Thoughts From Fr. Mark

The Last Friday post before Lent begins and the First Friday post after pitchers and catchers have reported. Two of my favorite things in the world, both are great blessings from God and both are spiritually enriching and worth pondering in many different ways.
If you didn’t know by now, I am a life-long Los Angeles Dodgers fan…both in the good times and the bad times I bleed Dodger blue. Coming into my sports fandom in the late 60’s and early 70’s I was blessed to see the young infield of Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Ron Cey and Bill Russell form the nucleus of a decade of Dodger glory. Of the four, my favorite was always Bill Russell at shortstop. He wasn’t the glamorous iron-man that Steve Garvey was at first base, he didn’t have a funny nickname, the waddle, and the power of Ron Cey (The Penguin) at third, nor did he have the speed, the flair and the outward fire of Davey Lopes at second. In truth he always seemed the forgotten guy who was a good solid major league shortstop (3 time all-star) who was never a great hitter (.286 was his best season), a very good and dependable fielder, he does not seem remarkable and yet from these tools he lived out an 18 year major league career.
Now the God part…Lent is a journey where we are challenged to seek a deeper relationship with God, to grow in the practice of the faith and to live out our call to discipleship in following the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Living out this journey is often challenging and at sometimes frustrating. We can often look around, see the example of the great saints of the Church and even the saints that live within our communities and often think how little are our gifts and how small our relationship with God seems to be. Often times in our faith life we can look around and see the glamorous iron-man of prayer, the funny and quirky power hitter of service or the speedy and fiery minister who seems to be everywhere and has limitless energy and can think our gifts are not good enough or are too limited to make a difference to God. Yet, we know that God desires our gifts, even when they are small and seem insignificant in our own eyes.

And I think this is where the career and the gifts Bill Russell brought to baseball and his team can be helpful for our understanding of the spiritual journey. He seemingly had none of those flashy, powerful or glamorous gifts his infield teammates possessed and yet he used the baseball gifts that he had to remain the center of that remarkable foursome. If he had tried to be the power guy, the speed guy, the everyday guy his career would have soon been over because those weren’t the gifts he was given to lead others with, to share with others and to play with others joyfully. And certainly he wouldn’t have been my favorite Dodger from that era of history.
As we look forward to our Lenten journey, let’s remember that we are called to share our gifts; our time, talent and treasure for the blessing of our team, our community, our Catholic Church trusting, if we use these gifts as God calls us to do, then we participate in the will of God and the salvation of all people. Looking at the three disciplines of fasting, prayer and almsgiving, how are you called to give and share the blessings of God’s presence with others? Take time this weekend to pray and prepare to renew our life with God and share the life given with joy.
Go Dodgers
I mean
God Bless

“When you make your spouse’s sanctity your primary concern and view your mission through that lens, life has a way of shaking out into a right order on its own.” (p 22 “Getting More Out of Marriage” by Mark and Melanie Hart)
While the above quote is talking directly about the reality of sacramental marriage the truth of the quote can and does flow into the myriad of relationships and the intention God has for all of us in life. We are reminded that we are made for holiness (to become a saint) and each person we know, love or maybe even not like too much, is also made for holiness and the goal, according to Jesus, is to help one another become the reality of who god created us to be. In other words, we are called to focus on the sanctity of the other and help them to live a holy and saintly life.
As a Catholic priest my spouse is the Church. My main concern must be the sanctity of my bride the Church. When I allow myself to be distracted from this search for sanctity then I begin to expect less of my bride and in turn expect less of myself. And this is the true failing of lowering the hope of holiness into the mundane of just getting along in life.
Luckily there is a remedy to this and it is called grace. And more specifically sacramental grace. The Catholic Dictionary reminds us in the gift of sacramental grace, the “actual grace is given by all the sacraments, either actually at the time of reception or also by title as a person needs divine help.” In other words, God pours grace upon each of us in both the receiving of the Sacrament and then by living within the Sacrament received.
Can we deny the sacramental grace? Yes, it is called sin but then there is another Sacrament we receive which helps us open the door to the grace given, it’s called Reconciliation. To get back to the quote above, when we fall of the grace wagon God in his mercy and love invites to once more get up and get back on the road of holiness. If we believe God is this merciful, this loving and this generous then we, too, are obligated to do the same to our spouse and all people. This is the gift of the Great Commandment, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Mt 22:37-39)
Then we get to the second part of the quotes, the “shaking out into a right order.” This doesn’t mean everything will become perfect and without problems. What it does mean is we begin to live towards hope knowing God’s plan is effective and full of life. This is the gift of the life of grace, knowing there is more. An abundance of more which is readily poured upon us in love. A graciousness of gratitude flowing through our lives even in the troubles and sufferings that seemingly inundate all part of our world today. When we search for love, we discover love. When we discover love, we enter the arms of our beloved because sanctity and love are never apart.
And a quick Valentine’s Day note…God loves you…share this love abundantly in seeking the sanctity of your beloved.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

I first saw Hermana Virginia before I ever met her. I first knew there was something special about her before I ever spoke with her. This week I will celebrate a Memorial Mass for Hermana Virginia Herrera MESST with her community and friends. It will be a time to reflect and remember a remarkable woman who served our Catholic Church for many years as a member of the Eucharistic Missionaries of the Most Holy Trinity (MESST)
When I was teaching at St. Lawerence the Martyr School I would often, during vacation time, attend daily Mass at St. Martin of Tours parish in San Jose. It was there I first saw Hermana Virginia. She and her sisters would often attend daily Mass in the small chapel at St. Martin and I would watch them as they filed in finding their seats. They spoke mostly Spanish to each other which made her and her sisters strangely exotic and a curiosity. It was only after I was ordained and assigned to St. Martin that I began my time truly getting to know her and the congregation as women of deep faith and service to the Church.

I also knew there was something special about Hermana Virginia, something I wanted but something that seemed elusive and remote, in her focus and prayer. I remember how when she knelt in prayer before Mass began how there would be this deep peace and tranquility that would descend upon her, unlike how I experienced my prayer as fraught with doubts, intrusions and tumbling from one thought to the next without this peace or tranquility I saw in her.
“Let’s be reminded that a Eucharistic Missionary of the Most Holy Trinity should look for souls in the tabernacle before the Blessed Sacrament, in their prayers and communication with God…The better Missionaries will be those who are prayerful souls. I’ll be watching over you with the strength of the Eucharistic sacrifice so that all you need is given to you.” (Venerable Pablo Maria Guzman, MSpS founder)
The words above, written by the congregations founder, are a beautiful way to understand the tranquility and peace I was witnessing. When I was assigned to St. Martin of Tours as my first assignment the sisters invited me to come and celebrate Mass with them in their convent once a week, something that I have continued for the last 15 years. It has been a great blessing getting to know, both Hermana Virginia and the other sisters throughout this time. Their commitment to spending time in prayer and service of seeing others in and through the Eucharist in the missionary activity they are called to live. It is a lesson I have continued to re-learn, my true peace and happiness is found in seeing others as a tabernacle of the Lord and this is what I was first able to see and understand in watching her in prayer.
“Religious should remember that the example of their own lives is the best commendation of their institutes and is an invitation to others to take on the religious life.” (#24 Perfectae Caritatis: Decree on the Renewal of Religious Life from Vatican II)
Living a life of holiness and peace is Jesus’ command to all his disciples from the Pope down to the newest baptized baby. This call draws others and allows them to know who the person of Jesus is as our Savior. (Jn 13:15) Hermana Virginia served in many parishes both in her native Mexico but also in San Jose and Orange CA. Her life and hopefulness in the trials and tribulations of life was an example of Christian virtue and mercy. She had a gentleness undergirded by a firm resolve to follow the Cross of Jesus Christ in all circumstances of life. For me, as a priest, it was the constant reminder of how our call to service, those in the consecrated life, those in the priesthood and the lay faithful both married and in the single state, is a invitation to a fuller life of love and blessing with the community of the holy Catholic Church.

“We are affected more deeply toward God by a ten-minute visit with a saintly person than we are in ten years spent with a mediocre individual. If the consecrated woman is to do great things for God in apostolic involvement, she will have to be interiorly rich in her person. She will have to be a woman of prayer before she is anything else.” (p 121-122 “And You Are Christ’s” by Fr. Thomas Dubay, SM)
Lastly, I was blessed to spend much more than ten minutes with Hermana Virginia. When she was assigned to our Diocese of San Jose the weekly Masses, Spanish lessons over breakfast and the conversation of life made my life more “interiorly rich” and deepened by prayer life and a brother in Christ. It was a true blessing to serve with and know her, a true gentle woman of God.
Rest in peace Hermana and Dios lo bendiga
God Bless
Fr. Mark

https://www.facebook.com/misineraseucaristicas.delasantisimatrinidad

Today, as we end January, we celebrate the Memorial of St. John Bosco a 19th Century Catholic priest and founder of the Salesian Order in our Church. St. John Bosco had a great love of the faith, in teaching children the faith and helping them to grow as productive members of society living their Christian values and fulfilling their roles as holy men and women. (some links are given below)
This week we have been celebrating Catholic Schools Week as a parish, diocese and Church throughout the United States. As many of you may already know, I taught in Catholic Schools for 8 years before entering the seminary to study: 2 years at Blessed (now Saint) Kateri Tekakwitha Academy in Thoreau New Mexico and then for 6 years at St. Lawrence the Martyr School in Santa Clara. These experiences helped to form me as a man and certainly prepared me for God calling me to the vocation as a priest. One of my greatest lesson, from the years of teaching is this: while the education in a Catholic School is wonderful, helpful and forms the student in a positive way, the first and foremost teachers of the faith remain the parents.
This is one of the major reasons why we shared the book “A Parent Who Prays” with our families last September and why we continue to encourage all families to spend time daily in prayer for the growth of holiness and faithfulness in the lives of our families.
Pope St. John Paul II shared these thoughts from Familiaris Consortio (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World), “Family prayer has its own characteristic qualities. It is prayer offered in common, husband and wife together, parents and children together…by reason of their dignity and mission, Christian parents have the specific responsibility of educating their children in prayer, introducing them to gradual discovery of the mystery of God and to personal dialogue with Him…”(#59-60).
How does this “gradual discovery of the mystery of God” take place? In the Aleteia article on St. John Bosco the first key they pointed out was to“Transform children into “honest citizens and good Christians.” This is a good starting point. A couple of weeks ago our virtue for “A Parent Who Prays” was “to keep holy the Sabbath.” With Super Bowl Sunday here we might ask that question of ourselves and of our family: are we keeping Super Bowl Sunday holy?
It is a reminder to us all how the teaching of the faith doesn’t just occur in church, in school and/or catechism, in our moments of prayer throughout the day, but it occurs most fully in the normal activities of life.
How can we keep Super Bowl Sunday and every Sunday, for that matter, a day of holiness?
Gratitude: Talking to our children about our gratitude for the blessings that are received and that we are called to share helps to open their eyes (and ours too) to the reality of all that surrounds us comes from God. Do we bless the food we will be eating as we watch the game? Do we thank God for those who come to share this moment (or those whose house we visit)? Or, if we don’t watch the game, do we give thanks that the store is a little less crowded or the hiking path a little more secluded? Showing gratitude is part of the school of love.
Life lessons: What are the life lessons sports can teach us? The value of practice, hard work, perseverance, camaraderie, teamwork, sharing the burdens, support, fair play and words of encouragement…in both winning and losing are life lessons which help us be better men and women and yes better disciples of Jesus Christ. Talking about these values doesn’t have to be a religion lesson but a reminder of God’s call to community.
Acts of service and love: What we do and how we treat those around us is a sign of our Christian life…how do we value those around us? Making sure we use words of grace and thankfulness to family, especially our spouse, during the day shows the importance of relationship over events…saying please and thank you in the heat of the battle grows the love of family.
As Pope Francis writes, “The Lord’s presence dwells in real and concrete families, with all their daily troubles and struggles, joys and hopes. Living in a family makes it hard for us to feign or lie; we cannot hide behind a mask. If that authenticity is inspired by love, then the Lord reigns there, with his joy and his peace. The spirituality of family love is made up of thousands of small but real gestures. In that variety of gifts and encounters which deepen communion, God has his dwelling place. This mutual concern “brings together the human and the divine”, for it is filled with the love of God. In the end, marital spirituality is a spirituality of the bond, in which divine love dwells. (#315 Amoris laetitia)
God Bless
Fr. Mark

Saint John Bosco

https://watch.formed.org/videos/don-bosco

https://aleteia.org/…/5-keys-to-a-good-education-according…/

A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance and binding nature of vows in respect to a situation of a husband choosing to euthanize his wife and then committing suicide. In my experience as a priest I have often been confronted by situations of elderly couples struggling with health issues and the difficulties in caring for each other. In Dr. Allen Hunt’s book “The 21 Undeniable Secrets of Marriage” his first chapter describes one such couple. As I read this several years ago it called forth dozens of memories and stories of sacrificial love in the sacramental unity of holiness and the growth in spiritual unity with God and the beloved.
Memento mori (remember you must die) or “Begin with the end in mind.” We all know that our day will come, it is a fact of life. Death will seek us all out and we must be prepared. St. John Mary Vianney (the Curé of Ars) wrote this beautiful quote where we are reminded of our basic purpose and reason for life, “There are many Christians who do not even know why they are in the world. “Oh my God, why hast Thou sent me into the world?” “To save your soul.” “And why dost Thou wish me to be saved?” “Because I love you.” The good God has created us and sent us into the world because He loves us; He wishes to save us because He loves us…To be saved, we must know, love and serve God. Oh, what a beautiful life!” (p 3, from “The Little Catechism of the Curé of Ars)
This is an important fact: we are meant for love, for God and for Sacrament. This is the truly Christian part and why the Incarnation of Jesus is life changing when we choose to embrace the sacramental life. Our very physical being requires the blessing of touch and to withhold this touch is destructive to all relationships. I remember in my first assignment as a priest visiting a couple. Watching for several years as the wife fell deeper and deeper into Alzheimer’s and the struggle it was for her and her husband and the entire family. But one image is burned into my memory. I was visiting them after they had moved into an assisted living facility and as I walked into their room he was gently rubbing her feet as she was more relaxed and at peace than I had seen in several months. He simply remarked, “She always likes when I do this.” A simple act of fidelity to love. Sharing a sacramental grace of serving the other without expecting any return…we are made for love, made for God, made for Sacrament. This is the binding power of sacramental love. Fr. Ronald Rohlheiser describes it like this, “The Eucharist is God’s kiss. As Andre Dubus so succinctly put it, “Without the Eucharist, God becomes a monologue.” He’s right. We need more than words, we need to be physically touched. This is what happens in the Eucharist and it is why the Eucharist, and every other Christian sacrament, always has some tangible, physical element to it—a laying on of hands, a consuming of bread and wine, an immersion in water, an anointing with oil, an embrace needs to be physical, not only something imagined.” (p 33 from “Our One Great Act of Fidelity” Fr. Ronald Rolheiser)
Knowing the other, whether it is in sacramental marriage, ordination or consecrating ourselves to God are vows of unity and hope where when we “begin with the end in mind” focuses us not just on the immediate response but on the trust of a response that will come out of love. It is the moment of the Incarnation where we joyfully embrace the cross because we feel the kiss of the beloved in the very depth of our soul. I recently saw a post on facebook where a young man began to doubt his Christian faith because he thought Christianity was about “caring” for others. This only touches the surface…it is about loving the other, even the enemy, because caring can easily be abandoned but loving gives over the heart to another in a deep and passionate gift…even when it is refused.
I would invite you to listen to the words below…this is a love that flourished in binding grace and hope into a passionate offering of self without needing a response.
“With her small hand resting in his, just as it had on the day they were married, Maggie breathed her last breath. “Until death do us part.”…They embraced the secret of purpose. They knew he goal, where they were heading. Wisdom teaches, “Begin with the end in mind.” In other words, know where you’re going. Carlton and Maggie did just that. They knew their purpose (to get to heaven), and they pursued it together in marriage for more than sixty-six years.” (p 24 from “The 21 Undeniable Secrets of Marriage” by Dr. Allen Hunt)
Memento mori (remember you must die) or “Begin with the end in mind” because we are meant for love, for God and for Sacrament.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

Perfection and cheating: how do lies continue to corrode our love and trust in something greater?
We are only a couple of weeks into the New Year and baseball has had a lot to talk about. The first began with perfection. On the first day of the year Don Larsen died. In baseball terms he had an average career. A pitcher with a lifetime loosing record with the exception of a magical day, on October 8, 1956, when he threw a perfect game in the World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers. He will be forever remembered not for the career but for the one exceptional moment which no one has ever done before or since. He stands alone.
Then there is the cheating. This past week Major League Baseball has begun to hand out punishments to the Houston Astros for their cheating in the 2017 World Series in beating the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games. It’s a complicated story that begins by using a television camera to see the “sign” given by the opposing catcher, relaying the sign to the batter by banging a garbage can, so the batter will be tipped off on what the pitcher will be throwing. It sounds weird but it is true. It is complicated because “sign stealing” has always been part of the game but this went beyond what is “accepted” because it used an electronic medium that gave an unfair advantage.
As a Dodgers fan, I am frustrated and hurt at this cheating scandal. As a baseball fan, I am disturbed and troubled at the response of Baseball and those involved who have spoken publicly. As a Catholic Christian, I recognize how sin has infected the integrity of the individuals who know what they were doing was wrong and yet excused it in so many different ways.

“Wealth obtained by fraud dwindles, But the one who gathers by labor increases it.” Proverbs 13:11
What can one do in the face of cheating? We are reminded of how choosing to do wrong diminished any accomplishment we may secure. Whether the wrong is discovered or remains hidden in continually lurks in the dark corners of life haunting any accomplishment with the weak foundation of doubt. Integrity matters in life because it helps to build the self confidence of not only succeeding but also the reality that in failure lessons are learned and new paths are discovered in the growing grace of life.

“Can I justify wicked scales And a bag of deceptive weights?” Micah 6:11
Part of the statement by A.J. Hinch, the now fired manager of the Houston Astros, reads, “While the evidence consistently showed I didn’t endorse or participate in the sign-stealing practices, I failed to stop them and I am deeply sorry.”
Accepting responsibility for our actions and seeking forgiveness and reconciliation for our failures to follow right and avoid wrong is living the gift of fortitude and courage. Knowing wrong is occurring, as the leader of the team, and failing to stop the wrong is a great moral failure. One of the most important things we have learned from years past is if we sit by and permit evil to occur only allows the sin to grow ever deeper in our hearts and the life of the community around us. If you are sitting on the bench and hearing the bang of the can, knowing what it is, are you not participating by the inaction? A lower echelon employee my not be able to stop it…but the manager of the team?

“As a partridge that hatches eggs which it has not laid, So is he who makes a fortune, but unjustly; In the midst of his days it will forsake him, And in the end he will be a fool.” Jeremiah 17:11
It talking with another Dodger fan, yes there is more than one, he reminded me of the ripple effect of the sin, the cheating, the degrading of integrity. It may have, as the report suggests, began as an idea of someone other than the “manager” but the action infected the character of each and every member of the team, just as sin does to families, parishes, communities and the world. Each and every person, from the General Manager to the batboy, began to participate, willingly or unwillingly, in the ripple of the sin. This becomes the insidiousness of the sin, each action of moral corruption makes the next one easier to grasp.

Moreover, they did not require an accounting from the men into whose hand they gave the money to pay to those who did the work, for they dealt faithfully. 2 Kings 12:15
Perfection and cheating: what are we to do? What does it matter? Just a thought…if Don Larsen had been pitching against the Houston Astros on the magical day when everything aligned for a pitcher who would never be remembered for his career numbers but is remembered this one day…Would that day have happened? Would the cheating have erased a magical day, a good man’s accomplishment, a moment of history into nothingness?

On a parish note, this is one of the reasons why we are using “A Parent Who Prays” talking and building up our child’s, our family’s, our own integrity in virtue is part of living our vocation of holiness.

God Bless
Fr. Mark

Over the past two weeks the reality of “vows” and the fidelity to vows has been at the center of my heart. Several weeks ago a story was floating around the Catholic internet of an article in the New York Times which romanticized the killing of a terminally ill wife by her husband and then his suicide. As a priest, the reality of this situation of a spouses illness and the struggle of care and dignity of care is something I confront regularly and heartbreakingly. But what is more gratifying is the experience of walking with, praying with and blessing the spouses and families who choose to care for the other with a peace and dignity that see the hopefulness of life even in the midst of suffering which often seems to be too long and the questions that come from this suffering.
I hope to share with you a second time on this subject with some personal stories of blessing and how these moments have impacted my priesthood and my understanding of the vows I am called to live. As a priest who serves in the Worldwide Marriage Encounter movement I see the vows of married couples playing out each day in both blessings and struggles and how these vows of Holy Matrimony enrich my vows of Holy Orders in serving God’s people. About five years ago I read the book “Project Holiness: Marriage as a Workshop for Everyday Saints” by Bridget Burke Ravizza and Julie Donovan Massey. (I highly recommend it to everyone, married or single or ordained) And much as with my work in Marriage Encounter, as I read the many stories that are shared in the book, I began to notice how often their experience of sacramental sacrifice and love mirrored my own sacramental experiences, which gets me, after a long introduction, to my kick-off point.
I know I have written several times on why I chose the particular verse from Sacred Scripture on the back of my ordination holy card from Psalm 56:12 “I am bound by the vows I have made, God, I will pay you the debt of thanks for you have saved my life from death.” The authors share this quote from Cardinal Walter Kasper where he writes in the proclaiming of the vow were we, “give the other person a claim over me, that I will perform the action to which I have committed myself…as a pledge…It claims my faithfulness, my constancy, not just because I have spoken it to myself, but because it now calls to me from the other person who has received it.” (p102) Being called by another to love and be loved is such a powerful blessing. In sacramental unity we are called by another, God, our spouse, our Church, to be faithful and constant in our care and love of the other. It is moving from the feeling of being in love to the actions of love that occur and are done even when suffering is present and becomes an act of sacrificial grace given and shared with us daily. When we commit our life to a vow, we must practice the vow whether it is my vow to pray, obey and live a chaste celibate life or the husband and wife with their vow to love, honor, care for and to be with the other in all parts of life. To practice the acts of love daily in blessing the other where we calling out from our spouse the very best in who we can be in life. This is the practice of faithfulness, the choice of constancy and not the intermittent flashes of passion which the world often mistakes for the vow of love.
This is the practice of sacramental love, the vowed love of life that moves, grows and flourishes in the changes of life. As Ravizza and Donovan point out, “We oblige ourselves to love and honor our beloved now and into the future, understanding that he our she will inevitable change, that our relationship will change, and that faithfulness must be lived in ever-changing circumstances. Once vows and rings are exchanged, spouses are bound to one another and have a claim over each other; future choices are henceforth choices of either fidelity or betrayal.” (p 102) The prayer of Psalm 56 proclaims this truth of being bound…not bound as in captivity but bound in a unity of choosing the better. This is symbolically done at many Marriage Masses with the Lasso that is placed over the shoulders of the newly married couple after their vows are prayed but it is also in the living symbol of the rings that adorn each hand as a crown does the newly blessed monarch. It is where the choice of fidelity is becoming the holy, the blessed, the beloved in the changing growth of sacramental love. If our primary vocation is a call to holiness, unity with God, then the vocation we lead should lead us closer to holiness and one of the prayers we should speak with God about each day is this very simple phrase, “Have I helped my spouse grow closer to you (God) today?” If the answer is not in the affirmative (something other than yes) then making the promise to do better is the movement of changing love towards the other.
The authors say it better than I, “Theologian Margaret Farley explains that when we make a commitment to love and be faithful in our marriage vows we are effectively committing ourselves to “do the deeds of love” in the future. One promises to be willing to do what is best for the other in the future: care for the other, meet the needs of the other, serve the other—in essence do “all that one can” to affirm and support the other’s life and well-being.” (p 118)
Pray for happy and holy marriages and happy and holy priests…they go hand in hand.
God bless
Fr. Mark

Anticipation is one of the hardest feelings to deal with in our lives. It is a normal feeling especially this time of year as we watched both young and old on pins and needles waiting for the Christmas blessings of presents, family and vacations being part of the celebratory anticipation. Then there are the things that bring about anticipation like change and challenges ahead…like the renovation of a home/church.
For almost 2 years we have been planning to update the lighting and bathrooms in our church building and school and on the work began in the second day of the New Year. I wish I could say that my anticipation had not caused me restless nights nor worried days. I wish I could say that my trust in the planning and preparation led me to be calm and not filled with anxiety. But if I said that I would be a liar. It is neither good nor bad to have the worries and anxieties in the anticipation of things to come…it is our humanity. It is however bad when we allow our anticipation to narrow our focus away from the good, the blessings, the problems or anything else that may arise as we become frozen in fear and worry.
So, what are some of the practical things I have learned (again) about anticipation and the feelings that go with it in life.
First, know who you are. One of the things the preparation and anticipation has pointed out to me once again: I am not a detail person! The small minutia of most things in life is beyond me. I like looking at big details, the ideas of what we are doing and not necessary the small things which I have discovered is both good and bad and can be very frustrating to those who thrive on details. Knowing who I am, allows me to hand over to those who have eyes for such tiny (or not so tiny) details to allow them to help me see how to move forward in joy and peace rather than excessive worry.
Second, have a robust prayer life. I know what you are thinking…he’s a priest and he has to say this at least once in everything he writes. And it is true, but I discovered this long before I entered seminary or was ordained a priest. Especially as a teacher I found the practice of prayer before each day of class, to offer a blessing for my students and their families in daily Mass and seeking time in prayer when things went disastrously wrong in some part of the school day. Each and every time my anticipatory worry and anxiety went into over drive, the praying of the Rosary or reciting St. Theresa of Avilas simple prayer, sometimes at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., helped me to place all the worst case scenarios into the perspective of what they truly were…just nightmares.
Lastly, that funny phrase we often hear: Let go and Let God! In other words, you got to have trust. You cannot control every aspect of life, the project or the relationship. Sometimes anticipation comes with wanting the end to come before the beginning. That just is not going to happen. There will be ups and downs, unforeseen problems but also blessings. Life will happen, so go back to the first, then practice the second because the lastly will happen. This is life.
God Bless
Fr. Mark.

Please pray for our parish and the lightning project and all the adaptions and changes that this will bring in the coming two months. Thank you again for all your support and blessings.

The Octave of Christmas is one of my favorite time of the year. It is the first eight days of the 12 days of Christmas with the final day of the Octave occurring on the first day of the New Year the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God. Most of my life as a Catholic I had know idea there were the Holy Days that followed Christmas Day (there is also an Octave after Easter) and why these days pointed our Catholic Church to the Paschal Mystery of the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It is the reminder of how we are called to continue to celebrate for while from the outside the world moves forward to the calendar New Year and perhaps the Church may look quiet there is much going on because of the journey forward. I would like us to consider several spiritual fruits during these days.
Proclamation: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” (Jn 1:14) Sharing the Good News is the greatest gift we can give to family, friends and the world. The witness to our faith is done is joy with our eyes focused on our Lord in the manger. It is a chance to grow in our faith as we learn why we celebrate. One of the easiest ways is to simply greet people with a “Merry Christmas.”
Life: Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet: A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.” (Mt 2:17-18) One of the most tragic and savage passages in the Gospels is the slaughter of the Holy Innocents. A moment were greed, fear and hatred come to destroy the precious and innocent life of the children of Bethlehem. We can share the Gospel of life, the blessing of life from the moment of conception to natural death where as a Church we focus on encouraging life in abundance. Christmastime is the blessing new life and we proclaim life through prayer and actions asking for the protection of the most vulnerable in our society and an end to the destructive acts against life, abortion, euthanasia, war, the death penalty, protection of refugees that surround us in our world. Witnessing to life is witnessing to God’s love.
Family: “God sets a father in honor over his children; a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons.” (Sir 3:2) The Feast of the Holy Family shows the other side of life, where joined together the transmission of grace through life is found always in the joy of the Gospel. Taking time to pass on the traditions of faith and family support the greater good of each child and of society at large.
Of course, these are actions of love we should celebrate throughout the year, but the Octave of Christmas gives us this opportunity to take time and intentionally focus on the blessings given and shared in the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Merry Christmas,
Fr. Mark

Fire in the Earth

It is done.
Once again the Fire has penetrated the earth
Not with the sudden crash of a thunderbolt,
riving the mountain tops:
does the Master break down doors to enter his own home?
Without earthquake or thunderclap:
the flame has lit up the whole world from within.
All things individually and collectively
are penetrated and flooded by it,
from the inmost core of the tiniest atom
to the might sweep of the most universal laws of being:
so naturally has it flooded every element, every energy,
every connecting link in the unity of the cosmos,
the one might suppose the cosmos to have burst
spontaneously into flame.
(by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ)

After I discovered this short poem many years ago and since that time it has become a staple of my Advent preparation as I take time to pray with it and discover new depths in the mystery of the Incarnation and birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a reminder to me, over and over again, of how the coming of the Son of God changes everything, not just the great and the grand, but the very tiniest and forgotten breaths we take each day.
The first three words of the poem are a beautiful summation of what is happening. It is the coronation of a moment that has no beginning or end, the Alpha and the Omega of salvation where we find God’s will forever and unending and yet coming to completion in this great act of love in the birth of Jesus in the stable in Bethlehem. If we can stay with him and be with him and carry him with us in our lives, then it is done. I can often read the whole of the poem but those three small words stick in my mind in such a way that what occurs to “the inmost core of the tiniest atom” in the infusion of love within the soul of every person.

 

It is played out in the Gospels and the life of the Church from generation to generation as the spark of life, the child Jesus, is nurtured, formed and comes forth from the womb of our Blessed Mother. It is imagining how every fiber of Mary’s body was ignited with the presence of God and how infused with Love himself she carried forward the “full of Grace” the angel saw her to be. It is the reality of St. Joseph taking Mary and taking Love into his home and being transformed in the sacramental gift of life given by God and the caring and protecting as a man of justice held forth the chaste and holy love growing in the faith filled response to Grace in his presence.
I always have this image of the newly covered fields of snow that seem endless, perfect and seamless in their being. As a child looking out over these vistas, they drew me closer to the wonder of the eternity promised in our baptismal unity with God. Of course this wasn’t the thoughts that raced through my 10 year old brain at the time but the experience lived on into adulthood where it began to make sense and the metaphor could have the flesh of faith placed upon the bones.
Most of all “It is done” opens me to looking at how God call each of us into existence, as he called his Son to be formed in the womb of Mary. He sees each of us as his beloved children called to do his will and share in his blessings of goodness and love. It is those snow covered fields where we are covered perfectly and endlessly with God’s overwhelming gift of grace that slowly seeps deep within our hearts when we seek to be “done” by embracing true love in Jesus Christ.
Have a happy and holy Christmas.
God bless
Fr. Mark