Thoughts From Fr. Mark

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Routines can be both good and bad depending on whether or not the routine begins to develop something greater or just becomes a rut in which we do the same thing over and over again. Routines help us to establish boundaries and discipline that moves us toward goals in our lives. Most families have routines they have established and I know listening to “new parents” that seeking to establish a routine for their children is one of the greater priorities in their growing families life.
Prayer also is a discipline and a routine that helps to grow both family and unity. As a parish here at St. Lucy as we continue in our mission of prayer with “A Parent Who Prays” we recognize the routine of prayer we are called share with and teach our children. But the discipline of prayer is also a lesson that we all must continually learn and grow in greater understanding of our spiritual needs and hopeful of being nearer to our Lord Jesus. I, personally, can share with you my own growth and deepening of the discipline of prayer, but I am also keenly aware of how much more I need to grow in faith, hope and love in prayer.
So here are a few prayerful hints form Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak from their little book “The Corporal Works of Mommy (and Daddy Too)”. Where they talk about daily prayer rituals where added to the formal prayer rituals of our Catholic Church each family develops, according to their needs and life circumstances. This is a discernment which will occur and all families must undertake as we journey as Christian disciples. There is nothing new or strange here just some helpful reminders.
Grace before and after meals: whether at home or out on the town prayers of thanksgiving are always important. They remind us of God’s presence and the gifts He shares with us each and every day. When we and our children discover the blessing of a simple meal we also begin to see how many blessing and gifts from God inundate our lives. It is a gift that grows.
Morning blessings for your children and spouse: This is one of the great joys we can share with one another. I remind parents and families at each baptism I celebrate what a powerful symbol it is for the family, how each child, each member of the family and each and every person is a blessing from God. Planting the seeds of blessing early on and carrying this blessing on throughout life and grows unity and purpose of following God.
Reflect on daily or Sunday Readings as a family: Spending a few minutes with the Word of God is indispensable. We recently celebrated the Memorial of St. Jerome who sagely reminded us “Ignorance of Scripture is Ignorance of God.” Many parishes, including St. Lucy, offers the reflection booklet “Give Us This Day” or others to help us follow the liturgical life of the Church. Following the daily and weekly readings of the Mass allows us to breathe the very Word of God Jesus Christ.
Bedtime prayers with Bible stories: Ending the day, just as we begin the day with a blessing of love. As adults doing a “daily examen” of our faults and failings directs our hearts to be conformed to God and when this happens our children see the importance of beginning and ending the day in prayer. Something as simple as the “Guardian Angel” prayer or reading a story from the Bible or books of the Saints is always good.
The Rosary: It is one of the most important prayers we can pray alone or as a family…as the great Bishop Fulton J. Sheen said, “When we say the Rosary—we are saying to God, the Trinity, to the Incarnate Savior, to the Blessed Mother: “I love you. I love you. I love you.” because love is the center of the family and God is always at the center of life.
Midday prayers: One way to unite the family is to have a small prayer we can all say when we are going about our daily task. Something simple that both the young and old can quickly an quietly pray to remind us, as family, that whether we are apart or together we are one in the Lord.
and yes…pray for our children and family using “A Parent Who Prays.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

This weekend our parish will celebrate two important events…first it will be “Priesthood Sunday” where we will ask all who are attending Mass to give a prayer of blessing to your parish priests. The second is the universal Church, that is Catholics all over the world, are praying for migrants and refugees as we celebrate the 105th anniversary of “World Day of Migrants and Refugees”. As you can see this area of concern has been with us for many years and we know that even before the official recognition the pain and suffering of refugees and migrants has been a tragic story throughout history. Pope Francis in his letter to us this year writes, “In a word, it is not only the cause of migrants that is at stake; it is not just about them, but about all of us, and about the present and future of the human family. Migrants, especially those who are most vulnerable, help us to read the “signs of the times”. Through them, the Lord is calling us to conversion, to be set free from exclusivity, indifference and the throw-away culture. Through them, the Lord invites us to embrace fully our Christian life and to contribute, each according to his or her proper vocation, to the building up of a world that is more and more in accord with God’s plan.” (Pope Francis, Letter on World Day of Migrants and Refugees)
Pope Francis calls each of us to witness in hope for the safety of all our brothers and sisters recognizing the blessing of peace and security that is the desire of all.
And with that we return to priesthood Sunday. I remember clearly the first year, 2005, when I received this blessing from the parishioners of St. Martin of Tours Parish. I had been ordained barely four months and had not expected much other than “just another blessing” and boy was I wrong. I don’t want to say I cried, but I may have as the grace and blessing of God was spoken in the voices of the prayers of the faithful people asking God’s love to flow into my life and service of His Church as His priest. It caught me off guard at the first Mass of the weekend but each additional Mass that was celebrated deepened the blessing and my call to follow Jesus Christ.
I know that we are in the midst of two important prayer ministries at St. Lucy, “Creating a Culture of Vocations” and the prayer book “A Parent Who Prays” and I only remind us of these to actions because just as my life as a man, a disciple and a priest is deepened and strengthened by your prayers for me and all priests so too is the life of the family and especially when we pray directly for our children asking God’s blessing to surround them in love. Prayer is the gift of deepening and strengthening an unseen but powerful bond of grace which can never be broken. It is desiring in the purity of heart (see the first virtue of prayer from “A Parent Who Prays”) where the greatest hope we have for another is their growth in holiness and life. “Creating a Culture of Vocations” in the family isn’t simply about vocations to the priesthood but rather it is the sanctification of the family through following Jesus Christ…if that happens then our children’s call to their proper vocation whether it be Holy Matrimony, Priesthood, the Consecrated Life or the Single Life will naturally flow from the all families as God calls each of us by name.
Please pray for me and all of your parish priest.
God bless
Fr. Mark

“Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. As personal adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature.” (CCC #150)

The gift of faith, the life of faith, the blessing of faith is a slippery thing to describe because it is so personal and intimate to each person. As noted in the quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) it is an assent to a truth greater than we are, it is looking into the infinite and entrusting all we are to the moment of grace and blessing.
When we pray for the gift of faith for ourselves and others it is to hand ourselves and the other completely into the will of God. This is where we become more intimate with God and each other. For example, in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, we talk about the unity of husband and wife as “the two shall become one” (Gen 2:24, Mk 10:8) as the entrusting of the life of each spouse into the life of the sacrament and it is the life of the sacrament where the encounter of God’s fruitfulness, graciousness, mercy and healing (to name only a few) helping the man and the woman joined in sacramental grace to live a life of purpose and unity. The faith the man and woman are called to share is the grace of the many gifts of something greater than who they are separately and how they can choose to live in love.
“Charity is the soul of faith, makes it alive; without love, faith dies.” (St. Anthony of Padua)
St. Anthony reminds us how faith must be unity with love (charity) to be true faith. We often say quite easily “God is love.” (1 Jn 4:7-21) without necessarily realizing how this universal love reaches into all parts of our lives. When we speak those words “God is love” then, “It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God” (CCC #150) becomes a necessary assent to faith. On an experiential aspect I can remember when I was in the Marine Corps and one of the phrases we called out many times, “for God, country and Corps” slipped easily from our lips. But on a deeper dive we see how having become, as a member of the USMC, part of something greater we assented to something even greater “country” and ultimately to the greatest “God” in ordering our service. It is an ordering of faith in many ways where once more using the example of husband and wife in sacramental marriage, we place God as the central focus of the marriage seeing our spouse through God and in that way living the life of grace.
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen put it this way, “If you do not live what you believe, you will end up believing what you live.” The more we seek to give our lives in faith, the greater our faith grows. Or as Jesus puts it, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain.”(Mt 17:20) In other words, if our faith is small it is able to grow through sharing and giving in faith with the other in our life. First and foremost with God but as we entrust our lives to our nuclear family our faith then allows us to give ourselves fully to another, using the Holy Matrimony example, the man and woman not simply seek to survive the marriage but thrive in moving the mountains of hurt and sin which will enter into our relationships and all our beloved to be seen in the image and likeness of God.
Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! Place your soul in the brilliance of glory! And transform your entire being into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation. (St. Clare of Assisi) In this beautiful quote from St. Clare, we can see how simply being with God can grow our faith and especially as an example for our children to see the radiance of love come through contemplation of something more beautiful than the greatest vista in nature. It is the image of love where the parent holds and contemplates the simple beauty of the child in their arms but carries through life, for example: after my heart attack I remember catching my mother looking at me with such care that my heart was filled with peace so profound it still brings tears to my eyes.
How do you explain faith…it is always the search and discovery of a truth much greater than we can ever imagine. “My longing for truth was a single prayer.” (St. Theresa Bendicta of the Cross: Edith Stein)

God bless
Fr. Mark

Faith: Throughout the Bible the word faith is prevalent. What is faith? It is not a feeling but rather it is a knowing deeply of someone. The only way we can have faith in God is talk with him, listen to him and to be with him. Faith, in the Catholic sense, is a reasonable and generous response to knowing we are loved by something greater.
Bringing the Intention into your family/relationships
How do we show our faith in God? Family prayer with the inclusion of special intentions help us to bring God into all aspects of our life. As we pray for the gift of faith in our children and in our lives, praying for others expands how we know faith in God.
Discussion starter:
Share a story of when your faith was tested…
Learn about the co-patroness of our Diocese St. Clare and her gift of faith.
Brainstorm about how faith can help you be a better person…
Spiritual Bouquet:
Share your prayers for each other about the gift of faith for your children/parents/friends

Let us pray for purity.
Purity is a complicated word in the modern lexicon. Many people dive directly into that small three letter work, “SEX” as soon as they hear purity but the Catholic Church has a deeper and fuller understanding of why purity and more directly being pure in heart is a pathway of understanding and living the will of God more fully and completely in our day to day relationships.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, they shall see God.” (Mt 5:8)
Purity in Heart, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2345, 2520) reminds us that this gift is given through the grace of baptism. It is as always the understanding where when we struggle for purity in heart we are choosing to seek the face of God in those around us.
What does it look like when we begin to pray for purity in heart for those we love, those we know and even ourselves?
Well, if you are like me, the first thing that occurs whenever I begin to pray for another person, whatever the reason, a big mirror forms in front of my minds eyes. It always has the same question on it: And how are you doing? This moment draws me into some deeper self reflection as I pray for others about the aspect of life for which I am praying. An example might be when I pray, as I often do, for generosity of others in stewardship of time, talent and treasure, which in turn begins to offer reflections into my own life of stewardship. Is my tithing truly sacrificial or done out of fear? Have I spent my time well in ministry and prayer? How have I helped our community grow using the gifts God has shared with me? If I can begin to answer those questions in my own heart, mind and soul then I am better able to see others in and their stewardship in the light of Jesus Christ rather than as a utilitarian desire for more.
This is where purity in heart becomes a fulcrum of looking at all our relationships both personal and in general. When we pray for purity we seek to see the face of Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the people we encounter and in the world we live in. In this way we pray that those for who we pray for will see in us the purity of intention and the grace of blessing in our actions and relationships with others. If we are at work or school we may ask: Is what we do done in service of others or just for pay? When I help another in my daily life we may ponder: Is our service done for selfless motives or to be noticed by others?
And certainly in our life of faith: Is our ministry and prayer in family and Church done for Jesus Christ or for prestige? The motives of purity begin to surface very quickly.
When we choose to live “pure in heart” then we “shall see God”! What a promise to receive and experience in our lives. This is not a sentimental idea but a powerfully transforming reality where the presence of God in the Most Holy Trinity begins to infuse each and every part of our lives, from suffering to joy, for celebration to sadness, from despair to hope with grace filled blessings of life and love. It is training our hearts to know where the poor and dying on the streets of Calcutta are transformed into figures of Jesus Christ as St. Mother Theresa knew and held lovingly day after day. It is with eyes trained for beauty, where looking out into the awesome beauty of the Yosemite Valley, we like Ansel Adams, see the moment and location, perfect in creation, where he focussed and took one more picture capturing God’s creative glory and our hearts are captured by God. It is where we have trained our ears to hear as we sit around the dinner table with family/friends and in listening to their words we have learned to be attentive to God’s words that flow from their mouths in moments of true grace transforming the simple meal into a Eucharistic celebration.
Let us pray for purity as we place our trust in God and in the hope that all people will seek to be as Jesus Christ calls…”Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
God Bless
Fr. Mark

For “A parent Who Prays” by Katie Warner

Purity: We can think of purity for ourselves and children in three ways: Purity of mind, Purity of body and Purity of soul. Purity of mind is to place our thoughts always directed towards the betterment of the others in our lives. Purity of body is the gift of modesty in action and in dress. Purity of soul is to act with the intention of doing good and helping others to do good in their lives
Bringing the Intention into your family/relationships
We will hear this many times in our lives: Am I living as I am praying? Will my children/parents or friends no my purity of mind, body and soul by my actions daily? Share a story of how difficult it is to live life in a pure and holy way.
Discussion starter:
When I hear the word purity, I think…..
One way I will practice and pray for purity is…
Who is St. Maria Goretti???
Spiritual Bouquet:
Share your prayers for each other for purity of mind, body and soul for your children/parents/friends

This will be a short letter because I am away on vacation this week. You are all in my prayers. I have been talking about prayer for the last several months following a set of talks by Pope Benedict XVI. This was not done on accident but with a purpose for St. Lucy Parish. The last few weeks at each Mass we have sent a family home with a cross and prayer binder for our ministry “Creating a Culture of Vocations” in focussing on family and God’s call to our proper vocation in life.
Prayer and especially prayer as a family is a powerful and fruitful weapon binding the family together and helping all members to resist the temptations that surround us in our daily life. In the coming weeks we will continue to invite all families in the parish to a deeper and greater ministry of prayer within the family. Prayer in the family is a ministry because it is the work of bringing people closer to God and into a more intimate relationship with all members of the family. It’s not as if prayer will solve each and every problem, but it does help in opening our hearts to the moment of conversion that allows the power of the Holy Spirit to transform our lives.
Venerable Patrick Peyton who popularized the phrase, “a family that prays together stays together” in his promotion of praying the Holy Rosary but there was a second phrase that is just as important where Fr. Patrick Peyton repeated again and again, “a world at prayer is a world at peace.” Both of these powerful phrases have deep meaning for us and we should pay attention.
We know how the example of the parents have deep and lasting influences on children. Children from the very beginning watch and learn how to be “people” by watching those who are in their lives, especially their parents as they grow. When children see dad and mom taking time in prayer together, using words of blessing towards each other and how they prioritize God in their lives they will be more likely to have a greater relationship with God and not leave the faith and religious practice behind. In my own experience, my family’s practice of prayer before meals, praying the rosary often as a family and Sunday Mass were foundational in my faith experience and certainly my parents practice of the faith lived daily was always an inspiration. It is also important to remember that we are not called to do all these things perfectly but rather with devotion towards God that shows that even in failing we still strive for goodness.
The second phrase of Fr. Peyton is even more important in the world today with so much breakdown in societal structures, acts of violence, drug use and human debasement that occur daily. A world where the many conflicts of war, persecution and government violence against its own citizenry has become so common we don’t even seem notice it any longer. As have written over and over again, when we unite ourself to God in prayer there will be fruitfulness because we change and are made greater and through this we then encourage the same change in our spouse, children, parents, neighbors and all whom we meet.
In a few weeks we will be asking all families in the parish to begin to go deeper in prayer for our children and for everyone when we journey with “A Parent Who Prays” written by Katie Warner. .
God Bless
Fr. Mark

This weekend, with Labor Day being celebrated, we traditionally end summer and begin our journey towards winter with the fall months upon us. It is a time where we wrap up the last things of summer and look back to see if we have “accomplished” all we wished to do during this time a slowing down, vacationing and warm weather. One of the traditional practices of summer was to read a book, especially for vacation. I remember hearing and reading about what are the best summer reads, those books for the days at the beach or just lazing around the pool. Normally these books weren’t heavy reading but were rather light or exciting and certainly the description of “it’s a page turner” was important.
As we have been covering Pope Benedict’s Wednesday Audiences from the May to August of 2011where he has been discussing prayer, today we look at the final talks where, as he is on vacation at Castel Gandolfo, we see the fruits of the journey of prayer. Pope Benedict tells us “I would therefore like to make a suggestion: why not discover some of the books of the Bible which are not commonly well known? Or those from which we heard certain passages in the liturgy but which we never read in their entirety?” (from General Audience, 3 August 2011)
Two quick examples…When I was a sixth grade teacher our religion curriculum call for us to study the Old Testament because as we study ancient civilizations in Social Studies this was a wonderful way to support this academic learning. During the course of my teaching I discovered the Book of Tobit. I had heard of the book and had read some short snippets or heard them in Mass from time to time but never the whole book. And much to the joy of my sixth grade students, especially the boys, the story of bird droppings falling into Tobit’s eyes that blinded him and leads to the rest of the story of depending upon God was a great hit. (Tobit 2:9-14) Taking time with the students to not just read the famous parts but also the whole book gave each of us a greater appreciation for the story of God’s goodness and love.
Secondly, a few years ago on my yearly priest retreat the retreat master suggested we read the Gospel of Mark from beginning to end as a form of prayer meditation, It had been years since I looked at the Gospel as one complete word proclaimed by Jesus to us. The connections missed in hearing only the snippets at Mass and the readings done out of sequence began to be filled in as I slowly read and then reread the Gospel several times.
Whether it is a book of the Bible that we are unfamiliar with like the Book of Tobit or another we have heard many times, such as The Gospel of Mark, the fruitfulness of this adventure will be bountiful as we pray with the word of God.
Try not to over analyze as you read and pray Sacred Scripture. There is a time and place for that but in reading and praying truly allow the breath of the Holy Spirit to fill your hearts and minds. You may also want to read the book of the Bible aloud as a family, sharing the good news together that can prompt discussions. Most of the books are short and easy to read in one sitting, for those longer books, set a timer and when it buzzes finish the part where you are at and then pick it up again the next time and continue.
Lastly, if you are interested in the commentary and explanations of Sacred Scripture simply buy a Catholic Study Bible which will give those nuggets of information that often help us to understand the fullness of God’s message to his people.
May you all be blessed with a peaceful and holy Labor Day weekend.
God bless
Fr. Mark.

“Indeed the Psalms teach how to pray. In them, the word of God becomes a word of prayer — and they are the words of the inspired Psalmist — which also becomes the word of the person who prays the Psalms.” (from General Audience, 22 June 2011, Pope Benedict XVI)

Nineteen years ago I walked through the doors of St. Patrick Seminary to begin my formation to the priesthood. One of the items we were asked to bring with us was the “Liturgy of the Hours” which is also known sometimes as “The Psalter” and as a book is called the Breviary. It was a daunting set of four books with ribbons and numbered weeks, with saint days and special prayers and the instructions were a bizarre set of words that left me ever confused as I looked at them.
The joy of the Liturgy of the Hours over the past nineteen years as I have learned (and continue to learn) the rhythm and the words of the Psalms is that, as Pope Benedict points out in the above quote, to pray in the Word of God and with the Word of God in these inspired prayers.
The Liturgy of the Hours is also called the “prayer of the Church” and while all priests, deacons and consecrated religious women and men are obligated to pray the hours daily the Catholic Church also invites all members to join in this wonderful and beautiful prayer.
“Since they are a word of God, anyone who prays the Psalms speaks to God using the very words that God has given to us, addresses him with the words that he himself has given us. So it is that in praying the Psalms we learn to pray. They are a school of prayer.”(Benedict XVI) Learning to speak the words God has given us is like all learning we do in family, school and life. At times the task at hand may seem boring and fruitless and at other times difficult and almost impossible but we discover the fruits and the possibilities in the learning repetition where our mind and body conform themselves to the thoughts and actions shared.
This is why prayer is always fruitful in the end…it forms us into the image of God and we then begin not simply to parrot the words spoken but become living witnesses very Word of God, Jesus Christ, is the center of our actions, our thoughts and our dreams in life. Prayer is the point where we speak and act in the way of God. We are able to do this because we begin to experience the true presence of God in all aspects of our lives. God, Our Father, isn’t a distant and alien presence rather he is intimately present in all moments of our lives and especially through the gift of Jesus Christ. In the Book of Psalms, which makes up the majority of the Liturgy of the Hours, we enter into the conversations of life that animate our relationship with God. As Pope Benedict notes, “In the Psalms are expressed and interwoven with joy and suffering, the longing for God and the perception of our own unworthiness, happiness and the feeling of abandonment, trust in God and sorrowful loneliness, fullness of life and fear of death. The whole reality of the believer converges in these prayers. (Pope Benedict XVI)
This is the ultimate fruitfulness of prayer—not that we somehow change God’s mind or bribe him into an action—it is how prayer conforms us to God in serving and caring for one another. The vow to pray the Liturgy of the Hours is a vow to allow our lives to be molded to the life of Jesus Christ. It is what obedience to prayer finally does—it makes us anew.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

“By teaching us to pray, the Psalms teach us that even in desolation, even in sorrow, God’s presence endures, it is a source of wonder and of solace; we can weep, implore, intercede and complain, but in the awareness that we are walking toward the light, where praise can be definitive.” (Pope Benedict XVI)

“Christians, therefore, in praying the Psalms pray to the Father in Christ and with Christ, assuming those hymns in a new perspective which has in the paschal mystery the ultimate key to its interpretation. The horizon of the person praying thus opens to unexpected realities, every Psalm acquires a new light in Christ and the Psalter can shine out in its full infinite richness.” (Pope Benedict XVI)

“Worship of an idol, instead of opening the human heart to Otherness, to a liberating relationship that permits the person to emerge from the narrow space of his own selfishness to enter the dimensions of love and of reciprocal giving, shuts the person into the exclusive and desperate circle of self-seeking. And the deception is such that in worshipping an idol people find themselves forced to extreme actions, in the vain attempt to subject it to their own will. For this reason the prophets of Baal went so far as to hurt themselves, to wound their bodies, in a dramatically ironic action: in order to get an answer, a sign of life out of their god, they covered themselves with blood, symbolically covering themselves with death.” (Pope Benedict XVI from General Audience, 15 June 2011)

As we continue to talk about the importance of prayer through the eyes of Pope Benedict XVI, he presents to us the Prophet Elijah and his confrontation with the prophets of Baal and what this confrontation teaches us about faith and the blessing of religious practices as a necessary part of the ongoing conversation of the individual and of society at large. The Prophet Elijah in a prayer of supplication seeks a union with God that will help him lead others into the blessing of a relationship with Divine love.
As we continue to struggle to comprehend the continued aftermath of the tragedies of violence and how we are to respond in prayerful action, our invitation to seek God’s peace and justice is the antidote to the quick fixes which very seldom lead to the full unity of the Body of Christ.
“In spite of claiming to follow the Lord, an invisible and mysterious God, the people were also seeking security in a comprehensible and predictable god from whom they believed they could obtain fruitfulness and prosperity in exchange for sacrifices. Israel was capitulating to the seduction of idolatry, the continuous temptation of believers, deluding itself that it could “serve two masters” (cf. Mt 6:24; Lk 16:13) and facilitate the impracticable routes of faith in the Almighty even by putting its faith in a powerless god, fashioned by men.” (Benedict XVI) Like the people of Israel we, as followers of Jesus Christ, can be seduced into desiring a God who acts according to our whims and is easily controlled by the bribes of promised actions if only the right results come from the giant vending machine we have deposited our coin of prayer into. This quickly falls apart because God in our desire to make him in our image quickly becomes dispensable as we move to the next “god” who will satisfy our next desire.
In this we know the ‘gods’ we begin to create are unable to unify because each of us will have a different ideal of who our god should be and we must then destroy all other gods which means we must destroy those who hold up their gods that contradict our personal god. It is the evil of separation and isolation from community that we see too often in our modern society.
Pope Benedict reminds us of the need for the ideal and absolute that is outside our small and limited social constructs that constrict the true freedoms of actions and love. “The believer must respond to the Absolute of God with an absolute, total love that binds his whole life, his strength, his heart. And it was for the very heart of his people that the prophet, with his prayers, was imploring conversion: “that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back” (1 Kings 18:37). Elijah, with his intercession, asked of God what God himself wanted to do, to show himself in all his mercy, faithful to his reality as the Lord of life who forgives, converts and transforms.” (Benedict XVI)
Becoming a true “intercessor” as I wrote about last week, is to enter into a deep, full and prayer-filled relationship with God. It is not a sleepy inactive relationship but rather one of vibrant and full actions…but actions with the purpose of love and unity in God. Pope Benedict reiterates the three basic goods of prayer and why it becomes not just necessary but vital to our relationships with God and all people we meet. It is to seek the one true God to know and to worship him, to discover the conversion of heart that brings us into true and fruitful relationship with God and others and finally to see in the embrace of the cross of Jesus Christ is to embrace the peace and to embrace all in this gift of healing, reconciliation and mercy.
Let us continue to pray for healing, peace and reconciliation as we go forth and do the work in the image and love of Jesus Christ.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

Israel could no longer have doubts; divine mercy came to meet its weakness, its doubts, its lack of faith. Now Baal, a vain idol, was vanquished, and the people which had seemed to be lost, rediscovered the path of truth and rediscovered itself. (Pope Benedict XVI)

Once the work of salvation has been begun it must be brought to completion; were God to let his people perish, this might be interpreted as a sign of God’s inability to bring the project of salvation to completion. God cannot allow this: he is the good Lord who saves, the guarantor of life, he is the God of mercy and forgiveness, of deliverance from sin that kills.(from the General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI, 1 June 2011)

These past few weeks with the acts of violence and death that have permeated the news headlines we once more heard the refrain, “We need more than prayers and good thoughts.” to help solve the numerous acts of violence. And as I wrote earlier and as I will write today this is very true: we do need more than “just” prayers and good thoughts but…if we do not ground our actions in our relationship with God then the human will with it’s brokenness and fallen state will only produce more violence, hatred and evil in trying to solve the newest epidemic of sin.
As we continue to look at Pope Benedict XVI talks on prayer we come to the his reflection on intercessory prayer in using the example of Moses as a man of prayer. He notes that throughout the story of Moses we hear certain phrases over and over again: “Moses asked the Lord…he interceded for the people…he prayed…he addressed the Lord….he saw and spoke “to him face to face, as a man speaks to a friend.” (Pope Benedict XVI) What we come to see and understand is that in his prayer Moses was active with God and his people. He didn’t sit back and just wait but rather he interceded for them actively and forcefully but always after he prayerfully listened and spoke with God.
Prayer is the active listening of emptying our hearts of the rancor and division to seek the unity of God. One of the traditional ways, we as Catholics, empty our hearts is in fasting (yes, fasting is not just for Lent on Fridays). “By fasting Moses showed that he was awaiting the gift of the divine Law as a source of life: this Law reveals God’s will and nourishes the human heart, bringing men and women to enter into a covenant with the Most High, who is the source of life, who is life itself.” (Benedict XVI) We often want to jump into the “doing of something” in the immediate aftermath of some act of sin to “fix the problem” but as we hear Moses awaited the gift of Divine guidance trusting in God’s will in the life of the community, not tolerating the sin, but rather seeking a way of unity…even unity with those who most egregiously sinned against the community and drew many into the same act of sin.
Moses in prayer, as our example, reminds us of our need to seek the divine mystery in our lives and in the life of the community because there can be, “This is a constant temptation on the journey of faith: to avoid the divine mystery by constructing a comprehensible god who corresponds with one’s own plans, one’s own projects.”(Benedict XVI) As a Catholic Church we are called to stand up against hatred, bigotry and violence but also seeking healing, reconciliation and sanctity in our interactions with all people. We are not a faith seeking to “cancel people” because of sin, we are a faith seeking to renew people in the face of mercy, the mercy which the only source can be Jesus Christ. The active prayer of intercession is anchored to mercy, “The prayer of intercession is permeated by love of the brethren and love of God, they are inseparable. Moses, the intercessor, is the man torn between two loves that overlap in prayer in a single desire for good…(where he, like us)…wanting what God wanted, the intercessor entered more and more deeply into knowledge of the Lord and of his mercy, and became capable of a love that extended even to the total gift of himself. With prayer, wanting what God wanted, the intercessor entered more and more deeply into knowledge of the Lord and of his mercy, and became capable of a love that extended even to the total gift of himself.” (Pope Benedict XVI) We must become this intercessor.
The only way we will truly find healing and holiness is when we ground each and every action in Jesus Christ and allow his love, his mercy, his forgiveness to be the first actions in our lives. It is not the easy what of knee-jerk reaction seeking to amputate the other from our community but rather the long path of healing, often more painful but ultimately restores the wholeness to the Body of Christ. Let us therefore begin with our intercessory prayer for peace and healing and go out as true disciples seeking to be sisters and brothers, true intercessors, to all we encounter on our mission of life.
God bless
Fr. Mark

This is God’s salvation which involves mercy, but at the same time also the denunciation of the truth of the sin, of the evil that exists, so that the sinner, having recognized and rejected his sin, may let God forgive and transform him. In this way prayers of intercession make active in the corrupt reality of sinful man divine mercy which finds a voice in the entreaty of the person praying and is made present through him wherever there is a need for salvation. (Pope Benedict XVI)

I think we should meditate upon this reality. Christ stands before God and is praying for me. His prayer on the Cross is contemporary with all human beings, contemporary with me. He prays for me, he suffered and suffers for me, he identified himself with me, taking our body and the human soul. And he asks us to enter this identity of his, making ourselves one body, one spirit with him because from the summit of the Cross he brought not new laws, tablets of stone, but himself, his Body and his Blood, as the New Covenant. (Pope Benedict XVI)

“Dear brothers and sisters, our entire lives are like this long night of struggle and prayer, spent in desiring and asking for God’s blessing, which cannot be grabbed or won through our own strength but must be received with humility from him as a gratuitous gift that ultimately allows us to recognize the Lord’s face. And when this happens, our entire reality changes; we receive a new name and God’s blessing.” (Pope Benedict XVI, from the General Audience, 25 May 2011)

For my part, I would rather prayer not be a long night of struggle as Pope Benedict suggested in his General Audience several years ago. I have been rereading these talks this past month as I renew my commitment to prayer and take time on reflecting on how prayer informs my life and the life of all Christians. Pope Benedict takes the life of Jacob and more importantly the days of travel and struggle as he returns with his family to his home from which he fled after deceiving his father Isaac to receive the blessing of inheritance. Pope Benedict reminds us that in this night of struggle where Jacob the
“Patriarch reveals his true identity as a deceiver, the one who supplants; however the other, who is God, transforms this negative reality into something positive: Jacob the deceiver becomes Israel, he is given a new name as a sign of a new identity.” (Pope Benedict XVI)
When I pray and think about this struggle and transformation, this new identity God offers to us in prayer, I begin to understand why the struggle is necessary. We, too often like Jacob, wish to hide and minimize the sin that is in our lives. We don’t want to acknowledge the pain sin cause to each of us and those around us. We would rather focus on the soft and gentle God and not deal with the harder and more demanding God who calls us into a transformation of life where we find the true peace and joy in the struggle. And of course God does not wish us to be defeated in the struggle but rather persevere in the long night of the struggle where we contend with the vices that have infected our soul and seek to be strengthened by the grace received through the intimate wrestling with God to grow in holiness and virtue.
“Prayer requires trust, nearness, almost a hand-to-hand contact that is symbolic not of a God who is an enemy, an adversary, but a Lord of blessing who always remains mysterious, who seems beyond reach. Therefore the author of the Sacred text uses the symbol of the struggle, which implies a strength of spirit, perseverance, tenacity in obtaining what is desired. And if the object of one’s desire is a relationship with God, his blessing and love, then the struggle cannot fail but ends in that self-giving to God, in recognition of one’s own weakness, which is overcome only by giving oneself over into God’s merciful hands.” (Pope Benedict XVI)
This is the sacramental reality of our Catholic faith and something I see played out again and again in marriage in my ministry in Worldwide Marriage Encounter. When husband and wife choose to enter into the nearness of trust where true and intimate conversations occur then prayer occurs and where prayer occurs then life is grown in abundance and nurtured in hope; spiritually, emotionally, physically and sexually. The struggle, the wrestling of life becomes a greater self-giving to the other through the grace celebrated, given and received. This occurs in all relationships as we seek the “hand-to-hand” contact of relationship becoming sacramental signs of love in the world as brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, true sons and daughters of the living God.
God’s invitation to each of us is to enter the battle, come into His presence with our lives and give our lives to God’s merciful love. See you at Mass.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

“Whoever allows himself to be blessed by God, who abandons himself to God, who permits himself to be transformed by God, renders a blessing to the world. May the Lord help us to fight the good fight of the faith (cf. 1 Tim 6:12; 2 Tim 4:7) and to ask, in prayer, for his blessing, that he may renew us in the expectation of beholding his Face.” (Pope Benedict XVI)