We will be using Fr. Joseph Sica’s booklet “Lenten Blessings Await”

Sunday March 7….Practicing virtue is exercising the muscle of the soul. I often remind people in the Sacrament of Reconciliation of how we need to strengthen the muscle of our soul and not allow Satan to weaken in by temptation and our falling into sin.
Praying for the virtue of courage when temptation comes is an important grace to receive. It may be we are caught in the cycle of lying. This weakens us. It would be like a Marathon runner who day in and day out cut just a little bit of their training out. Ran a few less miles, cheated on their speed timing, bent the rules on their nutrition and then when the test of the race came complained about how they cramped up and couldn’t finish the race.
We practice virtue so that we may finish the race of life in the presence of God.
God bless

Saturday March 6…Who is the person who irritates you most in life. Pray for them. Fr. Sica notes that:
Difficult people are everywhere
You can change them
These two truths are part of our everyday life. We know from our own experiences that only we can change ourselves but we can invite others to begin the change in their hearts through works of mercy, love and especially prayer.
Jesus reminds us through the Beatitudes of how through our actions we see the face of God and recognize who God’s grace continually flows into our lives.
One of my favorite Bible verses comes from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 15:10 where he writes “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”
St. Paul reminds us when we are open to God’s grace then we are transformed faults and all into a blessing to others. Pray for the openness of heart for the person who most irritates you. God bless

Friday March 5…Words have the power of life and death. That sounds very dramatic but we all know this is a truth often hidden. Both words spoken and unspoken can liberate and heal us from isolation or condemn us to a solitary prison of fear and woundedness.
Fr. Sica is reminding us that we need to take care with our words and especially choose words that bring light and hope. Now this does not mean we can use words that critical, corrective or forceful at times but these words must always be said in charity seeking to correct and allow the person to be freed from the errors. It is the hope that these words allow the person to grow into the child of God they were created to be.
But we also know too often we use words that push the buttons of the loved ones, carelessly throwing around words of anger and fear.
An antidote to this may be to ask the Holy Spirit for the gift of Counsel and Understanding. Seeking to think, feel and open our heart before we open our mouth. A prayer that is said at the beginning of the Divine Office simply goes…”Lord open my lips, so that I may declare your praise.” Is a prayer we may want to put into our quiver of prayer arrows.
God Bless

Thursday March 4….I am this person too many times. People will often ask what I want to eat and my response is “I don’t know” or “What ever you want to eat.” And many decisions I can often let roll around hoping someone else will make the choice and lift it off my plate.
But, on the other hand, I am a person who when the question is big and the issue is serious will go directly to God and beg for the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to fill my decision making progress. This has been one of the greater blessings these past few years, my relationship with the Holy Spirit, the wonderful third person of the Most Holy Trinity.
A few years ago I began asking the Holy Spirit to help me use the very specific gifts given to each Catholic at Confirmation and certainly reinforced through subsequent Sacraments, like Holy Orders or Holy Matrimony. I began seeking the fruits of the Holy Spirit in the ministry I share with God’s holy people.
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love…God bless you

Wednesday March 4…..”Hugs are the best medicine for what is ailing us.” (p 9)
We all know this to be true. Just watch what little children do when they are afraid, hurt, feeling alone….when they are happy, joyous and full of love….they share a hug, even if is just for a second, to in someway be reassured of the gentle and powerful love that surrounds them.
Fr. Sica reminds us to not wait for the hug be to actively go forth and be the initiator of the hug. This metaphor is a wonderful way to understand the missionary spirit and activity of the Christian faith. We are all called to become healers who call back those who are lost. We are called to become guest at the wedding feast who celebrate and give praise for the goodness of the Lord that fills our lives. We are called to be disciples.
Jesus makes it very clear that healing and celebrating are essential actions in being one with God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So the question becomes how do we do this? We should always start with the Sacraments whose grace helps and sustains us in the ministry of healing and celebrating. You might think of some one who needs the hug of coming to Mass.
God bless you
Fr. Mark

Tuesday March 3…St. Katharine Drexel certainly did not suffer from DMS (doormat syndrome) I have attached a short video of her life to this reflection. Seeing our dignity before God is vital to our growth in love and self-respect. And the foundation of this is found in how we see others and treat others. If we cannot see the face of Jesus in others how then do we see His face in the mirror each day.
St. Katharine Drexel is a wonderful example of this gift in her call to serve the poorest of the poor and most especially the indigenous people and African Americans by found a religious order (Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament) whose focus was the education and even in the founding of a Catholic University to serve African Americans (Xavier University in New Orleans).
Like St. Katharine we are called to serve others in joy by seeing our gifts and talents as blessings and seeing ourselves as worthy of God’s love and blessing. We can always suffer from low self confidence and a little DMS, as Fr. Sica points out, but the solution is looking into the eyes of our Lord and see the our self as God sees us, then we can do the works of charity and become the saint God created us to be.

Monday March 2…Pain and suffering in life is real. We should always remind ourselves of those situation, but when we allow these moments to be connectors to those around us instead of moments of isolation we become part of God’s healing presence.
As a parish priest I am asked to visit the sick and comfort those at the moment of death, in this my own experience of my heart attack and the death of both my father and younger brother have helped me to listen more attentively and to use words of blessing more gently with others. But I can only do this because I had the experience of others who prayed with me, sat with me and walked with me through the intense fear and grief of the moment.
Fr. Sica challenges us to seek to help someone and lift the small burdens from their shoulders in Christian charity so that we may be prepared for the larger challenges of life…God bless you
“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ (Mt 25:23)

Sunday March 1…..I have this wonderful image of Jesus standing at the front door with arm raised to knock. I love looking at this image because it reminds me of the part of the Eucharist celebration where we note our unworthiness and invite the Word of God into our souls to heal us and bring us to new life. Fr. Sica reminds us that many people and things will knock on the door to our souls seeking entrance but if it is not of and from God then the door should remain closed no matter how loud and forceful the knocking becomes. We are never oblivious to how sin seeks to enter into our lives but we know we can recognize and avoid sin when we answer the door and look into the loving eyes of our savior Jesus Christ. Our Sunday readings remind us of how evil seeks to “sweet talk” its way into our lives. I would invite you to take time and reflect on Psalm 51 from Sunday Mass listening for the gentle knocks of love. God Bless you.

Saturday February 29 2020….you may have noticed I made a small error in yesterday’s post. I wrote about today’s reflection instead of the Friday reflection…so please memorize the small phrase “Speaking the truth in love.” both in mind and heart and live the Word of God in gentleness. So, what should we have reflected on yesterday? ESP? not Extra-sensory-perception but rather Encourage, Support and Praise…What every good parent, coach, teacher and friend knows naturally and yet we often forget to follow. Recognizing when someone is trying to make a change for the positive is important and we should be walking with them in this important journey of change. And isn’t this what our Lenten resolution should be…making a holy, that is positive, change in our lives and allowing our family, friends and Church to walk with us in the ESP of grace? And if we think back to childhood this is what our guardian angel does for us each moment of life. Look outward and see who around you is in need of this gift of accompanying and share a prayer of blessing with them, invite them to pray with you (or come to Mass) let them know God is with them in this journey.

Friday February 28…. “Speaking the truth in love.” (Ephesians 4:15) Fr. Sica asks us, as homework, (yes, other priests besides Fr. Steve give homework) to memorize this little phrase from Sacred Scripture. How the littlest ripple can change our lives. This goes wonderfully with our first reading from Holy Mass this morning where the Prophet Isaiah reminds us how God wishes us to fast from evil, to fast from harmful words and actions, to fast from throwing away the other in hatred and forgiveness. This is a tall order. We are reminded how small hurts and small sins can grow rapidly and spread quickly seemingly destroying every thing in their path and yet, as Isaiah reminds us this morning, God’s mercy, love and forgiveness does heal all when we choose to place our lives in his hand in converting our hearts to be like the Most Sacred Heart of His Son Jesus Christ. Memorize this little phrase from St. Paul’s letter but more importantly, do not simply hold it in our head but place it in the memory of our heart and soul by living the Word of God…”Speaking the truth with love.” God Bless Fr. Mark

Thursday February 27 Do you believe that you are uniquely created by God? do you believe God made you in his likeness, in his goodness, in his holiness? Fr. Sica talks about labels and how we can label others and ourselves often lessening the gifts God has given us and God calls us to share. Our invitation to vocation is accepting how God has made us uniquely in his image. Our Lenten prayer should be to empty our soul of doubts and fears then embrace the grace of God’s mission in our lives. It may seem small but the small ripples of holiness touch countless lives with God’s love and mercy. Here is some advice for St. Gregory of Nazianzus..”We are not made for ourselves alone, we are made for the good of all our fellow creatures.” Let us choose to serve rather than be served in using our gifts.

Ash Wednesday 26 February Why wait? Quit making excuses. These two short sentences help us to understand the immediacy of life and what happens when we choose allow time, opportunity and experience slip through our lives. We can always find a reason not to do something. We can always find a better time to work on the problem. But god calls us to serve now…Jesus’ commands whether it is to the first apostles to follow him, the sick to healed or the possessed to be freed…Jesus’ command wasn’t for tomorrow it is for today.
How can I love my family today? How can I help my friend today? When will I find time to pray and talk to God today? “And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”” (Mt 4:19)