Pope Francis in speaking to a group of religious sisters last year, talked about Eucharistic Adoration in this way, “I urge you to especially devote yourselves to the prayer of adoration — this is important,…It is good to adore in silence before the Most Blessed Sacrament,” he said, “to be in the consoling presence of Jesus and there to draw the apostolic impetus to be instruments of goodness, tenderness and welcome in the community, the Church, and the world.” (from catholicnewsagency.com October 22 2022)
What we know and believe as Catholic Christians is how this advice is also meant for all of the faithful. It is a way and mode of prayer that can be fruitful to both the person in adoration and for the whole world. Believing we are called to be adorers of God has been a marker in our Judeo-Christian practice of faith and worship. We also believe prayer is effective in bringing God’s very presence into the individual life and the life of the community. I was concelebrating Mass a few days ago. One of the great actions we participate in is during the consecration the priest, after praying the words of institution, lifts the host into for the people of God to gaze upon in “adoration”. As the celebrant places the Host on the altar and I bowed, what caught my eye was a young father holding his son and gazing at him in pure love. As we repeated this action at the consecration of the Precious Blood, I looked once more as the young man continued to gaze at his child.
Two things came to my mind after Mass as I thought more about this: first was St. Joseph and the second was the gaze of love in the Eucharist where Jesus looks at us in love and we are invited to return this same look of love. First St. Joseph: there is a wonderful image of St. Joseph holding the newborn Jesus in his arms as Our Blessed Mother Mary sleeps in the background. Josephs head is bent as he looks upon the baby sleeping peacefully. The look of the all-consuming love of new life and the joy of this life envelops the image give to us. It becomes a timeless gaze where the seconds, minutes and hours disappear into a great moment of sharing a time of contemplative love. As I sat back and thought about that young man in the pews I saw this same look of hope and blessing consume him and his child. “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.” (Lk 22:61) The Gospel reminds us, that as Jesus is being condemned and as Peter denies him for the third time, Jesus looks at him with great love. In the memorial of the Mass we are called to, like Peter, see they eyes of our Lord Jesus look upon us with great love. In reverence and adoration we return the same look with love upon Jesus and offer our lives fully to Him. The question that came to my mind was simply this: Do I gaze upon the Eucharist with the same passion and love as that young father gazed upon his infant son? Can I be more like the image of St. Joseph holding Jesus, in the Eucharist, with the same tenderness and care? That is a challenge we all must take up in prayer and contemplation of Jesus in the Eucharist.
Going back to our quote from Pope Francis above, this adoration and contemplation of the Eucharist does not take us out of the world but firmly plants us in the middle of the pain, suffering and problems surrounding us. The young father, looking upon his son with tenderness and love, is more firmly rooted in the world because of love of wife and family. Seeking to live with greater holiness and blessing the Gospel because he holds the gift of life in his arms. When we proclaim “Amen” we also take the gift of life, eternal life, into our arms where we seek with a gaze of love to bring Jesus to all people. God Bless Fr. Mark
Saint John Paul II asked us to be attentive to the role of the elderly in our families, because there are cultures which, “especially in the wake of disordered industrial and urban development, have both in the past and in the present set the elderly aside in unacceptable ways”.214 The el- derly help us to appreciate “the continuity of the generations”, by their “charism of bridging the gap”.215 Very often it is grandparents who ensure that the most important values are passed down to their grandchildren, and “many people can testify that they owe their initiation into the Christian life to their grandparents”.216 Their words, their affection or simply their presence help children to realize that history did not be- gin with them, that they are now part of an age- old pilgrimage and that they need to respect all that came before them. Those who would break all ties with the past will surely find it difficult to build stable relationships and to realize that reality is bigger than they are. “Attention to the elderly makes the difference in a society. Does a society show concern for the elderly? Does it make room for the elderly? Such a society will move forward if it respects the wisdom of the elderly” (#192 Amoris laetitia)
July is quickly coming to an end and this can only mean two things…school is about to begin and life at a parish with a school is about to get much busier again. I thought about this during my morning exercise. Busyness is a weird word because it can have two sides; one is that you have a lot to do and the other is you are doing a lot. The one side is the reality of the needed work of caring for and doing the necessary tasks to make things work and run properly and the other is the doing of tasks and other things where you are running around in circles getting very little accomplished as you occupy every minute with a new thing and leave uncompleted tasks in your wake. At the end of the day, on one hand you feel tired but at peace even when your “to do list” is left with many items to be checked off but it was a day “well done”, on the other hand you feel discouraged and exhausted because just as in the first, the “to do” list is not completed, but the fruitlessness of jumping and running about has robbed peace from your heart.
We’ve all had those days. What brought this thought about…I had just come back from a wonderful Holy Hour in the church. Each morning, I wake up, thank God for the gift of the day, get dressed and walk over to our parish church and spend an hour in prayer with Our Lord. It is a integral part of my day and always makes my day a little better. But…it can get busy. Like anything else in my life, I can mess up my prayer life pretty quickly but stuffing all sorts of things into what should be time with Jesus. My Holy Hour usually consists of three small things: the Office of Readings, Sacred Scripture (usually the daily readings) and the reading of a small spiritual meditation. One is a duty and promise, the second is a act of love and service and the third is a opening of a joyful door.
So, how can I mess this up? It is simple, by trying to do too much. Rather than taking time in silence, I begin to wonder what else I should be reading and praying or meditating on. Rather than contemplating the presence of Jesus in the tabernacle, I can distract myself by the book, the the breviary, the rushed reading of Sacred Scripture seeking to ponder anything but the silence and peace that is presented to me in this hour of blessings and joy. What made this morning different? Why was it so fruitful? Partly, it was giving away my Holy Hour. I had promised and offered the Holy Hour for the healing of a friend in the hospital, and then for a second gentlemen who also unexpectedly ended up in the hospital. I didn’t do anything markedly different; I still prayed my Liturgy of the Hours and did a focus on the Scripture, but during each of those prayers, I kept hearing the voice of those two gentlemen, praying together and joining in praising and adoring the one true God. The hour ended with a refreshing peace and whisper of hopefulness.
On that morning I never did pick up the book of spiritual reflections I am reading, but the next morning, I heard this from Pope Benedict XVI, “…prayer is the encounter with a living Person to listen to and with whom to converse; it is the meeting with God that renews his unshakeable fidelity, his “yes” to man, to each one of us, to give us his consolation in the storms of life and to enable us to live, united to him, a life full of joy and goodness, which will find fulfillment in eternal life.” (P222 from “A School of Prayer”) God Bless Fr. Mark.
“Above all, continuity and constancy are important. Jesus is exemplary. Experience itself, shows that his prayer, enlivened by the fatherhood of God, and by communion with the Spirit, was deepened and prolonged in faithful practice, up to the Garden of Olives, and to the Cross. Today Christians are called to be witnesses of prayer precisely, because our world is often closed to the divine horizon, and to the hope that brings the encounter with God. In deep friendship with Jesus and living in him and with him the filial relationship with the Father, to our constant and faithful prayer we can open windows on God’s Heaven.” (P. 121 “A School of Prayer” by Pope Benedict XVI)
Falling in love can be the thing of an instant flash, the first sight of love, or it can be a long and enduring conversation of friendship slowly moving towards a deeper and complete relationship of giving and sharing in love. Pope Benedict in the quote above is speaking of these moments of grace and love encountered in the prayerful moments of conversation and conversion with Jesus Christ as beloved children of God. The prayer, the moment of insight and understanding the overwhelming love poured into our hearts, can be a thing of an instant flash overwhelming our soul…or it can be the long and enduring conversation slowly wearing through the guards and brokenness of the heart finding healing and joining together in the acts of love and grace.
Like the love for another, Pope Benedict reminds us of how prayer can open the greater horizons where the limitations we and the world can place on our life become chains that are dropped never needed to be picked up again. How prayer, like the gift of love to the other, unites us in a deeply personal and life changing moment of joy and hope in lifting our hearts to gaze upon the horizon of something more; the something of the creative participation in a movement that can never be done alone but must be done in unity and unison with another in mutual and transforming self-sacrifice and self-giving. It is the striving for spousal love of man and woman, it is the familial love fruitful and blessed.
The transforming of prayer from a singular act towards another that moves to a unitive conversation of love gives courage to the heart to reach out and to be formed into something not new but the heart and soul transformed and lit with a spark of bright and gracious peace. It allows the heart to rest becoming part of something greater and more fulfilling where the unitive heals and looks with wonder into the eyes of the other. It is looking and being absorbed into another…gazing into the eyes of a lover, the eyes of Jesus on the Cross.
Pope Francis describes it like the gift of family, “The experience of loving families is a perennial source of strength for the life of the Church. “The unitive end of marriage is a constant summons to make this love grow and deepen. Through their union in love, the couple experiences the beauty of fatherhood and motherhood, and shares plans, trials, expectations, and concerns; they learn to care for one another and mutual forgiveness. In this love, they celebrate their happy moments and support each other in the difficult passages of their life together… The beauty of this mutual, gratuitous gift, the joy which comes from a life that is born and the love and care of all family members—from toddlers to seniors—are just a few of the ways which may make the response to the vocation of the family, unique and irreplaceable,” (Relatio Finalis, #52) both for the Church and for society as a whole.” (Amoris Laetitia #88)
Whether it is an instant spark and bang of first sight, or it is the long wearing and smoothing of the broken into the renewed, prayer draws us into love and love into a relationship with the other and with this into the greater Trinitarian and familial grace and blessing the comes with the cost of a life. It is the invitation to love. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14:6) It is the way of love.
“It started as a conference and ended as a retreat.” These words were spoken by one of the attendees of the four day workshop entitled “Dual Language in Catholic Education Nation Summer Academy sponsored by Loyola Marymount University and Boston College at the end of June.
The words this man shared were part of the wrap up as some of the participants gave their testimony to the power of Catholic Educators gathering and sharing the good news of Catholic Education and more importantly for us the gift of Dual Language Immersion (DLI).
Why Dual Language Immersion? Many parishioners and alumni of St. Lawrence have asked this question as-well-as, many friends and family as I shared with them the change happening at our parish school. I had read about and researched the many aspects of the benefits of DLI, how it benefits the students and their family in the academic, social and their future careers. I could share how it opens our eyes to the greater diversity in our world in celebrating the cultures and people that surround us and the culture we will be sending our students into as the graduate our Catholic schools. All of this is true and gives powerful witness to, when done well, DLI can be a great benefit to students and their families. But there is something greater and more important, it was something I knew in my bones but had a hard time expressing why we choose to begin the transition to become the first Catholic DLI school in the Diocese of San Jose. What I remember most about the long days of discussion and presentation was the attention to detail in the forming of curriculum and the intentionality of placing the Catholic faith within the curriculum and the daily experience of students, teachers and families who attend Catholic schools. Pope Pius XI wrote on the importance of Catholic education in this way, “Divini Illius Magistri #11 pope Pius XI “Education is essentially a social and not a mere individual activity. Now there are three necessary societies, distinct from one another and yet harmoniously combined by God, into which man is born: two, namely the family and civil society, belong to the natural order; the third, the Church, to the supernatural order.” (Divini Illius Magistri #11) It is the great reminder of how as a Catholic Church we embrace cultures and transform cultures with the presence of Jesus Christ. When our young people, through language immersion, experience the depths of a culture different from their familial heritage, they discover, and we as Church discover, how God’s presence unites us in a harmony of light and peace heard in the voices of angels that our children echo on earth. Our goal, as we begin this journey at St. Lawrence the Martyr School, is to build on the decades of educational joy, a joy I lived as a teacher here from 1994 to 2000, and enter this time with delving deeper into the blessings of God. Bishop Tom Daly of Spokane (our former Auxiliary Bishop) said this in and interview with Pillar Catholic in February of 2023, “And so I think the Catholic school curriculum has to have an integrated approach of faith and knowledge and service. We have to try our best, but Catholic education can’t be just giving students the information — or not giving them the information, for that matter.” As I noted above, the gift of DLI is the gift of being even more intentional in how we teach and pass on the faith. One school, Mater Dei in San Diego, chose to assign each class a different title of Mary, Our Blessed Mother, in exploring the culture of their communities and share this knowing our Mother with the whole school. It can be a reminder, to even those families who are not Catholic, how our faith, through Mary Mother of God, comes into each and every country and peoples. In 2005, the year I was ordained a priest, the Bishops of the United Sates (USCCB) wrote this important call to caring for and rejoicing in the continued presence of Catholic Schools, “Our Catholic schools have produced countless numbers of well-educated and moral citizens who are leaders in our civic and ecclesial communities. We must work with all parents so they have the choice of an education that no other school can supply—excellent academics imparted in the context of Catholic teaching and practice.” (from the USCCB document “Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium” 2005) I recently had a conversation with a graduate of St. Lawrence schools where she made this exact point. She described how her faith, nurtured and cared for in Catholic schools, has kept her united with friends from 40 years ago and continues to help her and her family cherish the gift of God’s grace and love. I believe that the gift of language and the teaching opening the eyes and hearts of our community to the joy of learning and sharing the cultural gifts, the faith expressions and the spiritual truths of our Catholic faith through a truly Catholic Dual Language Immersion school in Santa Clara will draw us into a better and more holy future of unity in and through Our Lord Jesus Christ. God bless Fr. Mark
n October of 2015 Pope Francis did something remarkable. He canonized a married couple. The couple is St. Louis Martin and Zélie Guérin the father and mother of St. Therese of Lisieux. The Catholic Church honors them this week, July 12, and it is a wonder and joy to celebrate with them. One small fact, July 12th was chosen as their memorial because it is their wedding anniversary date.
This blessed day occurred 6 years after I began my journey as a priest with the Worldwide Marriage Encounter movement (WWME) and it was a joyous day because it confirmed what I had experienced my whole life, had been intimately involved as a priest in parish work and seeking to deepen the holiness of marriage through WWME, the reality of how many married couples where saints. These hidden lives doing the hard and unnoticed work with the parish often as couples serving together in carrying Jesus and his Word of love into the world. “The Christian life, eucharistically lived by the faithful in the reality of marriage and the family, thus becomes a paradigm for every type of human relationship, above all for those which constitute the ecclesial community. In the life of the people of God, the family educates all the faithful to understand their relationships—even those tied to the sacramental task of presbyterial ministry—according to the nuptial dynamic of the sacrament.” (p. 303 “The Nuptial Mystery” Angelo Cardinal Scola)
The “nuptial mystery” begins with the understanding of the feminine and masculine reality found within the sacramental union. It is discovered as noted in the life of Louis and Zélie, through the great joy and excruciating sorrow found in marriage, family and the living in a community of faith in the world. It is as Cardinal Scola notes, through the family, a foundational school of love, mercy and forgiveness practiced again and again in the lived example of faithfulness which poured out into the world as an example of the Trinitarian love of God. It is the hope filled example that is attractive in nuptial love becoming a blessing for the couple, the family and the world. And this is one of the true blessings WWME has shared with me as a priest; the dedicated service of couples offering their marriage as a blessing in the Church. But there is more….searching the internet you do find other married couples that have been canonized by the Church, many are from the early Church and some newer but we have the example of Sts. Timothy and Maura who were martyred after a month of married life. In the late 3rd century, this young couple, just 20 and 17 years of age, were put to the test. The hagiography of their martyrdom tells the story of prayer and choosing to lose a life to save a soul.
The reality of the power of prayer as an individual, but more importantly as a Church calls us to a unity in Jesus Christ. Married couples, in the example of this brave young couple, are called to prayer—prayer for each other, prayer for their family and prayer for the world—as a living witness to the presences of the Trinitarian God at the center of their marriage. The family, as Pope St. John Paul II taught, is the “domestic church”, the “little church” in reviving the ancient teachings of our faith. It is being the domestic church that all married couples and all families are invited to participate in the prayer of the Church in filling their home with gracious sacramental love in prayer, service and acts of unity. “Praying together builds intimacy in your relationship together. Christina and I get into super deep conversations and analyze problems up and down. We can make up plans, flow charts, mind maps, but nothing except prayer gives us the peace of mind we need…Creating a habit of prayer is more than a lifesaver throughout your marriage. It is inviting the best advisor, father, therapist, and power into your lives to make them whole and healed. It is celebrating every moment and acknowledging your source and why you are together.”( p117-8 from “Boundless love” by Christina and Javier Llerena) It is in the power of a sacramental couple in prayer, were the Church enters into the deeper healing relationships of love in setting their hearts on the firm foundation of God’s unimaginable love for us becoming the light drawing us into the surrendering of the one into the unity of trinitarian grace and love.
In this we encounter the life of St.s Priscilla and Aquila, disciples, friends and companions of St. Paul. They are referred to several times in St. Paul’s letters and in the history of his life. Priscilla and Aquila are noted for their “witness to conjugal love.” While no children are mentioned in Sacred Scripture, early traditions and writings note that this couple had at least two sons who may have been with St. Peter in Rome at the time of his martyrdom. The witness to conjugal love can and often does focus of the gift of the child. This generous fruit of marriage from God begins the pattern, as was noted above, of the passing on the tradition, knowledge and practice of the faith. Bishop Sheen noted it also introduces a new and different understanding of humbleness before the gift and blessing of life as he writes, “The child makes men humble as the thought of God makes men humble. There is little difference between the two, for the child is in a certain sense, “Emmanuel,” or “God with us”. Great depths of true wisdom are hidden in the heart of those parents who always say their night prayers before the crib of the last born child. In that, as yet wordless Word, they see not the increase of their image, but the very mage and likeness of God” (P159, from “Three to Get Married”) Priscilla and Aquila, as fellow evangelist with St. Paul were a visual reminder of the family as foundation but also of the important role of marriage and family in God’s plan of salvation and redemption in the world. In Marriage Encounter we often see in the struggle of raising children in a society often at odds with Christian values, the strength of love that is drawn from parents, husbands and wives, as they seek to form their family in the image of the Holy Family that pours love into the world it is in this effort where mercy and forgiveness truly become rich and abundant in the hearts of all.
The final word I will give to Fr. Chuck Gallagher SJ, the founding priest for WWME in the United States, “Inside the heart of each and everyone of us there is a longing to be understood by someone who really cares. When a person is understood, he can put up with almost anything in this world. Yet often this misunderstanding is missing in marriage. Our confusion is further complicated by the fact that it isn’t particularly fashionable to talk favorably about marriage, unless we are honeymooners or celebrating a golden anniversary. We have little experience in living together, and almost all the advice given to married couples is aimed at telling them how to lead separate lives.” (P. 146, “The Marriage Encounter”) Inside each of us is a heart created and formed by a creative and generous God made for love. To love and to recieve love. We all understand how families are often hurt and wounded, but we also know the only solution is a word, action and prayer of mercy an love. It is where we bring our burdens and allow our wounded hearts, united in love to find rest in the beating of the heart of love, the Sacred Heart of Jesus. God bless Fr. Mark
“And, as in our common, collective history, this memory of God’s goodness is present; it helps us, and becomes for us a star of hope so that each one also has his personal story of salvation. We must truly treasure the story, and, in order to trust, must keep ever present in our mind, the memory of the great things he has also worked in my life: his mercy endures forever. And if today I am immersed in the dark night, tomorrow, he sets me free, for his mercy is eternal.” (p. 99 “A School of Prayer” Benedict XVI)
If you have time, before you read this post, I would challenge you to open up the Bible and pray Psalm 136 as a way to prepare your hearts and minds. “His mercy endures forever” is a recurring refrain as we pray the psalm as we are reminded of God’s presence throughout salvation history and how His presence both in the moments of joy and suffering recall our thanksgiving and hope in this ever enduring mercy in our lives.
This is where family, memory and tradition meet in such a wonderful and holy way when we allow God to rest in the center of our lives. The reality of God resting in the center of our lives in life-giving in the way it frees us from the grasping and holding on to the moments of memory and those of physical reality which can destroy the unity of life as a family. Pope Francis from “Amoris Laetitia” writes, “The incarnation of the Word in a human family, in Nazareth, by it’s very newness change the history of the world. We need to enter into the mystery of Jesus’ birth, into that “yes” given by Mary to the message of the angel when the Word was conceived in her womb, as well as the “yes” of Joseph, who gave a name to Jesus and watched over Mary… We need to peer into those thirty long years when Jesus earned his keep by the work of his hands, reciting the traditional prayers and expressions of his peoples faith and coming to know the ancestral faith until he made it bear fruit in the mystery of the Kingdom.” (#65)
Each of us as individuals and as families have hidden years. Years where we grow and develop who we are as individuals, spouses and as a family as a whole. They are years often filled with struggles and certainly a lot of mistakes on how we live our lives. They are hidden years that come and go as we grow in faithfulness and knowledge of who God is and how He has wonderfully made you and me and every person. These hidden years are not simply our childhood but can be for husband and wife those first years of marriage as they enter into a relationship of conforming, molding and embodying the other in the physical, sexual, social and spiritual union of the two becoming one which brings great joy but also incredible sacrifice in love in the creating a family we pray includes the new life of children. It is for priests and consecrated women and men the hidden years of formation where there is a public face but also the deeper interior struggles and joys of conforming the will to the will of God in and through the gifts of grace that are given. It is where “His mercy endures forever.”
“Then they said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them” the Lord has done great things for us; we are glad.” (Psalm, 126:2–3)
“We must be more attentive to the good things that the Lord gives us. We are always attentive to problems, to difficulties, and it is as if we did not want to see that there are beautiful things that come to us from the Lord.” (p 89 from A School of Prayer The Saints Teach Us to Pray by Pope Benedict XVI)
A question that is asked often about our attitude in life is; “Do you see the situation was a glass half full or a glass half empty?” This is, as the quote notes above a question that lays a foundation of who we are as we interact in our lives with others. A problem because this attitude affects the way we interact with one another and all of God’s creation. As I write this post, I am sitting in the waiting room having my car serviced. Waiting rooms and waiting in general can seem very difficult and people will often complain about waiting for many reasons. Our world and society demand almost an instantaneous response and reception of stuff and even in relationships.
I think one of things Pope Benedict may be getting at is how we see ourselves and each other. How often do we focus on what we are lacking in the eyes of the world rather than the blessings of who we are as a child of God. Or how we can look at another person and judge what we think in a negative light rather than searching for the graces and gifts they bring to our lives.
Pope Francis in his Apostolic Exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” confirms this idea as he writes, “The aesthetic experience of love expressed in that “gaze” which contemplates other persons as ends in themselves, even if they are infirm, elderly or physically unattractive. A look of appreciation has enormous importance, and to begrudge it is usually hurtful… Much hurt and many problems result when we stop looking at one another… Love, opens our eyes and enables us to see, beyond all else, the great worth of a human being.” (#128) When we begin to forget how we are made in the image and likeness of God, we fail to “look at” and “see” the other as a blessing of goodness and holiness even in the most difficult situations. The eyes of our heart become blinded by the hurt and sin that will invade our lives and the sacramental grace of reconciliation and the daily acts of forgiveness become less than and optional rather than act of serving one another we are called to enter into as brothers and sisters in Christ. This is vital in the sacramental relationship of husband and wife where the spouses are called to “see” the other and to “look at” the other in a filial relationship of sister and brother first and foremost…as someone to be loved for loves sake…with the conjugal love as the gift from knowing the other in the blessing we see as Pope Benedict notes above. Of course this also occurs in all relationships and we should always seek to see others as blessings and graces give by God to enliven our lives.
