Thoughts From Fr. Mark

“It started as a conference and ended as a retreat.” These words were spoken by one of the attendees of the four day workshop entitled “Dual Language in Catholic Education Nation Summer Academy sponsored by Loyola Marymount University and Boston College at the end of June.

The words this man shared were part of the wrap up as some of the participants gave their testimony to the power of Catholic Educators gathering and sharing the good news of Catholic Education and more importantly for us the gift of Dual Language Immersion (DLI).

Why Dual Language Immersion? Many parishioners and alumni of St. Lawrence have asked this question as-well-as, many friends and family as I shared with them the change happening at our parish school. I had read about and researched the many aspects of the benefits of DLI, how it benefits the students and their family in the academic, social and their future careers. I could share how it opens our eyes to the greater diversity in our world in celebrating the cultures and people that surround us and the culture we will be sending our students into as the graduate our Catholic schools. All of this is true and gives powerful witness to, when done well, DLI can be a great benefit to students and their families.
But there is something greater and more important, it was something I knew in my bones but had a hard time expressing why we choose to begin the transition to become the first Catholic DLI school in the Diocese of San Jose.
What I remember most about the long days of discussion and presentation was the attention to detail in the forming of curriculum and the intentionality of placing the Catholic faith within the curriculum and the daily experience of students, teachers and families who attend Catholic schools.
Pope Pius XI wrote on the importance of Catholic education in this way, “Divini Illius Magistri #11 pope Pius XI “Education is essentially a social and not a mere individual activity. Now there are three necessary societies, distinct from one another and yet harmoniously combined by God, into which man is born: two, namely the family and civil society, belong to the natural order; the third, the Church, to the supernatural order.” (Divini Illius Magistri #11) It is the great reminder of how as a Catholic Church we embrace cultures and transform cultures with the presence of Jesus Christ. When our young people, through language immersion, experience the depths of a culture different from their familial heritage, they discover, and we as Church discover, how God’s presence unites us in a harmony of light and peace heard in the voices of angels that our children echo on earth.
Our goal, as we begin this journey at St. Lawrence the Martyr School, is to build on the decades of educational joy, a joy I lived as a teacher here from 1994 to 2000, and enter this time with delving deeper into the blessings of God. Bishop Tom Daly of Spokane (our former Auxiliary Bishop) said this in and interview with Pillar Catholic in February of 2023, “And so I think the Catholic school curriculum has to have an integrated approach of faith and knowledge and service. We have to try our best, but Catholic education can’t be just giving students the information — or not giving them the information, for that matter.”
As I noted above, the gift of DLI is the gift of being even more intentional in how we teach and pass on the faith. One school, Mater Dei in San Diego, chose to assign each class a different title of Mary, Our Blessed Mother, in exploring the culture of their communities and share this knowing our Mother with the whole school. It can be a reminder, to even those families who are not Catholic, how our faith, through Mary Mother of God, comes into each and every country and peoples.
In 2005, the year I was ordained a priest, the Bishops of the United Sates (USCCB) wrote this important call to caring for and rejoicing in the continued presence of Catholic Schools, “Our Catholic schools have produced countless numbers of well-educated and moral citizens who are leaders in our civic and ecclesial communities. We must work with all parents so they have the choice of an education that no other school can supply—excellent academics imparted in the context of Catholic teaching and practice.” (from the USCCB document “Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium” 2005)
I recently had a conversation with a graduate of St. Lawrence schools where she made this exact point. She described how her faith, nurtured and cared for in Catholic schools, has kept her united with friends from 40 years ago and continues to help her and her family cherish the gift of God’s grace and love. I believe that the gift of language and the teaching opening the eyes and hearts of our community to the joy of learning and sharing the cultural gifts, the faith expressions and the spiritual truths of our Catholic faith through a truly Catholic Dual Language Immersion school in Santa Clara will draw us into a better and more holy future of unity in and through Our Lord Jesus Christ.
God bless
Fr. Mark

n October of 2015 Pope Francis did something remarkable. He canonized a married couple. The couple is St. Louis Martin and Zélie Guérin the father and mother of St. Therese of Lisieux. The Catholic Church honors them this week, July 12, and it is a wonder and joy to celebrate with them. One small fact, July 12th was chosen as their memorial because it is their wedding anniversary date.

This blessed day occurred 6 years after I began my journey as a priest with the Worldwide Marriage Encounter movement (WWME) and it was a joyous day because it confirmed what I had experienced my whole life, had been intimately involved as a priest in parish work and seeking to deepen the holiness of marriage through WWME, the reality of how many married couples where saints. These hidden lives doing the hard and unnoticed work with the parish often as couples serving together in carrying Jesus and his Word of love into the world.
“The Christian life, eucharistically lived by the faithful in the reality of marriage and the family, thus becomes a paradigm for every type of human relationship, above all for those which constitute the ecclesial community. In the life of the people of God, the family educates all the faithful to understand their relationships—even those tied to the sacramental task of presbyterial ministry—according to the nuptial dynamic of the sacrament.” (p. 303 “The Nuptial Mystery” Angelo Cardinal Scola)

The “nuptial mystery” begins with the understanding of the feminine and masculine reality found within the sacramental union. It is discovered as noted in the life of Louis and Zélie, through the great joy and excruciating sorrow found in marriage, family and the living in a community of faith in the world. It is as Cardinal Scola notes, through the family, a foundational school of love, mercy and forgiveness practiced again and again in the lived example of faithfulness which poured out into the world as an example of the Trinitarian love of God. It is the hope filled example that is attractive in nuptial love becoming a blessing for the couple, the family and the world.
And this is one of the true blessings WWME has shared with me as a priest; the dedicated service of couples offering their marriage as a blessing in the Church. But there is more….searching the internet you do find other married couples that have been canonized by the Church, many are from the early Church and some newer but we have the example of Sts. Timothy and Maura who were martyred after a month of married life. In the late 3rd century, this young couple, just 20 and 17 years of age, were put to the test. The hagiography of their martyrdom tells the story of prayer and choosing to lose a life to save a soul.

The reality of the power of prayer as an individual, but more importantly as a Church calls us to a unity in Jesus Christ. Married couples, in the example of this brave young couple, are called to prayer—prayer for each other, prayer for their family and prayer for the world—as a living witness to the presences of the Trinitarian God at the center of their marriage. The family, as Pope St. John Paul II taught, is the “domestic church”, the “little church” in reviving the ancient teachings of our faith. It is being the domestic church that all married couples and all families are invited to participate in the prayer of the Church in filling their home with gracious sacramental love in prayer, service and acts of unity.
“Praying together builds intimacy in your relationship together. Christina and I get into super deep conversations and analyze problems up and down. We can make up plans, flow charts, mind maps, but nothing except prayer gives us the peace of mind we need…Creating a habit of prayer is more than a lifesaver throughout your marriage. It is inviting the best advisor, father, therapist, and power into your lives to make them whole and healed. It is celebrating every moment and acknowledging your source and why you are together.”( p117-8 from “Boundless love” by Christina and Javier Llerena)
It is in the power of a sacramental couple in prayer, were the Church enters into the deeper healing relationships of love in setting their hearts on the firm foundation of God’s unimaginable love for us becoming the light drawing us into the surrendering of the one into the unity of trinitarian grace and love.

In this we encounter the life of St.s Priscilla and Aquila, disciples, friends and companions of St. Paul. They are referred to several times in St. Paul’s letters and in the history of his life. Priscilla and Aquila are noted for their “witness to conjugal love.” While no children are mentioned in Sacred Scripture, early traditions and writings note that this couple had at least two sons who may have been with St. Peter in Rome at the time of his martyrdom.
The witness to conjugal love can and often does focus of the gift of the child. This generous fruit of marriage from God begins the pattern, as was noted above, of the passing on the tradition, knowledge and practice of the faith. Bishop Sheen noted it also introduces a new and different understanding of humbleness before the gift and blessing of life as he writes, “The child makes men humble as the thought of God makes men humble. There is little difference between the two, for the child is in a certain sense, “Emmanuel,” or “God with us”. Great depths of true wisdom are hidden in the heart of those parents who always say their night prayers before the crib of the last born child. In that, as yet wordless Word, they see not the increase of their image, but the very mage and likeness of God” (P159, from “Three to Get Married”)
Priscilla and Aquila, as fellow evangelist with St. Paul were a visual reminder of the family as foundation but also of the important role of marriage and family in God’s plan of salvation and redemption in the world. In Marriage Encounter we often see in the struggle of raising children in a society often at odds with Christian values, the strength of love that is drawn from parents, husbands and wives, as they seek to form their family in the image of the Holy Family that pours love into the world it is in this effort where mercy and forgiveness truly become rich and abundant in the hearts of all.

The final word I will give to Fr. Chuck Gallagher SJ, the founding priest for WWME in the United States, “Inside the heart of each and everyone of us there is a longing to be understood by someone who really cares. When a person is understood, he can put up with almost anything in this world. Yet often this misunderstanding is missing in marriage. Our confusion is further complicated by the fact that it isn’t particularly fashionable to talk favorably about marriage, unless we are honeymooners or celebrating a golden anniversary. We have little experience in living together, and almost all the advice given to married couples is aimed at telling them how to lead separate lives.” (P. 146, “The Marriage Encounter”)
Inside each of us is a heart created and formed by a creative and generous God made for love. To love and to recieve love. We all understand how families are often hurt and wounded, but we also know the only solution is a word, action and prayer of mercy an love. It is where we bring our burdens and allow our wounded hearts, united in love to find rest in the beating of the heart of love, the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
God bless
Fr. Mark

“And, as in our common, collective history, this memory of God’s goodness is present; it helps us, and becomes for us a star of hope so that each one also has his personal story of salvation. We must truly treasure the story, and, in order to trust, must keep ever present in our mind, the memory of the great things he has also worked in my life: his mercy endures forever. And if today I am immersed in the dark night, tomorrow, he sets me free, for his mercy is eternal.” (p. 99 “A School of Prayer” Benedict XVI)

If you have time, before you read this post, I would challenge you to open up the Bible and pray Psalm 136 as a way to prepare your hearts and minds. “His mercy endures forever” is a recurring refrain as we pray the psalm as we are reminded of God’s presence throughout salvation history and how His presence both in the moments of joy and suffering recall our thanksgiving and hope in this ever enduring mercy in our lives.

This is where family, memory and tradition meet in such a wonderful and holy way when we allow God to rest in the center of our lives. The reality of God resting in the center of our lives in life-giving in the way it frees us from the grasping and holding on to the moments of memory and those of physical reality which can destroy the unity of life as a family.
Pope Francis from “Amoris Laetitia” writes, “The incarnation of the Word in a human family, in Nazareth, by it’s very newness change the history of the world. We need to enter into the mystery of Jesus’ birth, into that “yes” given by Mary to the message of the angel when the Word was conceived in her womb, as well as the “yes” of Joseph, who gave a name to Jesus and watched over Mary… We need to peer into those thirty long years when Jesus earned his keep by the work of his hands, reciting the traditional prayers and expressions of his peoples faith and coming to know the ancestral faith until he made it bear fruit in the mystery of the Kingdom.” (#65)

Each of us as individuals and as families have hidden years. Years where we grow and develop who we are as individuals, spouses and as a family as a whole. They are years often filled with struggles and certainly a lot of mistakes on how we live our lives. They are hidden years that come and go as we grow in faithfulness and knowledge of who God is and how He has wonderfully made you and me and every person. These hidden years are not simply our childhood but can be for husband and wife those first years of marriage as they enter into a relationship of conforming, molding and embodying the other in the physical, sexual, social and spiritual union of the two becoming one which brings great joy but also incredible sacrifice in love in the creating a family we pray includes the new life of children.
It is for priests and consecrated women and men the hidden years of formation where there is a public face but also the deeper interior struggles and joys of conforming the will to the will of God in and through the gifts of grace that are given.
It is where “His mercy endures forever.”

God bless
Fr. Mark

“Then they said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them” the Lord has done great things for us; we are glad.” (Psalm, 126:2–3)

“We must be more attentive to the good things that the Lord gives us. We are always attentive to problems, to difficulties, and it is as if we did not want to see that there are beautiful things that come to us from the Lord.” (p 89 from A School of Prayer The Saints Teach Us to Pray by Pope Benedict XVI)

A question that is asked often about our attitude in life is; “Do you see the situation was a glass half full or a glass half empty?” This is, as the quote notes above a question that lays a foundation of who we are as we interact in our lives with others. A problem because this attitude affects the way we interact with one another and all of God’s creation.
As I write this post, I am sitting in the waiting room having my car serviced. Waiting rooms and waiting in general can seem very difficult and people will often complain about waiting for many reasons. Our world and society demand almost an instantaneous response and reception of stuff and even in relationships.

I think one of things Pope Benedict may be getting at is how we see ourselves and each other. How often do we focus on what we are lacking in the eyes of the world rather than the blessings of who we are as a child of God. Or how we can look at another person and judge what we think in a negative light rather than searching for the graces and gifts they bring to our lives.

Pope Francis in his Apostolic Exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” confirms this idea as he writes, “The aesthetic experience of love expressed in that “gaze” which contemplates other persons as ends in themselves, even if they are infirm, elderly or physically unattractive. A look of appreciation has enormous importance, and to begrudge it is usually hurtful… Much hurt and many problems result when we stop looking at one another… Love, opens our eyes and enables us to see, beyond all else, the great worth of a human being.” (#128)
When we begin to forget how we are made in the image and likeness of God, we fail to “look at” and “see” the other as a blessing of goodness and holiness even in the most difficult situations. The eyes of our heart become blinded by the hurt and sin that will invade our lives and the sacramental grace of reconciliation and the daily acts of forgiveness become less than and optional rather than act of serving one another we are called to enter into as brothers and sisters in Christ.
This is vital in the sacramental relationship of husband and wife where the spouses are called to “see” the other and to “look at” the other in a filial relationship of sister and brother first and foremost…as someone to be loved for loves sake…with the conjugal love as the gift from knowing the other in the blessing we see as Pope Benedict notes above.
Of course this also occurs in all relationships and we should always seek to see others as blessings and graces give by God to enliven our lives.

God Bless Fr. Mark

The priest is first and foremost, the bearer of the mystery. Father (now Bishop), Robert Barron writes, “The primary function of the bearer of Mystery is to hold up to the people of God, the great images, stories, and pictures of salvation that are at the heart of the Christian tradition…. (He) presents the truth which is God’s love in Christ, and seduces, draws the worshiping community to share in it.” (from Bridging the Great Divide) The priest does not make Christ present. God’s love in Christ is present everywhere, but sin has blinded us to it. The priest is the one consecrated in this love and sent, as head and shepherd of the flock, to bear witness to it, to proclaim it, point it out and lead others into communion with it. (from “The Diocesan Priest: Consecrated, and Sent” by Msgr David Bohr P. 159)

Time slips by so quickly and so slowly. Certain dates and times become markers in our lives as time slips quickly and slowly through the hourglass of life.
Eighteen years ago on June 4th, 2005 Bishop Patrick McGrath ordained me to the priesthood for the Diocese of San Jose. It seems like the 18 years have passed so quickly at times and then the time has moved so very slowly.
As I reflect back on the last year here are some blessings.
1. In late June I took a month of vacation as I visited my family and celebrated with the Haener side at a family reunion. it was such a great blessing to be home and hear the stories of growing families, seeing aunts and uncles and counting the grey hairs among my contemporary cousins.

2. Then there was the blessing of visiting the many parts of our country as I drove across the northern part of our great land visiting interesting tourist attractions as I journey to a week of study at Notre Dame in Indiana and the return again seeing largest cement gnome as well as the largest ball of twine in the world. Who know there were such wonders to discover.
3. In August we began our second year of school at St. Lawrence the Martyr Elementary and Middle School. It is my favorite month of the year when we welcome back our students and their families to the great learning adventure. I also assisted Fr. Ukeme in getting his California drivers license.

4. September…was the new year of Confirmation, RCIA and Catechism…was there any huge and glorious memory of during the month. No, but the reality of God’s graces brought small gifts that may have been forgotten but certainly continue to shape my call to serve and shepherd.
5. October was full a big things…I still laugh with joy at our animal blessing on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi….the wonder of the love of pets and grace of the children and adults was a true gift. The wedding of a wonderful couple and the presenting of a Marriage Encounter experience at the end of the month fills my heart and continue to fill me with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

6. Looking through my November and December calendar reminds me of how busy we can be as priests. It seems every day is filled with gifts of ministry and the work of administration that fill the life of a pastor…but…celebrating the 50th anniversary of a beloved couple I have walked with as they have shared the health struggles of their great-granddaughter, the marriage of the granddaughter and just the joy of the day. But also the death of one of my brother priests, Fr. Paul Coung Phan, before Christmas, reminds us of how life is precious and filled with life.
7. And the new calendar year began…highlights included the West Coast Walk for Life at the end of January, and the celebration of Catholic School Weeks and ending the month of February with our off campus Confirmation retreat with our teens and leaders sharing faith and opening our hearts to the Holy Spirit as we began our Lenten journey.

8. March saw the joy of the re-dedication of St. Catherine of Alexandria’s church building (my first pastorate) experiencing God’s greatness in the renovation of a building that has been long dreamed of and done with such care and blessing. The beauty shines forth the glory of God.
9. Easter was celebrated with such great hope and blessing. as we began April but there was also the celebration of the 75th Anniversary of St. Lucy Parish, (my second pastorate) seeing old friends and reconnecting with friendships put on hold.
10. May saw my 62nd birthday but also the death of our second bishop of San Jose, Bishop Patrick J. McGrath. The day of my anniversary brings a remembrance of sadness and thanksgiving remembering his life and the turning of the page of our local Church.

Well that is it…thank you for your prayers and blessing and I look forward to serving you for the next year.
God bless
Fr. Mark

“At his ordination, the priest, like Christ himself, is consecrated for mission. Indeed, during the right of Ordination of Priests, the bishop amid a series of questions asks the elect: “Do you resolve to be united more closely every day to Christ, the High Priest, who offered himself for us to the Father, as a pure sacrifice, and with Him consecrate yourselves to God for the salvation of all?” The elect, then response: “I do, with the help of God.” We can hear in the extended ritual dialogue, the reverberating Echo, across the centuries of the Risen Lord’s threefold, questioning of Peter, when they had finished breakfast, on the shore of the sea of Tiberius, “When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter,* “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”* He said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”… “Tend my sheep.”… “Feed my sheep.””(John 21:15–17) (p. 93)

I was sitting in our beautiful parish church of St. Lawrence the Martyr when I realized, like a bolt of thunder, I was praying the wrong prayer! It was a moment when you realize you are asking God for something you want and not what God’s will is for his Holy Catholic Church.

Two simple things helped me understand how wrong my prayer was: first was the wonderful stained glass window of St. Lawrence and the second was reading Pope St. Paul VI apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Nuntiandi (On Evangelization in the Modern World)”
What was the wrong prayer? It had been a prayer I have prayed at every parish I have been assigned as pastor…it is a simple prayer….a prayer I rattle off a dozen times a day…it goes something like this…”Lord Jesus, through the intercession of St. Lawrence the Martyr, may you fill our parish and school with many happy and holy families.”

Pope St. Paul VI wrote about evangelization as a complete and full way of life. We as part of the Body of Christ, as living stones of the Church are evangelizers of the world. How we live our lives and how we participate in the society surrounding us is a necessary step of bringing the word of God to others. He writes, “The Church is an evangelizer, but she begins by being evangelized herself. She is the community of believers, the community of hope lived and communicated, the community of brotherly love, and she needs to listen unceasingly to what she must believe, to her reasons for hoping, to the new commandment of love.” (#15)

To be a community listening is part of the Synod of the Diocese of San Jose as well as the greater Church. Sitting quietly and listening in prayer and offering the prayer for the Church to be filled was an important part of the epiphany that I was praying the wrong prayer. It is the realization you have, when you are young, that God isn’t going to get you the new bike as if by magic but rather God, when we listen, will help us discern the needs we have and open our hearts to discover the greater good.

We are called to be more than just good listeners. Listening to the God in the quiet of the heart is important and vital, but if this is all we do then the active ministry of love and service will quickly descend into a crutch of hoping some one else will fix the problem. Rather St. Paul VI reminds us, “Having been sent and evangelized, the Church herself sends out evangelizers. She puts on their lips the saving Word, she explains to them the message of which she herself is the depositary, she gives them the mandate which she herself has received and she sends them out to preach. To preach not their own selves or their personal ideas, but a Gospel of which neither she nor they are the absolute masters and owners, to dispose of it as they wish, but a Gospel of which they are the ministers, in order to pass it on with complete fidelity.” (#15) To often we can fall into the temptation of preaching ourselves rather than Jesus Christ. We let humility be put into a box and the ego of “people are attracted to me” becomes our guiding light. As I sat in the quiet of the Church, looking at the beautiful and powerful stained glass windows, it was a reminder of the legacy which we have inherited and how this history and tradition forms our hearts and the message forms us to speak with wisdom and love.

So what is the new prayer? If we are called to listen carefully to the whisper of God in prayer, if we are invited to actively participate in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, the we are called to be transformed. To see the world a little differently and with a joy and blessing that goes beyond the world and into eternity. It is the “amen” of belief. Fr. Mike Schmitz in the Catechism in a Year in one episode reminded us, when we as Christians utter the “amen” of belief we should be doing this as if our very life depended upon our “yes” to God. St. Paul VI shares this same conviction when he writes. “Yet, one can never sufficiently stress the fact that evangelization does not consist only of the preaching and teaching of a doctrine. For evangelization must touch life: the natural life to which it gives a new meaning, thanks to the evangelical perspectives that it reveals; and the supernatural life, which is not the negation but the purification and elevation of the natural life.” (#47)
What is this new prayer I have begun to Prayer…imagine the stained glass of St. Lawrence in our church and pray with me: Lord Jesus, through the intercession of St. Lawrence the Martyr may we go out and work to fill our parish and school with the treasures he brought to you…the poor, the broken, the wounded, all those we are called to serve. Amen (as if our lives depended upon it!)
St. Lawrence the Martyr….pray for us
God Bless
Fr. Mark

My Alma Mater is closing….

I hadn’t realized how hard this post would be to write until I sat down and couldn’t find the words, couldn’t express my feeling and couldn’t understand the depth of loss. But…a few months down the road from hearing the my Alma Mater was closing at the end of the school year, I hope to find the words with God’s grace.

I was accepted to Holy Names College (later University)in Oakland in the spring of 1986. It was all happenstance and something of God’s providence that led me to this small Catholic liberal arts college in the hills of Oakland. After my discharge from the Marine Corps, I was living in Seattle and going to Community College and had decided that I wanted to go to a small Catholic liberal arts college/university. So I applied to several (I think 10 or more) institutions throughout the United States.
As luck, happenstance, or God’s divine providence would have it, the first acceptance letter I received was from Holy Names…I took that as a definite sign and wrote back my “yes” and all the other acceptance letters that followed were declined as I prepared to move from the northwest and down to the Bay Area I still call home.

And although I was 25 years of age when I began my studies at Holy Names, I like many people, made life long and deep friendships that sadly I do not always cherish in the way I should. I studied under dedicated and great professors who were true teachers and mentors in every sense of the word. The small and intimate size of the college and of my major, philosophy, led to deep and life changing encounters of seeing the other as a child of God. I remember being asked to meet with Dr. Richard Yee, one of my philosophy professors, where he gently scolded me for my callous and unkind words towards a fellow student and how he expected more of me. How leaving his office humbled and ashamed I continue to hear his voice in many of my interactions even to this day…seeking a more gentle and kinder way of knowing the other.

Or Dr. Tricia McMahon and her invitation into the joy and playfulness of children’s theater and how I can even today remember some of the songs which we sang and how this helped me to be a better teacher by incorporating the experiences I had in shaping the children I was honored to teach.

Then there was the day in class when a friend and I were discussing the merits of a certain “Calvin and Hobbes” cartoon and how Dr. Shelia Gibson, walking into our Ethics Class and hearing us began to discuss the historical figures Calvin and Hobbes with us. And when discovering we were discussing comic strip characters graciously asked for the book and read it. Teaching me and all in the class to look a little deeper into the culture around us and begin to see the depths of God’s fingerprints to be found even in a comic strip.

The last memory, I will share, is of Sr. Irene Woodward and her time in my last undergraduate year at Holy Names College…her teaching and leading me through two philosophy courses. Her torturing me into using fewer words that I wish to use and then to answer questions that seemed impossible but became clearer through discussion and correction. How learning to listen carefully to the hints and proddings shared in weekly discussions opened my mind and life to greater and more profound encounters with God.
And I could go on.

In the years that followed Holy Names went from College to University…added sports programs that were non existent in my undergraduate years but more importantly continued to outreach to the local community and in a special way looking for and helping those first generation college students.

I graduated from Holy Names College in the spring of 1989 after spending a year studying in Germany. I later returned to work towards my teaching credential which ultimately led me to my call to the priesthood.

Shortly after I heard the news, I was up at dinner with my sister and her family and my godson’s wife, who works at a local community college in helping students transition to 4 year institutions lamented the loss of Holy Names and shared how hard the Holy Names Sisters worked in these final years in seeking to help students graduate debt free in understanding the burden student debt can be to many graduates.

The local community of Oakland and the greater community of the Catholic Church will surely miss the gift of mission that is/was Holy Names University. Begun with the joy, the grit and the passion of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the courage of the Holy Names Sisters, whether in the mid 19th century founding or their continued service into the beginning of this 21st century…their mission continues in the lives of those they touched and formed as we pass on the gift of education, friendship and joy we received, not in a diploma or degree but in our hearts formed in the image and charism of the Sisters of the Holy Names call to serve in the image of Jesus.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

Thank you Grandpa! I heard these words the other day outside of Lucky’s as I was walking to my car. A younger man than I, had asked me if I could spare a few dollars. I hadn’t any cash in my wallet, but I thought I may have in the car door pocket. I apologized and said if he would wait I would check if I had any in my car. I loaded my groceries in the trunk, checked the door and low and behold there were three one dollar bills. I gathered them into my hands and then walk back to him, gave him the few dollars and said “God bless” to which he replied, “Thank you Grandpa.”
I walked away stunned. I didn’t know what to think. And certainly, in all my life, no one…and I mean no one…had ever said those three words to me. Being called “Father” after I was ordained to the priesthood was a challenge to get used too and now I was called “Grandpa.”

When I arrived home a few minutes later, I was still rolling these words around in my mind. In the bathroom, I looked in the mirror, it was there that I realized…I looked like a grandpa, an old man with grey whiskers, a receding hairline and yes a few extra pounds around the waist. And it was there that the blessing of these words took hold and the acceptance of God’s blessing of growing older was known in the troubled heart.

In a recent conversation with a true grandparent, I was told for the 100th time about how wonderful grandchildren were and how as grandparents it was much easier to unconditionally love them than their own children. Distance, time and wisdom helps us to understand the beauty of life and how each life is so very precious in the eyes of God…and especially in the little ones that surround us.

Since that morning when I was given thanks as a “grandpa” I have begun to wonder about this gift.

I truly enjoy being a Father, a pastor and shepherd to God’s holy people. I take this calling and vocation very seriously and find peace in the blessings, the sorrows, the joys and the sadness which my daily ministry challenges me to embrace. I can see more clearly how I am also called to be a grandfather; a little softer, gentler and accepting in sharing the unconditional love I am to offer through God’s loving and compassionate grace.
I get to experience this through my many relationships but in a special way in the relationship I have with the Sisters of the Holy Names (SNJM) as we celebrate Mass together. When I was pastor of St. Lucy I would go to celebrate with them in their little chapel once a month. Being surrounded by this group of wonderful and blessed women, I can now begin to see how they become the grandmothers needed in our Church and how in my weekly celebrations with the Eucharistic Missionaries of the Most Holy Trinity (MEEST) I also know this unconditional love.

As Pope, Francis, reminds us, “Very often, it is grandparents, who, ensure that the most important values are passed down to their grandchildren,… Their words, their affection, or simply their presence help children to realize that history did not begin with them, that they are now part of an age–old pilgrimage and that they need to respect all that came before them.” (#194 Amoris Laetitia)
I love this quote because if we live this quote! Live it in joy and love…respect, honor and blessing…even in a story heard so many times…it is the story of our faith, our hope and our love of God and neighbor. It is hearing the words spoken…”thank you grandpa!”.

God bless
Fr. Mark

A several months ago I went to present a weekend with Worldwide Marriage Encounter. Working with married couples we present a weekend to other couples seeking to make the Sacrament of Marriage a renewed gifts of love. In truth, when I go, I have many things on my mind, especially leaving the parish and when I return I am physically and emotionally exhausted by the work being done. But I also am spiritually uplifted in ways I cannot begin to describe. I have a spring in my spiritual step that propels me forward with a greater joy and blessing.
When I was called to become a pastor of a parish a friend and mentor gave me a copy of The Priest, Pastor and Leader of the Parish Community to help me to understand the new role I was assuming as not just a priest but a Pastor and Leader of a community of faith. He also gave me the Canon Law citations is should read, pray and study over in the coming months. While this academic study was wonderful, and I truly did spend time in prayer over the “assignments” given to read, it wasn’t until I began to understand, through Marriage Encounter, the unity of Marriage and Holy Orders that I began to fully integrate the teachings and traditions of the Church into my ministry.

“To the extent that priests are living signs and servants of ecclesial communion they become part of the living unity of the Church in time, that is, of Sacred Tradition of which the Magisterium is the custodian and guarantor. Reference to Tradition invests the ministry of priests with a solid basis and an objectivity of testimony to the Truth, which came in Christ and was revealed in history. Such helps to avoid a prurience with regard to novelty which injures communion and evacuates the depth and credibility of the priestly ministry.” (#16)

To “become part of a living unity of the Church in time” is to enter into relationships fully alive with joy and blessing, with conflict and hurt and hope filled healing and conversion to life, peace and love. Trusting in this peace it was a reminder, a pastor is called to care for all souls, all the children of God within the parish boundaries. Like a parent, we, as priests, are called to seek to unite all people together. The Church once more teaches us, “The parish priest is called to be a patient builder of communion between his own parish and the local Church, and the universal Church. He should be a model of adherence to the perennial Magisterium of the Church and to its discipline.” (#16)

This loving obedience to the wisdom and truth of the Catholic Church helps to moderate and gather us together where as a “builder of communion” both near and far, we learn to heal and not simply tolerate the differences that divide us.
And of course, when you talk to any married couple, any mother and father or for that matter any member of the family you discover that to be a “builder of communion” is necessary and a movement to a unity of grace filled love. The United States Bishops in their document, “Love Is or Mission: The Family Fully Alive”, the Bishops talk about the need of encounter with the person of Jesus in an invitation in and through a greater community. It is a priority of being united around a common table where differences are acknowledged and at the same time the call to a unity of love is also recognized and worked for as a family caring for one another. The Bishops write, “In the Church, the first priority is to bring people to an encounter with the Divine Physician. Any encounter with Christ brings healing to fallen humanity, and the Holy Spirit can always be invited into our hearts to enable repentance and conversion. In the words of Pope Francis: “I invite all Christians everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least and openness to letting him encounter them; I asked all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord.” (#155)
The “personal encounter with Jesus” as Pope Francis teaches is an encounter of family and a call to choosing to gather and share life and love. It is through these relationships, just as the relationship within the family of the Church, as members of the one family of God, we learn to love and grow in hope. My work as a “father of a parish family”, works towards this goal…as bumpy and difficult as it can be.

“The Church is a family of families, constantly enriched by the lives of all those domestic churches. “In virtue of the sacrament of matrimony, every family becomes, in effect, a good for the Church. From this standpoint, reflecting on the interplay between the family and the Church will prove a precious gift for the Church in our time. The Church is good for the family, and the family is good for the Church. The safeguarding of the Lord’s gift in the sacrament of matrimony is a concern not only of individual families but of the entire Christian community”.” (Amoris Laetitia #87)
I have been working on this way to long….3 months, so I will end this in reminding me, my parish and all of God’s holy people…that we are a family of faith and the responsibility of parenting the family is always modeled on God’s will…the call to follow him with our whole heart, our whole life, our whole being. To be a pastor, a parent, a mentor is the call to lead others, as brothers and sisters in Christ to the heavenly throne of the Father…nothing less.

Thanks for your patience.
God Bless
Fr. Mark.

Short videos discussing the Wisdom of Fulton Sheen

With the crib seen as a tabernacle and the child as a kind of host, then the home becomes a living temple of God. The sacristan of that sanctuary is the mother, who never permits the tabernacle lamp of faith to go out.

The life of a bishop should be more perfect than the life of a hermit. The reason he gave was that the holiness which the monk preserves in the desert must be preserved by the bishop in the midst of the evil of the world

Our Lord was born not just of her flesh but also by her consent.

We are living in perilous times when the hearts and souls of men are sorely tried. Never before has the future been so utterly unpredictable; we are not so much in a period of transition with belief in progress to push us on, rather we seem to be entering they realm of the unknown, joylessly, disillusioned, and without hope. The whole world seems to be in a state of spiritual widowhood, possessed of the harrowing devastation of one who set out on life’s course joyously in intimate comradeship with another, and then is bereft of that companion forever.

Since evil is nothing positive, there can be no principle of evil. It has no meaning expect in reference to something good.

Many a modern preacher is far less concerned with preaching Christ and Him crucified than he is with his popularity with his congregation.

It is not the sanctuary that is in danger; it is civilization. It is not infallibility that may go down; it is personal rights. It is not the Eucharist that may pass away; it is freedom of conscience. It is not divine justice that may evaporate; it is the courts of human justice. It is not that God may be driven from His throne; it is that men may lose the meaning of home. For peace on earth will come only to those who give glory to God! It is not the Church that is in danger, it is the world!

What is discovered may be abused, but that does not mean the discovery was evil.

There has been no single influence which has done more to prevent man from finding God and rebuilding his character, has done more to lower the moral tone of society than the denial of personal guilt. This repudiation of man’s personal responsibility for his action is falsely justified in two ways: by assuming that man is only an animal and by giving a sense of guilt the tag “morbid.”

O Emmanuel, our King and Giver of Law:
come to save us, Lord our God!

The very freedom which the sinner supposedly exercises in his self-indulgence is only another proof that he is ruled by the tyrant.

O King of all nations and keystone of the Church:
come and save man, whom you formed from the dust!

The nice people rarely come to God; they take their moral tone from the society in which they live. Like the Pharisee in front of the temple, they believe themselves to be very respectable citizens. Elegance is their test of virtue; to them, the moral is the aesthetic, the evil is the ugly. Every move they make is dictated, not by a love of goodness, but by the influence of their age. Their intellects are cultivated–in knowledge of current events; they read only the bestsellers, but their hearts are undisciplined. They say that they would go to the church if the Church were only better–but they never tell you how much better the Church must be before they will join it. They sometimes condemn the gross sins of society, such as murder; they are not tempted to this because they fear the opprobrium which comes to them who commit them. By avoiding the sins which society condemns, they escape the reproach, they consider themselves good par excellence.

O Radiant Dawn,
splendor of eternal light, sun of justice:
come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the
shadow of death.