Thoughts From Fr. Mark

“God seeks me in prayer and desires me to seek others in prayer.”

As I noted last week, I was away on a silent retreat, taking time in prayer and reflection and doing some hard labor of spiritual renewal. One of the phrases I noted listening to the spiritual director on the retreat was the one given above. It is not profound or new but a reminder of the how and why of the spiritual life and how and why our spiritual life is intertwined with each and every action that we have and do in our lives.
God seeks me in His Word: “Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”” (Lk 9:23) God’s Word is Jesus Christ and Jesus seeks us. From the moment he proclaims the kingdom of Heaven, to the call of each disciple by name and to his final breath on the cross—Jesus seeks us with love and mercy. Our daily prayer in love is the hearing of God’s voice calling to us. We take into our souls the blessings that surround us and discover more fully how God is inviting me into a closer relationship of love. When I do this then I must seek others in God’s Word, Jesus Christ, because love draws us forth into new life. Knowing God seeks us we find Him in the many prayers such as the rosary where praying the mysteries of Jesus’ life we live with him in our journey of salvation.
God seeks me in His community: “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge until the destroying storms pass by.” (Ps 57:1) Jesus calls us, his disciples, into a community of love where we find refuge and healing in the great mystery of God’s presence in the community. We know in the family we find a refuge and the family of the Church becomes a greater blessing when we seek to be in the service of our brothers and sisters. As a family in prayer we discover the gifts present with each person and the greater gifts of the community shared and broken. When we begin to see and experience these gifts of blessing and love we naturally seek out the others that surround us as a family of grace and peace. We discover this community in those time when we find ourselves in moments of joy and sorrow. It is the stories we share of a memory of love at a funeral or the joyous blessing of family at the baptism of new life.
God seeks me in His celebrations: “You have stripped off your old behavior with your old self, and you have put on a new self which will progress toward true knowledge the more it is renewed in the image of its Creator.” (Col 3:9-10) We are a party people. God calls us to celebrate with joy and blessing. But the party always begins in prayer because we don’t celebrate nothing but we celebrate someone, Jesus Christ, who offers us the very best of food and drink. We don’t celebrate alone because the community infused in the love of God’s Word sees the very best of who we are and invites us to find the very best in the other by celebrations of joy in thanksgiving of God’s great blessings. We find this most perfectly in the sign of peace during the celebration of the Mass. This simple exchange of peace is focused on offering the fullness of who we are in Jesus Christ and receiving this same fullness from the person celebrating at our side.
Thank you for your prayers during my retreat and your continued prayers for your priests.

God Bless
Fr. Mark

One of the harder memories I have from my service in the Marine Corps was the after Christmas return of fellow Marines when you have been on duty during this festive time.
As a young man those first Christmases away from family, community and tradition often felt empty. Hearing the stories of friends talking about the joy of family, their sharing of gifts and the blessings of being together was not easy to hear. One of the only familiar things I had in Beaufort, South Carolina was Christmas Mass. I can still remember quite distinctly that first Christmas in 1979, I had just recently been assigned to the Marine Corps Air Station and being new was at the bottom of the ladder. Going to Midnight Mass that Christmas was a true blessing as the celebration brought into focus the reality that we are not alone.
I tell this short story not to lament the loss of Christmas with family because it was the first but not the last time I have been away for Christmas but rather the reality of our universal call to holiness and how we discover this through community and tradition that we often don’t even realize we have until it is needed. But it must be a tradition that has been practiced and ingrained in our imagination through time and love. This is where family, the domestic Church as St. John Paul II called it, becomes vitally important for the practice and handing on of the faith.
I doubt that I would have shown up at the base chapel that first Christmas night if I hadn’t done so for my entire life. I did have options…there was bed…there were a few parties with drinks and food that I could have attended…there was the invitation to attend other Christian services but for me the only place I could go was to where I had practiced and formed my early conscience…that was Mass. Let me also make it clear, the Mass was not the only reason I remained in the faith and practiced the faith (very poorly for the four years of service where I showed up when I thought I needed to but certainly not every Sunday) rather it was also the home that was filled with prayer, God and love. We were not a perfect family, Dad had a temper and Mom was often frazzled from the nine children. There was the reality of a large family where the phrase, “you always had someone to play with….and you always had someone to fight with” was true and practiced often.
In reflecting back it was faith both in the service of love in the family and the receiving of love in the Eucharist that were entangled in such a way that one could not be separated from the other. Pope Benedict XVI explains it better that I can in the Encyclical “Deus Caritas Est: God is Love” where he writes, “Only my readiness to encounter my neighbor and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbor can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me. The saints—consider the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta—constantly renewed their capacity for love of neighbor from their encounter with the Eucharistic Lord, and conversely this encounter acquired its realism and depth in their service to others. Love of God and love of neighbor are thus inseparable, they form a single commandment. But both live from the love of God who has loved us first. No longer is it a question, then, of a “commandment” imposed from without and calling for the impossible, but rather of a freely-bestowed experience of love from within, a love which by its very nature must then be shared with others. Love grows through love. Love is “divine” because it comes from God and unites us to God; through this unifying process it makes us a “we” which transcends our divisions and makes us one, until in the end God is “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).” (#18)
Let us pray for the growth of true love and faith in all families during this Christmastime.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and God bless
Fr. Mark

My heart ran forth on little feet of music
to keep the new commandment.
(O feast and frolic of awakening spring!)
It would beguile the world to be a garden
with seeds of one refrain: my little children,
love one another; so my heart would sing.
(from “My Heart Ran Forth” by Jessica Powers)

The poet Jessica Powers entered the Carmelites at the age of 36 where she was given the name, Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit. Her words above remind us of the powerful insights poetry gives to us. As we continue to celebrate Christmas we are given the blessing of the joyful celebration of our Lord’s birth and wonders surrounding this great mystery.
In the opening stanza of her poem “My Heart Ran Forth” we can hear the joy of God’s presence in her life. It is an invitation to us all to take time looking deeply into the eyes of the baby Jesus so that our hearts too may run forth. We all know this is a great challenge for many of us because we can get bogged down in the heaviness of worldly things and loose our focus on the greater things of God. I am not talking about false happiness or forced joy but in the intimate and joyous love we share with each other.
She ends her poem with these words,
…It is said:
Love is a simple plant like a Creeping Charlie;
once it takes root it’s talent is to spread.
(from “My Heart Ran Forth” by Jessica Powers)
This beautiful image of the Creeping Charlie (Ground Ivy) where “it’s talent is too spread” blesses us with an understanding of how God works when we allow ourselves to be the soil in which God plants his very self at Christmastime. It is the vision of a world where love and peace, not the easy sentimental and momentary, but the difficult and enduring virtues are planted deeply and take root in our souls.
What does this look like?
Fr. Peter Schineller SJ tells the story of his time as president of Loyola jesuit College in Abuja, Nigeria where on a tragic day sixty students from the college were killed in a plane crash. He hurried to the home town to console the families who had just lost so many young and promising children, he writes, “because of the deep Christian faith and love of these parents, the meeting took a surprising turn. Parents who were lost one, two or, in one case, three children reached out to me with compassion and kindness. Even as I tried to console them for the loss of their precious children, many tried to console me, saying that as president of the college, I had lost 60 children! Such kindness and compassion, such an ability to reach out beyond their own grief, I will never forget.” (p 213 “The Way of Kindness: Readings for a Graceful Life” from the essay “Try a Little Kindness”
This story embodies the becoming a garden for the seeds of love. Because as a Christian it is the manger and cross united as one where the choirs of angels sing Glory to God in the Highest at the same moments they cry out Hosanna in the Highest. It is often too easy for us to look at the manger and forget why Jesus the Son of God came into the world. It is why we take time to ponder and pray, as Mary did, and to listen and watch, as Joseph did, and to come and see, as the shepherds did on that glorious night.
May God bless you during this Christmas season.
Merry Christmas
Fr. Mark

Link for the full text to the poem “My Heart Ran Forth” by Jessica Powers

https://books.google.com/books?id=wzIU7DGqlb4C&pg=PA45&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

It is that time of year where Christmas movies are ubiquitous on the television. There are channels that have dedicated that past several months to showing these movies and other channels that run a high rotation. The funny thing is, most of the Christmas movies have very little to do with Christmas. They may take place around the “date” of Christmas but certainly, for the most part, there is very little “Christ” in the Christmas movies. Don’t misunderstand me, I am a fan of a good Christmas movie but I am also more and more aware of how subtly these movies avoid the faith aspect or distort it into a minor and passing thought in the overall plot.
We can begin with one of the great classics, “It’s a Wonderful Life” where Clarence the Angel is seen as a bumbling helper of God but any other expressions of faith are left to the imagination. Or one of my family’s favorites, “A White Christmas” where even in the wonderful musical not a single Christmas Carol is heard. “A Miracle on 34th Street” shows us a Santa Claus but with not one strand of faith or history linking him to St. Nicholas. The myriad of other Christmas movies may, if at all, touch lightly on faith and religion but more often than not the focus is on a love story or adventure where Church, prayer, and acts of faith are absent and ignored. (And we won’t even go into whether or not “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie?)
The point of this whole thing is not to be overly critical of “Christmas” movies but to be aware and true to who we are as Christians where Christmas’ focus isn’t on all the wonderful things that happen around Christmas but rather we are focused and joyful because of the Incarnation of the Son of God. I am not a film critic but here are my simple thoughts on focusing on why we celebrate Christmas
It’s a Wonderful Life…suicide and changing the past aren’t the answers as we are called to trust in the providence of God’s love. “He who attempts to escape obeying withdraws himself from grace. Likewise he who seeks private benefits for himself loses those which are common to all. He who does not submit himself freely and willingly to his superior, shows that his flesh is not yet perfectly obedient but that it often rebels and murmurs against him.” (The Imitation of Christ: Book Three #13 by Thomas à Kempis) Obedience in love is not the accepting of tragedy and suffering but rather searching for the presence of God’s love, mercy and grace in the unity with others. When we are tempted to think the world is better off without us or others we fail to see how God’s plan is fulfilled in loving trust of others (including God) in the most trying circumstances. Think of how easy it would have been for Mary and Joseph to give up…for the Wisemen of the East to stop searching…for the shepherds to just continue with their work.
White Christmas…love and helping are wonderful but only in the context of sacrificial love. “God has made himself visible: in Jesus we are able to see the Father. Indeed, God is visible in a number of ways. In the love-story recounted by the Bible, he comes towards us, he seeks to win our hearts, all the way to the Last Supper, to the piercing of his heart on the cross, to his appearances after the Resurrection and to the great deeds by which, through the activity of the apostles, he guide the nascent Church along its path.” (Deus Caritas Est: #17) Pope Benedict XVI our fundamental understanding of love in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. God leads us along the paths of sacrificial love because he has shown us the perfect example in Jesus Christ and love that is foreshadowed by Mary’s yes and Joseph’s obedient care for the Holy Family. Christmas is a time where we can easily reflect, not just today but throughout the year, on how we are called to serve, love and bless our family, friends and communities each day? Christmas is a love-story of grace.
A Miracle on 34th Street…believing and trusting in goodness are important when they are grounded on the eternal. The Prologue to the Gospel of St. John, (1:1-18), is the other Christmas story. In his commentary of the Gospel Francis J. Moloney shares this insight, the Prologue “expresses the major christological beliefs of Christianity: the Word preexisted creation with God; creation was through the Word; divine filiation is possible for believers; Jesus Christ is the incarnation of God, the Word become flesh; he shares in divinity of God, yet he has taken on the human condition.” (p 41 from “The Gospel of John”) We believe in a divine goodness, a love that goes beyond the moment and the myth and enters with an eternal union of goodness, holiness and peace. Christmas is a time when we seek to encounter this goodness once more at the creche knowing and trusting in a sacred beyond all telling. It isn’t just about allowing children to believe in Santa Claus it is about us, becoming childlike in faith, hope and love where the eternal breaks into our hearts so that we may live ever more fully, gracefully and lovingly as sons and daughters of the living God.
Have a happy and holy Christmas.
God bless
Fr. Mark

A while back as I was walking into church on an afternoon to say my prayers I was greeted by a couple coming out of the church. I stopped and said hello. They then handed me an envelope and asked me to accept this gift of thanksgiving for the parish. I thanked them and asked two simple questions, “What were they thankful for? How could I pray for them?” They both looked at each other and then the husband said that today they were finally debt free. I congratulated them but he continue to share about how early in their marriage they had made many wrong and foolish choices with borrowing and spending and how this had caused great stress on the family to the point of almost destroying their relationship. When I asked what had changed they simply said, “They chose each other over money, objects and lifestyle.” At that point they were both crying in joy and we said a quick prayer and I shared a blessing of thanksgiving over them as a couple.
The gift I received that day was not the gift of the envelope (it contained one hundred dollars) but the gift of witnessing to a love that is greater than the desires, lusts and greed of the world. In choosing to seek a relationship of love over and above the worldly desires is a great example of Christian virtue. I have been thinking and praying about this young couple for several weeks remembering their short but powerful story because it is important to us to understand how the grace and blessing of God is necessary in all parts of our lives…including our money. Too many times we have been told to keep our faith lives separated from the things of the world when it is only our faith in a loving and gracious God which allows us to live at peace in the world.
The trouble with money can often consume us in a very difficult and destructive way.
Bert Ghezzi in his book “Getting Free: How to Overcome Persistent Personal Problems” where he talks about surrendering our problems to the Holy Spirit. He writes, “We sometimes have difficulty surrendering a problem to the power and authority of the Holy Spirit because we don’t understand how to do it very well. We don’t have much experience in yielding areas of our life to Him.” (p 69) He reminds us of three important steps: first we cannot do it by ourselves. Second we need to trust God and allow Jesus into the problem. And third we must have resolve to carry our cross and work through the difficulties.
What does this look like for us on a practical level, especially when it comes to money and how it effects our life each and every day of our lives? Just as Jesus sends out his disciples two by two, we are called to share the burdens of our brothers and sisters, to seek and support one another in the ministry of life. If we look at the couple above they could have not done their journey of coming to financial peace if they did not chose to act together as a team choosing to love and honor each other too seek the better and the goodness for the other in the best of hope and love.
Trust in Jesus, in a loving God, in the Holy Spirit seems impossible but when we confront the cross together we see the face of Jesus in the other then our trust in God becomes a tangible act. We choose to sacrifice out of love and know we are giving our of blessing and letting go of our selfish needs. We touch the face of God in choosing trust in the blessing God sends to us in the other in my life.
Resolve is hard. Just look at the many failures in dieting, exercise and other resolutions that fall away so quickly as we make them…but when we walk with another, allow God’s grace to fill us, then our resolve becomes courageous love that is able to conquer all things. The couple above allowed their resolve to be strengthened by the other knowing the other was with them in choosing to give rather than to take in their relationship.
Let us all offer a time of prayer and gratitude to the blessings that surround us and seek to be servants of God’s love and healing the hurts and growing in hope in serving God and one another.
God bless
Fr. Mark

The Feast of St. Nicholas (December 6) is for me a great day of blessing. St. Nicholas of Myra was a Bishop in modern day Turkey during the 4th Century and a great example of faithfulness, trust and generosity in God as he served the people entrusted to him. You can read and learn a lot more about St. Nicholas but the real reason I have his name in my heart is that he is my Confirmation saint and for this he holds a special place in the saints I ask to pray for and with me daily.
Saints are important. They are important not just because they are saints or because we should look up to them as examples of faith, those are both valid reasons, but saints are important because they are companions on the journey to heaven with us as we walk with them and Jesus. I chose St. Nicholas as my patron for one very simple reason: the virtue of generosity. I remember in my Confirmation class when choosing our saint name to not just look to a saint you knew or liked but for a virtue in a saints life that you wished to grow…and I chose generosity and thus St. Nicholas.
It may seem fairly natural to think during this Advent Season as we are preparing for Christmas to narrow generosity into the simple act of giving something too someone. We hear a lot of people talking about the stress of finding the right gift and the time spent either at the mall or online looking and searching for the best deal. This, as you might guess, is selling generosity way short in the eyes of God, a life of faith and the gift of holiness we are called to become as God’s children.
“You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.” (2 Cor. 9:11).
St. Paul reminds us of what St. Nicholas lived; recognizing how we are “enriched in every way” in our relationships with God and each other. The hectic race and the stress of the commercial aspects of Advent leading to Christmas often narrow the gift and blind us to the way we are enriched and how we are able to enrich others in ‘every way.’
One piece of advice I received many years ago was in reflecting on the day I was asked to pray through three simple steps. 1. How was I blessed by others today? 2. How did I bless others today? 3. What did I do that needs to be forgiven? As I recall these steps and give thanks to God in gratitude this time inspires the generosity of spirit in every way within my life.
What these three simple steps help me do is to remove the material and begin to focus on the relational gifts of generosity that I seek to give and receive daily in my journey of faith. St. Nicholas’ greatest legacy isn’t the gifts he shared with the children rather it is his unwavering faith in the goodness of God and thereby the goodness of God’s holy people. Generosity springs forth from the soul naturally when we focus first on blessings and most especially on how I bless others with who I am as a child of God. We can then begin to live with a grateful heart flowing over with joyful love.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Christmas gift but the greatest gifts I receive are those words of affirmation, those small notes of thanksgiving and most of all, the sharing of my gifts with others without counting the costs.
Keep up the Advent preparation by using formed.org and their Advent series…it has been a great blessing for me.
God bless,
Fr. Mark

St. Nicholas resources…

Advent can be busy…and it isn’t even Advent yet…but I am already busy…yikes! I guess one of the biggest challenges we face each December/Advent is how to make space for prayer, contemplation and being with Jesus. I can’t say that I am always the best example to follow because this time of preparation (Advent) is a time of many liturgical and Church things that must be done and cannot wait for when I am in a ”better place” to deal with them.
How do we make space? The easiest and truest answer is…we simply make the space. It is an act of the will and an act of discipline in our lives to take time and make the space for listening to the presence of God in our movement towards Christmas Day. It begins with the will and the choice of doing something or anything for that matter. I would suggest that the “thing” must stretch you spiritually. If it doesn’t do this then there is really little point to the practice because we are being called into a deeper conversation and conversion with God…therefore we must dig deeper than we feel comfortable with. Second, don’t be discouraged. Advent is only 23 days this year, December 2nd until the 24th…it isn’t that long. Third, we need to take the dive in to the prayer with someone as a spiritual companion. The easiest person is a spouse, a child, a parent or a sibling…the second easiest would be a friend or even someone who sits close to you at Church…it all works but the spiritual friend reminds us and encourages us to stick through the 23 days.
Three easy but challenging steps…1. Choose 2. Persevere 3. Seek help and give help. Okay, now go and do it.
First we choose…there a literally hundreds of Advent helps we can use. My suggestion is the prayer time be at the minimum 10 minutes. Doesn’t sound like a lot but it can be if we fill it with the voice of God. You might choose an online daily message (see below for suggestions) that may only take two or three minutes to watch or read. Then we slow down and take the time to reflect and maybe write a few thoughts down. We may choose to write a daily challenge or promise to help us remember the message of the day. Don’t short change yourself by watching or reading and then running back to life without taking time to talk with God. You may also find a print version/a booklet that has daily guides for helping us through Advent. Or we may use the daily Gospel or other reading from the Mass to pray with our Lord Jesus as we hear him speak to us in the quiet of our heart.
Second we persevere…we will miss a day or cut short our time or something else will get in the way…we can deal with this…because tomorrow will come. The biggest and greatest hurdle we can often face is our expectations and how we respond when we fail to live up to our own high expectations. Believe me, each Advent or Lent I enter into these seasons with this firm conviction: I will not miss one day or cut short one hour of my quiet time with God…and then things go sideways. It can be disheartening but we need to take up our prayers and once more follow him. Sometimes my most fruitful time of prayer comes after I have missed a day or gave God less than I should have because of my selfishness.
Third and most important seek help and give help…there is a reason Jesus sent out his disciples two by two…it is because we all need encouragement and help. A few years ago I began asking for help during Advent and Lent. I have a priest friend from another state and we email each other our brief thoughts each day. It isn’t hard and it keeps us both focused on the daily blessings of our time with the Lord. It is also beneficial because of the insights we share deepen our reflection and open our eyes to things we may not have heard because of our own hurts and sins.
We are a people called to holiness and prayer is the road of holy love of God and neighbor. Please take time to pray and seek others and invite others to pray with you.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

online resources.

Daily Gospel usccb.org/bible/readings

Dynamic Catholic https://dynamiccatholic.com/best-advent-ever

Busted Halo Advent Calendar https://advent.bustedhalo.com/

Word on Fire with Bishop Robert Barron https://adventreflections.com/

For St. Lucy Parish Parishioners

formed.org daily reflection and a weekly study you can join and It’s FREE and has both adult and children daily reflections.

In this week of Thanksgiving, I would like to begin with the last paragraphs of Ned Coletti’s book “The Big Chair” where he writes, “The lovers of baseball and sports have also earned a tip of the cap—a standing ovation. Without fans there are no games for pay, no sports careers to work toward, no fun and games in the toy department of life… I look back on in awe while I look forward to the chapters of life to come. None of it is possible without the unfailing grace and majestic blessings from God. With respect, immense gratitude, and deep love.” (p 422-423)
I offer you this short quote because it focuses us on what is most important.
We must have love…for baseball, for life, for one another. It is important to give thanks for this love. Our passions and loves direct us toward a greater good and a joy-filled life where we learn to share these passions with others. I remember sitting in the stands of the Savanah Braves stadium as a young Marine with Rick cheering on the game. Neither of us interested in the Atlanta Braves or their farm system but both of us sharing a love of the game. Or as a young man watching the Seattle Mariners with Carl in the Kingdome, one of the worst places to enjoy a game to be played outside. Often with only a few thousand people echoing about the huge expanses, but sharing a beer and stories of life and baseball.
We must be thankful to others for what we share…without others (the fans) baseball while still fun becomes less than it could be but with others it becomes a life-giving moment in time where we see a future and hopefulness in the next player, the next child, the next relationship of grace. To be thankful of life around us, the small moments of joy for the “next” moments of encounter in life.
We must have awe…I think in our technological society we are in awe of what things can do but seldom in awe of the person who helps and serves our growth into the person God is calling us to be in life. We become thankful for the little miracles that begin to surround us and share these miracles in awe because they unite us with God in so many different aspects of life. Awe draws us closer to greatness and draws from us the joyous truth of being created for the better, the greater the more holy in life.
We must take time….acknowledging our past, present and future as the shapers of our lives where the experiences we share form the hopes of what will be in the world. It is the disappointments of the fall darkness transformed into the bright hope of spring time and a new season. It is honoring and loving the grandeur and disappointments of the past and at the same time letting go to embrace the unknown and hopes of a future where dreams are born into the reality of goodness.
We must live in gratefulness…God’s unfailing grace surrounds us and supports us even in the difficult autumns of life. Gratefulness and gratitude remind us of the fragility of life and love and how we are invited to daily take up that love (the cross) and follow him who is our God. It is in gratitude sharing the gifts we have, whether it is a 98 mile-per-hour fastball or simple works of mercy, each gift brings blessings to those who share in the awe-inspiring joy and love of life. The call to be grateful is one of stewardship of time, the most precious gift we can share, for we do not know the hour or the time, but we trust in the eternal gift of life that will be offered if we simply love.
My prayers for each of your at this time of Thanksgiving is to share life in joyful abundance and to offer a word and gift of love to all you encounter in life.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

The attack has begun again. They will go on full offensive mode next Friday, November 23, 2018. What is the attack? Why November 23rd? Well, the attack is the Christmas shopping season and Black Friday is its largest attack on the spiritual welfare of our finances. As a people called to live a life of stewardship of God’s gifts of time, talent and treasure we are often afraid of bringing our “treasure” into the spiritual conversation with God because we are often fooled into thinking that money falls outside of the spiritual life….it doesn’t. In truth it is a very import part of our spiritual life and growth.
This was brought clearly to my mind this week with the terrible and disastrous fires that consumed Paradise CA and endanger so many people as-well-as the fires to the southern part of the California around Malibu. Almost immediately on facebook was a “friend” who posted a fundraiser for their “friend” to help by a small camper trailer for use because their house had been destroyed. Then a request from another “friend” to help a crisis pregnancy center that had been destroyed and needed help to rebuild and continue to help the expectant mothers during this devastating time. And then I began to think about the many other “asks” we are going to receive in the next few weeks leading up to Christmas…yes even asks from the local parish…to help support the many worthy causes. On top of all of these “asks” there will be the stresses of the Christmas shopping and how we share gifts with family and friends. If all this seems overwhelming, it is to me, then we truly need to place God in the center to help us figure this all out.
First and foremost…there are many good causes who ask us to help them but we also understand the care we are called to have in stewarding our financial resources. What are we to do? It all begins with a conversation about love: love of God, love of family, love of stranger. Why is this conversation important? It places our values into a perspective of generosity. Love is an act of generosity that stretches us to see the goodness of God in all we do in the world, including the stewardship of our treasure.
Let’s begin with this dream Kerry Alys Robinson shares in the introduction to her book “Imagining Abundance” where she writes, “Picture yourself as an agent of change for your faith community bringing to full fruition what most think is impossible… What would you need to have such an impact? Many in the world see limitation, scarcity, insurmountable obstacles, and inability, while yearning for the opposite. There is no magic wand, no secret formula, no set of perfect preconditions for profound positive impact. Yet everyone can be an agent of transformation.” (p. 1) If we have started with a conversation of love, then all obstacles begin to be transformed as we see the possibility of goodness in each blessing and challenge placed in front of us.
Ultimately, I am writing this to begin a conversation during this season when so much is asked of us around our treasure and how we are called to use this gift. The conversation of love is recognizing our call to holiness and the vocation of holiness is one of community united together. Frank J. Hanna reminds us of this when he writes, “If we fail in this vocation to be holy, then, it seems to me, it doesn’t matter how great our wealth may be, or crippling our poverty: we’ve failed our fundamental vocation and failed at the most important task that was given us.” (P 129 from “What Our Money Means”)
As family we are called to share in these discussions of love as we look toward how we are called to be good stewards of our time, talent and treasure. We allow our whole family is invited into a conversation of generous love. When we begin to recognize what is most important we begin to choose abundance over scarcity and realize sharing what we have with others will help us to see God’s work in the little moments of life. I invite you to enter into prayerful conversations of discernment with God and family as we enter this joyful season of anticipation.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

I would invite you to study and pray more on this subject with one or more of the books below.

I will be giving a talk to parents of children preparing for First Holy Communion tomorrow about the Sacrament of Reconciliation and why we are Christian. It’s a wonderful talk to share with these parents and it is something we should all be thinking about and pondering on a daily basis. Because it is not about doubting or trying to prove our faith in Jesus Christ isn’t false but rather it is looking deeply into the mystery of life and discovering our purpose and the truth of who we are.
We might look at it form the angle of these two books: Fr. Timothy Radcliffe OP “What is the Point of Being a Christian?” and The book by Trent Horn, “Why We’re Catholic: Our Reasons for Faith, Hope and Love.” The two titles always remind me of our search for truth in faith and reason and how we always seek the answer coming from different directions.
We can begin our discussion from the positive standpoint as to “Why We’re Catholic” in this way we “tackle” the hard questions about our faith and look with reason into the why’s, the how’s and the where’s of what we believe. This approach is very important in many ways but never fully answers some of the deeper questions we have from our human experience because in some way it assumes we can be reasonable about faith.
If we look at our faith with the question, “What’s the point?” then we are not so much faced with the reason side of faith, rather we are faced with the belief side of faith which is trickier and much harder to grasp at times. I think the lived experience of being a Christian in the modern world and our witness to the faith helps us to understand the question but the harder part is how do we talk to others, witness to others and bring others into a relationship with Jesus Christ…what’s the point?
This is where the two angles, the two different approaches must be joined. We cannot live and witness to Jesus Christ unless we know, in faith and reason, the harder, deeper and often difficult questions of our faith. You may notice I didn’t say answers. An answer is surely part of knowing the question but, as a former school teacher, it is often better to thoroughly know the question: what is it asking, before we delve into trying to answer. Anyone can quote scripture, but to know Sacred Scripture, to know the Word of God which is the great question is the true goal, to know the person as we seek the answers is the greatest question we can pose and ponder as disciples of Jesus Christ.
To look for “the answer” we must first know the question and honestly ask the question. This of course means opening our heart to change and conversion where we hear Jesus cry out “repent and believe in the Gospel.” (Mk 1:15) To many times we ask question where our prejudice closes our heart to hear the good news of God’s desire that we be converted and saved. We must be honest in desiring the truth, the truth of Jesus Christ because if we don’t ask the questions, or do so only with a closed mind and heart then there is no point, there is no answer that will satisfy.
I have always intellectually known why Jesus ends the beatitudes with the promise of persecution. But as our society deserts truth more and more often, to speak God’s truth of repentance and forgiveness becomes the cross we all must learn to bear.

Fr. Radcliffe ends his work with this paragraph of challenge and hope where we respond with the yes or no of faith, “We must give each other courage and renounce collusion with the powers of silence, the powers of the tomb. We can refuse that auto censorship, which is always fearful about what other people might think if one were to say the truth.’ Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me’ (John 14.1). We can enjoy moments of Sabbath together, sharing even now in God’s own rest.”(p 212)

God Bless
Fr. Mark