I was walking through our parish school yesterday and it would be hard to miss the preparation of the upcoming celebration of Halloween. The hallways, the doorways and the very little and excited bodies of the students screamed out the joy and fun that is anticipated on the night of All Hallows Eve. As Christians we would also note the reverence and veneration with which our 8th Grade students prepared the Day of the Dead Altar with photographs and memories of friends and relatives who had died.
The end of October and beginning of November is filled with life, death and the call to holiness that fills our lives. It is the time of year when as summer fades, fall takes hold and we look towards the winter of life. Our Catholic faith asks us to reflect upon both our purpose in life and in this purpose the ultimate goal of our life. It should be very simple to answer…right? Our purpose is simply to serve God…you know, the first and greatest commandments and yes the second too. And the ultimate goal? Heaven. Easy enough and now we get to live it and that’s the hard part.
This is where the All Saints and All Souls celebrations are found in our faith traditions. St. Bernard shares with us this wisdom, “Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a longing to enjoy their company, so desirable in itself. We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed, to join in the assembly of patriarchs, the ranks of the prophets, ths, that is our purpose and our goal. To be loved and united in joy with God…this is what saints do…they celebrate the gift of life through serving God and the other. The great Russian author Leo Tolstoy put it this way, “There is only one thing in this world which is worth dedicating all your life. This is creating more love among people and destroying barriers which exist between them.” (Leo Tolstoy) If God is love, then there can only be this one holy and joy filled purpose. e council of apostles, the great host of martyrs, the noble company of confessors and the choir of virgins. In short, we long to be united in happiness with all the saints.” (St. Bernard, abbot from the Office of Readings, All Saints Day) He reminds us that we are all called to the joyfulness of holiness and greatness and the saints point the way to Jesus the ultimate goal where we are and will be united with Him in the Father and Holy Spirit.
We are all called to be saint
All Souls Day is a reminder of our mortality and the need to pray for those who have died. We profess each Sunday “I believe in life everlasting” as part of our Creed. We understand that no one will get out of life without the moment of physical death, but as followers of Jesus Christ, we also trust in the blessing of the eternal life of our soul. As St. Ambrose reminds us “What more should we say about his death since we use this divine example to prove that it was death alone that won freedom from death, and death itself was its own redeemer? Death is then no cause for mourning, for it is the cause of mankind’s salvation. Death is not something to be avoided, for the Son of God did not think it beneath his dignity, nor did he seek to escape it.” (St. Ambrose, from the Office of Readings, All Souls Day)
We pray for those who have died in the understanding of the need for repentance from sin and the purgation of the soul. The question we should always ask is not: “Do I want to die?” rather “Am I ready for death?” Have I, in Tolstoy’s formulation, allowed God to work in my life to destroy the barriers of hate and open the gate of love: Jesus Christ. If so then our purpose: “to be a saint” and our goal’ “to be in heaven” are always in front of us as we live within the heart of God’s love.
God Bless
Fr. Mark

Fr. Richard Rohr, in writing about how God calls us to community says that there are two great mysteries that bring people together in the interconnectedness of life. The “mystery of spirituality and the mystery of vulnerability and powerlessness.” (p 124)

I believe this truth is made bare in the tragedies of life we have recently been experiencing in our country. The onslaught of disaster we experience can bring out the community we often seem to lack or ignore when life seems to be good. The human spirit that seeks to rebuild in the midst of destruction and the blessings we see from so many people who reach out to help in every way possible are inspiring and hope-filled for all of us.

The challenge for us is to begin to build upon and sustain these mysteries into a deeper relationship with God and community. The “mystery of spirituality” is a reminder of our need for the greater. We can become a mirror of ourselves if we continually focus just on the ME, ME, and ME of life fail to look beyond the mirror into the deeper and more profound truth where in reaching beyond ourselves we discover the true self God has called us to be.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI where he says to us, “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.” We are drawn to the greatness of life when in our spiritual journey we choose to serve, to go beyond the narrowness of the ego ME and reach out into the messy reality of relationship and life. This is where the joining together in worship and prayer become vital and life giving. We, in the celebration of the Mass, are asked to move beyond our self and enter into a community of prayer allowing ourselves to be united around one altar of blessing not because everyone is like us but because and more importantly everyone is not like us. United in our unique differences of seeking a greater and more holy which is union with God we live the mystery of spiritual growth and find truth and blessing.

Then we come to the “mystery of vulnerability and powerlessness” two things we all dread at some level. The natural and man made tragedies and sins of the world bring the reality of being vulnerable and powerless to the forefront. With all the gifts of human intelligence and advancement, the wind, rain, fire and shaking of the earth still remind us of how fragile and precious life is and how easily it can be lost. But is also wakes us up to how the “stuff” that seems to posses us at times cannot fulfill our lives because it disappears within a moment. In the moments of vulnerability and powerlessness we discover the lasting gift of true life and unity as friend, neighbor and stranger reach out in the grace and blessing of the hand, voice and embrace of God. It is the discovering of a love that desires to simply serve without reward or recompense as we seek to heal in grace the hurt, pain and suffering of the other as Jesus reaches out to us in our prayer and desire to be made into love.

We have all heard and read of the gifts given and shared and we are called to continue to serve and to bless. It is in the wonderful stories of service and blessing where we come to understand the greater truth of our faith and religion that draws us more deeply into a relationship of life and grace with God where we learn , “Religious transformation works best when you know you are an instrument and not the origin, an aqueduct and not the source. ( p128)

God bless

Fr. Mark

“What the Mystics Know: Seven Pathways to Your Deeper Self” by Fr. Richard Rohr OFM

I don’t think anyone could have predicted the fall season of disasters and need that is the reality of our country and the world.

Hurricane Harvey
Hurricane Irma
Earthquake in Mexico
Hurricane Maria
Las Vegas shooting
Wildfires in Sonoma and Napa Counties

And we could add many others smaller but no less disruptive events for the communities we live in and are surrounded by. It is so very hard on the mental and spiritual life to be asked to continually respond to each event with the same fervor and compassion as the first.

When I first heard about the fires this past week I must admit it was with a shrug of the shoulders and a small prayer because the extent and the damage these fires would cause was just beginning. We’ve had fires before, even with the memories of the Oakland Hills fires, and most of the time, they are just an air quality issue, but this is certainly not the case. I had been with my family in Idaho for my brothers wedding when the fires began and my friend, Fr. Raul Lemus’ Facebook post was the first indication I had of the gravity followed by an email from a friend whose father’s house had been destroyed in Santa Rosa…then I began to pay attention.

And sadly, this is often the case in tragedies both small and large: when we know the people affected by the event we seem to be much more interested in how to help and the outcomes that are found. And this reality is very important to recognize and embrace and yet, we are always and everywhere called to reach out to the ends of the earth in prayer and service to help those in need. St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians reminds us that this act of charitable service is at the foundations of the very beginning of the Catholic faith, “All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.” (Gal 2:10)

We will be asked once more to dig deeply in compassion and love to reach out to those whose lives have been disrupted and destroyed by the devastation of the fires. As a Catholic Christian community we see our brothers and sisters in need as neighbor and friend. This is the gift of prayer in and through Jesus Christ. As Bishop Robert Barron so beautifully writes, “It has been said that Christian prayer is listening intently as the Father and the Son speak about you. It is this peculiar intimacy—praying in God and not just to him—that give the Christian practice of prayer its unique texture.” (p 53, Barron)

It is in this prayer where we will discover the virtue of perseverance and fortitude where we find the strength to see the hopefulness not of a dream but of the reality of one family in Jesus Christ working towards the common good of unity and service. My own experience of loosing everything in a house fire as a child showed me the gift of community, family and faith as we were taken in to sleep, clothed with friendship and blessed with the shared gift of the necessary household items to unite our family once more in love. “(F)ortitude is necessary to endure unforeseen trials such as the death of those dear to us, the loss of a friend by separation or misunderstandings, the loss of possessions, sickness, poverty and hardships, all of which are likely to be met with at various times in life.” (p 218, Harrison)

We can despair that it is all too great to be dealt with but the gift of prayer united in the small offerings of love, our faith becomes the mountain of hope from which we are able to sing of new life and the wonders of blessings as we share of our generosity of love. God is even here in the fires, the earthquakes and the storms because this is where we, his holy people, choose to go to be united in the service of life, love and prayer.

God bless,
Fr. Mark

Quotes from,

“The Strngest Way: Walking the Christian Path” by Bishop Robert Barron

“The Everyday Catholic: A Guide to Steady Growth in Holiness” by Fr. Martin Harrison, O.P.

“In the face of horror, there are no responses more important than prayer. Man silently turns his gaze toward God, who allows himself without fail to be moved by tears. The human struggle is necessary in order to combat the powers of evil. But silence is the mysteriously effective hidden instrument.” (#319)

Cardinal Robert Sarah’s words may be echoing in each of our hearts this week as we struggle to make sense of the violence and death in Las Vegas this past week. It has been constantly in my prayers as we look to the news, the commentary and the hope for healing from this senseless act of evil. Many commentators and politicians have loudly and vociferously called out in the last few days that prayer and good intentions are not enough but we must take action of one sort or the other to prevent this type of violence from ever occurring again.

How are we called to respond? First and foremost, we must be proactive in our relationships of encounter and love. It is always necessary to enter into the moment of suffering and tragedy with Christ’s grace and healing but we must necessarily be always moving in the community in and through Jesus’ example of service. Cardinal Sarah shares with us the danger of the knee-jerk reactions in times of violent tragedy, “Today the danger lies in the unbridled activism of the modern world. We are always called to fight, to comb the countryside, to overthrow our adversaries, and to destroy them. Indeed, man is driven to compound one evil with another, whereas he out to let the weeds grow with the wheat. Silence will give us the patience to wait for the moment when the useless plants will fall by themselves. Thanks to silence we will know how to bide our time and to wait for God’s hour with perseverance so as to forge an alliance with him and to work under his guidance.” (#298)

The peacefulness with which are called to engage the sins of violence are the practice of engaging in the peacefulness of God’s love. On October 4th as Catholics we celebrated the Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi and remembering his path of seeking God’s peace we may be reminded of the great prayer that bears his name. It is a prayer not of passivity but one of direct action, to become an instrument of God’s peace, mercy and forgiveness and not of the violent and intrusive acts of the world.

If, as Christians, we truly believe our first response (not our only response) should be in turning to God in prayer, inviting silence, then we must seek the conversation of peace through God remembering our encounter with Jesus, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (Jn 14:27) We need to be unafraid to name the sin and know that our response must be through the peace of Jesus Christ. The words we hear Jesus speak to us are words he speaks in preparing for his passion and death, words of life that ultimately lead to resurrection and hope.

When we are able to understand our own need of salvation then our response to violent sin is founded on the rock of peace and hopefulness. Fr. John Crossin writes, “We carry around in us both signs of hope and of despair. Violence is not just outside us but in us. We have angry and vengeful thoughts that manifest themselves in rude behaviors, verbal abuse, aggressive driving and in other individual ways. But we also feel compassion and engage in caring for other. We yearn to be part of something bigger than ourselves, to connect with something that gives meaning and purpose to our existence. While we may be able to do little to change the world, we can change ourselves—and that may lead, in time, to change in our local environments.” (p 16)

Ultimately, prayer is enough because it leads to an active relationship with our God who calls us into a community of love. This is where the true “response” comes from, the heart of the Most Holy Trinity moving us beyond our ego and selfishness and into the humility of love where we respond as a “channel of (God’s) peace” that “where there is hatred let me bring love.”
God Bless
Fr. Mark

Quotes from:

“The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise” by Robert Cardinal Sarah

“Friendship: The Key to Spiritual Growth” by Fr. John W. Crossin O.S.F.S.