century…their mission continues in the lives of those they touched and formed as we pass on the gift of education, friendship and joy we received, not in a diploma or degree but in our hearts formed in the image and charism of the Sisters of the Holy Names call to serve in the image of Jesus.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

Thank you Grandpa! I heard these words the other day outside of Lucky’s as I was walking to my car. A younger man than I, had asked me if I could spare a few dollars. I hadn’t any cash in my wallet, but I thought I may have in the car door pocket. I apologized and said if he would wait I would check if I had any in my car. I loaded my groceries in the trunk, checked the door and low and behold there were three one dollar bills. I gathered them into my hands and then walk back to him, gave him the few dollars and said “God bless” to which he replied, “Thank you Grandpa.”
I walked away stunned. I didn’t know what to think. And certainly, in all my life, no one…and I mean no one…had ever said those three words to me. Being called “Father” after I was ordained to the priesthood was a challenge to get used too and now I was called “Grandpa.”

When I arrived home a few minutes later, I was still rolling these words around in my mind. In the bathroom, I looked in the mirror, it was there that I realized…I looked like a grandpa, an old man with grey whiskers, a receding hairline and yes a few extra pounds around the waist. And it was there that the blessing of these words took hold and the acceptance of God’s blessing of growing older was known in the troubled heart.

In a recent conversation with a true grandparent, I was told for the 100th time about how wonderful grandchildren were and how as grandparents it was much easier to unconditionally love them than their own children. Distance, time and wisdom helps us to understand the beauty of life and how each life is so very precious in the eyes of God…and especially in the little ones that surround us.

Since that morning when I was given thanks as a “grandpa” I have begun to wonder about this gift.

I truly enjoy being a Father, a pastor and shepherd to God’s holy people. I take this calling and vocation very seriously and find peace in the blessings, the sorrows, the joys and the sadness which my daily ministry challenges me to embrace. I can see more clearly how I am also called to be a grandfather; a little softer, gentler and accepting in sharing the unconditional love I am to offer through God’s loving and compassionate grace.
I get to experience this through my many relationships but in a special way in the relationship I have with the Sisters of the Holy Names (SNJM) as we celebrate Mass together. When I was pastor of St. Lucy I would go to celebrate with them in their little chapel once a month. Being surrounded by this group of wonderful and blessed women, I can now begin to see how they become the grandmothers needed in our Church and how in my weekly celebrations with the Eucharistic Missionaries of the Most Holy Trinity (MEEST) I also know this unconditional love.

As Pope, Francis, reminds us, “Very often, it is grandparents, who, ensure that the most important values are passed down to their grandchildren,… Their words, their affection, or simply their presence help children to realize that history did not begin with them, that they are now part of an age–old pilgrimage and that they need to respect all that came before them.” (#194 Amoris Laetitia)
I love this quote because if we live this quote! Live it in joy and love…respect, honor and blessing…even in a story heard so many times…it is the story of our faith, our hope and our love of God and neighbor. It is hearing the words spoken…”thank you grandpa!”.

God bless
Fr. Mark