Thoughts From Fr. Mark

“Pope Benedict explores this question in his books, Jesus of Nazareth in the chapter “The Lord’s, Prayer”, where he comments on the second-to-last petition: “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Benedict asserts straight away that forgiveness is not a cheap gift. After all, “guilt is a reality, and objective force”, and hence it has real affects, real consequences: it “causes damage that must be repaired”. A vow is broken, a reputation ruined, a body ravaged, a life taken. “For this reason,” says Benedict, “forgiveness must be more than a matter of ignoring of merely trying to forget.” The baneful effects of sin and guilt “must be worked through, healed, and thus overcome”. (201–202, from Atonement: Soundings in Biblical, Trinitarian, and Spiritual Theology
by Margaret M. Turek S.T.D.)

When I began my journey in Worldwide Marriage Encounter, I would often in my time of dialogue with couples have trouble focusing on the one feeling I was trying to get at. The married couple I was speaking with would often note that I began with a very specific feeling but as I began sharing I would often end with a completely different and sometimes opposite feeling being described.
Knowing where we are going and finding our way to our destinations, both on our earthly journey and our heavenly one is so important. But we also know we will stumble and fail at times. Missing a turn or exit often happens. If we respond by some rash action or unsafe driving movement we not only put ourselves in danger but also the many other drivers and passengers around us. Rather, it must be “worked through”. Maybe our map system will tell us the quickest way to correct our error or we will find a different route, but ultimately the damage of the error is corrected with he consequences of a little more time on the road and perhaps being late for an appointment.

This is often how sin enters our lives…not in a malicious fashion…but in neglect and not paying attention by keeping our eyes on the roadmap of life. Sometimes the error is quickly dealt with or it may take much time and effort to turn life around. And, like in my Marriage Encounter dialogue, it can bring us to places of healing and understand in surprising ways. For if we ignore the sin, then we will continue driving further and further away from our true destination and the effects of the sin will be left in the rearview mirror where lives are damaged and hurts are lift unhealed. But being attentive and seeking to return to the way of our true destination brings us to the place we belong..a life of unity and love.
God Bless and drive safely,
Fr. Mark

Parish joys and blessings….St. Peter Claver, St. Arnold of Soission and That Man is you We must speak to them with our hands by giving, before we try to speak to them with our lips. St. Peter Claver “From man’s sweat and God’s love, beer came into the world.” Saint Arnold patron saint of Brewers    • TMIY – Worthy of the Call   (That Man is You video)

From the sermon of St. Augustine, ” I tell you again and again, my brethren, that in the Lord’s garden are to be found not only the roses of the martyrs. In it there are also the lilies of the virgins, the ivy of wedded couples, and the violets of widows. On no account may any class of people despair, thinking that God has not called them. Christ sufferred for all. What the Scriptures say of him is true: He desires all men to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.

“In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. ” Luke 6:12

Exhausted and Exhilarated was how I describe myself on Monday morning after a weekend where we, as a parish community, shared our call to become Eucharistic People and it is the way I felt after the following Sunday’s Masses the following week as we celebrated the Sacrament of Anointing and Baptism at the 10:00 a.m., the 12:30 p.m. Mass and then a final Baptism in the early afternoon after the Mass. What a true and wonderful blessing to be exhausted and exhilarated.

God shows us so many wonderful blessings in our lives and yet we often miss them until they hit us in the forehead like a 2×4.
Gratitude and thanksgiving are so very important in our lives. God made each of us to be thankful and express this thankfulness in praise and worship, in other words in making our lives centered on prayer. It is where we pause to take time to honor what is good and holy in our lives, it is a time were we also see God’s face in the difficulty and hurts surrounding us in moments of struggle. In both cases the taking of time allows our hearts to be open to others who will both celebrate with us and will also embrace us with comfort and love.

The gratitude and thanksgiving of being exhausted after a long day of interaction, and for an introvert the is doubly true, can darken the moment. I can remember my very first Christmas as a priest when on Christmas afternoon, as I dropped onto the bed in true exhaustion, how at rest my whole body began to shake. I was exhausted beyond belief. Or the first time, after a weekend as the presenting priest for Worldwide Marriage Encounter, how I got home and didn’t want to interact with any one and just wanted to be alone. And I could name a thousand other times….but…what was also most clear to me at that moment was in prayer, sitting down to the the Liturgy of the Hours, or in praying the Rosary, how I began to recall and give thanks for what had just happened and how in prayer I began to look forward again, not in exhaustion but the the exhilarating hopefulness of the next time, the future of blessing and the grace shared and given by the presence of God in the holy and broken people our Church is called to serve.

It is the exhausted I feel after spending time praying with a family in the hospital or in preparing and living through the time after the death of a loved one. It is the exhausted of listening to and sharing stories of pain and suffering with couples and individuals in marriages that are struggling or those in the single state having difficult times. But the exhilaration is also present when entering into prayer where we understand we are not alone and where a small but real ray of hope breaks into the darkness of suffering and pain.
I can only imagine this is what many parents feel on a daily basis as they live the exhausted and exhilarated life of blessings. It is the feelings we all have in our human experience of living a full life. Living a life of prayer is the opening of our life to grace and the future of gratitude and hope.

Three little suggestions
Make a gratitude journal where each night (or morning) you write one or two things you are grateful for or blessing you received that day.
Take time to thank God for these blessings and thank other people, like a spouse, parent, sibling, friend, co-worker or stranger…it will do the spirit good and is a wonderful form of prayer.
Lastly, read a good Catholic book on joy and gratitude….you might start with “A Moment’s Pause for Gratitude: Enrich Your Life with a Focus on Gratitude” by Kevin Carroll
God bless
Fr. Mark

“Behold the Lamb of God, Behold God Himself! Adore Him!.” “If you have this Eucharistic spirit, if your thoughts are tuned continually toward the Eucharist, the presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament will never leave you.” St. Peter Julian Eymard

Eucharistic Revival

Pope Francis in speaking to a group of religious sisters last year, talked about Eucharistic Adoration in this way, “I urge you to especially devote yourselves to the prayer of adoration — this is important,…It is good to adore in silence before the Most Blessed Sacrament,” he said, “to be in the consoling presence of Jesus and there to draw the apostolic impetus to be instruments of goodness, tenderness and welcome in the community, the Church, and the world.” (from catholicnewsagency.com October 22 2022)

What we know and believe as Catholic Christians is how this advice is also meant for all of the faithful. It is a way and mode of prayer that can be fruitful to both the person in adoration and for the whole world. Believing we are called to be adorers of God has been a marker in our Judeo-Christian practice of faith and worship. We also believe prayer is effective in bringing God’s very presence into the individual life and the life of the community.
I was concelebrating Mass a few days ago. One of the great actions we participate in is during the consecration the priest, after praying the words of institution, lifts the host into for the people of God to gaze upon in “adoration”. As the celebrant places the Host on the altar and I bowed, what caught my eye was a young father holding his son and gazing at him in pure love. As we repeated this action at the consecration of the Precious Blood, I looked once more as the young man continued to gaze at his child.

Two things came to my mind after Mass as I thought more about this: first was St. Joseph and the second was the gaze of love in the Eucharist where Jesus looks at us in love and we are invited to return this same look of love.
First St. Joseph: there is a wonderful image of St. Joseph holding the newborn Jesus in his arms as Our Blessed Mother Mary sleeps in the background. Josephs head is bent as he looks upon the baby sleeping peacefully. The look of the all-consuming love of new life and the joy of this life envelops the image give to us. It becomes a timeless gaze where the seconds, minutes and hours disappear into a great moment of sharing a time of contemplative love. As I sat back and thought about that young man in the pews I saw this same look of hope and blessing consume him and his child.
“And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.” (Lk 22:61) The Gospel reminds us, that as Jesus is being condemned and as Peter denies him for the third time, Jesus looks at him with great love. In the memorial of the Mass we are called to, like Peter, see they eyes of our Lord Jesus look upon us with great love. In reverence and adoration we return the same look with love upon Jesus and offer our lives fully to Him.
The question that came to my mind was simply this: Do I gaze upon the Eucharist with the same passion and love as that young father gazed upon his infant son? Can I be more like the image of St. Joseph holding Jesus, in the Eucharist, with the same tenderness and care? That is a challenge we all must take up in prayer and contemplation of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Going back to our quote from Pope Francis above, this adoration and contemplation of the Eucharist does not take us out of the world but firmly plants us in the middle of the pain, suffering and problems surrounding us. The young father, looking upon his son with tenderness and love, is more firmly rooted in the world because of love of wife and family. Seeking to live with greater holiness and blessing the Gospel because he holds the gift of life in his arms. When we proclaim “Amen” we also take the gift of life, eternal life, into our arms where we seek with a gaze of love to bring Jesus to all people.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

Saint John Paul II asked us to be attentive
to the role of the elderly in our families, because
there are cultures which, “especially in the wake
of disordered industrial and urban development,
have both in the past and in the present set the
elderly aside in unacceptable ways”.214 The el-
derly help us to appreciate “the continuity of
the generations”, by their “charism of bridging
the gap”.215 Very often it is grandparents who
ensure that the most important values are passed
down to their grandchildren, and “many people
can testify that they owe their initiation into the
Christian life to their grandparents”.216 Their
words, their affection or simply their presence
help children to realize that history did not be-
gin with them, that they are now part of an age-
old pilgrimage and that they need to respect all
that came before them. Those who would break
all ties with the past will surely find it difficult
to build stable relationships and to realize that
reality is bigger than they are. “Attention to the
elderly makes the difference in a society. Does
a society show concern for the elderly? Does it
make room for the elderly? Such a society will
move forward if it respects the wisdom of the
elderly” (#192 Amoris laetitia)

July is quickly coming to an end and this can only mean two things…school is about to begin and life at a parish with a school is about to get much busier again. I thought about this during my morning exercise.
Busyness is a weird word because it can have two sides; one is that you have a lot to do and the other is you are doing a lot. The one side is the reality of the needed work of caring for and doing the necessary tasks to make things work and run properly and the other is the doing of tasks and other things where you are running around in circles getting very little accomplished as you occupy every minute with a new thing and leave uncompleted tasks in your wake. At the end of the day, on one hand you feel tired but at peace even when your “to do list” is left with many items to be checked off but it was a day “well done”, on the other hand you feel discouraged and exhausted because just as in the first, the “to do” list is not completed, but the fruitlessness of jumping and running about has robbed peace from your heart.

We’ve all had those days. What brought this thought about…I had just come back from a wonderful Holy Hour in the church. Each morning, I wake up, thank God for the gift of the day, get dressed and walk over to our parish church and spend an hour in prayer with Our Lord. It is a integral part of my day and always makes my day a little better. But…it can get busy. Like anything else in my life, I can mess up my prayer life pretty quickly but stuffing all sorts of things into what should be time with Jesus. My Holy Hour usually consists of three small things: the Office of Readings, Sacred Scripture (usually the daily readings) and the reading of a small spiritual meditation. One is a duty and promise, the second is a act of love and service and the third is a opening of a joyful door.

So, how can I mess this up? It is simple, by trying to do too much. Rather than taking time in silence, I begin to wonder what else I should be reading and praying or meditating on. Rather than contemplating the presence of Jesus in the tabernacle, I can distract myself by the book, the the breviary, the rushed reading of Sacred Scripture seeking to ponder anything but the silence and peace that is presented to me in this hour of blessings and joy.
What made this morning different? Why was it so fruitful? Partly, it was giving away my Holy Hour. I had promised and offered the Holy Hour for the healing of a friend in the hospital, and then for a second gentlemen who also unexpectedly ended up in the hospital. I didn’t do anything markedly different; I still prayed my Liturgy of the Hours and did a focus on the Scripture, but during each of those prayers, I kept hearing the voice of those two gentlemen, praying together and joining in praising and adoring the one true God.
The hour ended with a refreshing peace and whisper of hopefulness.

On that morning I never did pick up the book of spiritual reflections I am reading, but the next morning, I heard this from Pope Benedict XVI, “…prayer is the encounter with a living Person to listen to and with whom to converse; it is the meeting with God that renews his unshakeable fidelity, his “yes” to man, to each one of us, to give us his consolation in the storms of life and to enable us to live, united to him, a life full of joy and goodness, which will find fulfillment in eternal life.” (P222 from “A School of Prayer”)
God Bless
Fr. Mark.

“Above all, continuity and constancy are important. Jesus is exemplary. Experience itself, shows that his prayer, enlivened by the fatherhood of God, and by communion with the Spirit, was deepened and prolonged in faithful practice, up to the Garden of Olives, and to the Cross. Today Christians are called to be witnesses of prayer precisely, because our world is often closed to the divine horizon, and to the hope that brings the encounter with God. In deep friendship with Jesus and living in him and with him the filial relationship with the Father, to our constant and faithful prayer we can open windows on God’s Heaven.” (P. 121 “A School of Prayer” by Pope Benedict XVI)

Falling in love can be the thing of an instant flash, the first sight of love, or it can be a long and enduring conversation of friendship slowly moving towards a deeper and complete relationship of giving and sharing in love. Pope Benedict in the quote above is speaking of these moments of grace and love encountered in the prayerful moments of conversation and conversion with Jesus Christ as beloved children of God. The prayer, the moment of insight and understanding the overwhelming love poured into our hearts, can be a thing of an instant flash overwhelming our soul…or it can be the long and enduring conversation slowly wearing through the guards and brokenness of the heart finding healing and joining together in the acts of love and grace.

Like the love for another, Pope Benedict reminds us of how prayer can open the greater horizons where the limitations we and the world can place on our life become chains that are dropped never needed to be picked up again. How prayer, like the gift of love to the other, unites us in a deeply personal and life changing moment of joy and hope in lifting our hearts to gaze upon the horizon of something more; the something of the creative participation in a movement that can never be done alone but must be done in unity and unison with another in mutual and transforming self-sacrifice and self-giving. It is the striving for spousal love of man and woman, it is the familial love fruitful and blessed.

The transforming of prayer from a singular act towards another that moves to a unitive conversation of love gives courage to the heart to reach out and to be formed into something not new but the heart and soul transformed and lit with a spark of bright and gracious peace. It allows the heart to rest becoming part of something greater and more fulfilling where the unitive heals and looks with wonder into the eyes of the other. It is looking and being absorbed into another…gazing into the eyes of a lover, the eyes of Jesus on the Cross.

Pope Francis describes it like the gift of family, “The experience of loving families is a perennial source of strength for the life of the Church. “The unitive end of marriage is a constant summons to make this love grow and deepen. Through their union in love, the couple experiences the beauty of fatherhood and motherhood, and shares plans, trials, expectations, and concerns; they learn to care for one another and mutual forgiveness. In this love, they celebrate their happy moments and support each other in the difficult passages of their life together… The beauty of this mutual, gratuitous gift, the joy which comes from a life that is born and the love and care of all family members—from toddlers to seniors—are just a few of the ways which may make the response to the vocation of the family, unique and irreplaceable,” (Relatio Finalis, #52) both for the Church and for society as a whole.” (Amoris Laetitia #88)

Whether it is an instant spark and bang of first sight, or it is the long wearing and smoothing of the broken into the renewed, prayer draws us into love and love into a relationship with the other and with this into the greater Trinitarian and familial grace and blessing the comes with the cost of a life. It is the invitation to love. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14:6) It is the way of love.

God Bless
Fr. Mark