“Señor Jesús, te pido que me ayudes a seguirte hasta la cruz.”

“Lord Jesus, I ask you to help me follow you to the cross.”

The proposition becomes simply this: if I wish to follow the Cross of Jesus Christ, I must be filled with mercy! We must choose to be with those who carry their cross and offer mercy. What does this mercy look like? Well, I think (for me) it must be in relationship with others. It must be listening and responding not just with words and actions, but with my very self. The self that is inadequate, broken and stumbling along. It is the self that is afraid, troubled and wondering “why” to so many things. It is the self that gets tired and frustrated, that is worried. And this is where hope, joy and trust is cultivated.
I ask to follow Christ. The invasion of Jesus to follow doesn’t come with whips and chains of force but rather the intimate words of “I love you”, the words of blessing, “I forgive you” and the promise of “I am with you always.” Where even in suffering we know His presence in love. It is explained beautifully in the quote below, “God will not coerce you; He will not change you against your will. But as a Christian, you freely ask God to give you the strength to follow Jesus, to follow the life that he lived – – a life devoted to seeing others through suffering and and to loving them sacrificially.” (171)
In the three deaths of my Father, my brother Mitch and sister Mary Cay I began to understand this invitation to suffering with others. The hurt, anger, bitterness towards God and the world at my father’s death in my early twenties…I turned away even as I knew God was there. I would confront God with prayers that were more shouts of anger than gentle words of love. But God waited patiently, no coercion, just waiting for the storm to pass, but always there waiting for me to simply embrace and follow, not taking away the pain, sorrow and anguish but to be with and in his love.
With my little brother and sister the reality of sorrow and pain, the anger and grief, the hurt of loss was not absent. The “why” was ever present.

As a priest, I find myself at times taking death and the feelings that surround death for granted and begin to dismiss them because they’re messy and not controllable. When I do this, I don’t ask the question above. “Lord Jesus, I ask you to help me follow you to the cross.” I deny the love that comes from the vulnerability and unity of relationship and miss the God moments. Missing the transformation demanded a disciple, a follower of Jesus. “(Because) when God begins to transform what’s within us, this begins to transform our experience of the whole world outside of us as well. Suffering remains, but now it is experienced in the context of a relationship with a God is stronger than the suffering.” (171).

God Bless

Why Suffering: Finding Meaning and Comfort When Life doesn’t Make Sense By Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale

For man cannot attain that true happiness for which he yearns with all the strength of his spirit, unless he keeps the laws which the Most High God has engraved in his very nature. (Pope St. Paul VI from Humanae Vitae #31)

When I look back on my twenty years of priesthood one sustaining aspect of my journey is the virtue of hope. It is hope that I find rooted in the vow of obedience I offered and accepted from the Church on June 4, 2005. Placing my hands in Bishop Patrick’s hands I offered my obedience as she offered me an obedience based on the truth. An obedience of a firm foundation holding fast against the fads and trends of the world. It has been in this struggle of hope when obedience has and continues to be tested that some of my greatest struggles have been the insidious temptation I wrote about earlier “Truth and Love” (July 2025)

One of the greatest struggles with truth and obedience was the propagation of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae by Pope St. Paul VI. It through the Catholic Church in disarray as the saintly Pope stood firm on the teachings on family and the transition of life. If you haven’t read this prophetic work, I would invite you to take a look. It isn’t a long document and has many surprising truths that may open your eyes.
Getting back to hope, Both Pope Paul VI and our late Holy Father Pope Francis remind us that hope is based on obedience to love, obedience found in both the vows of priesthood and in the marriage of man and woman in sacramental love.
In His Papal Bull Spes non confundit Pope Francis reminded us, “This interplay of hope and patience makes us see clearly that the Christian life is a journey calling for moments of greater intensity to encourage and sustain hope as the constant companion that guides our steps towards the goal of our encounter with the Lord Jesus.” (#5)
Patience in the hope for something greater means that we must enjoy obedience, not because it is easier, not because it offers simple answers, but because it places us on the firm foundation of truth in our faith in the Word of God.
One of the clearest examples of this in my priesthood is our journey through our current pastoral plan. In this long journey, there are many hard decisions being made, there will be change, there is doubt and fear, and yes, there is dissension in the process. But there is hope! The foundation is built on the reality of the spiritual renewal of our Diocese of San Jose. Based on prayer, and hope, we are called to be obedient, even in the obscurity of our sin filled world believing and knowing the guidance of the Holy Spirt we will find our true destination…it may take more time than we thing, it may feel we are stumbling along, it may even feel like we are going in a million different directions…but if we live in true hope, in obedience to the truth of God divine providence, they we will find our way to him who is our truth, our light and our hope. Amen

I have had apples on my mind. The last few weeks scripture and life has made me think a lot about fruit…abundance and blessing that comes from fruit but also the rottenness that can slip into our fruit and the fruitfulness we are called to live.
First, a few years ago (many) I read an article about the renascence of the apple industry. If I remember correctly, the article was focused on how the local farmer markets were feeding a boom in the varieties of apples. How unlike the large super markets with just a few varieties of apples, many of the small and local varieties were making a comeback because of the “farmer market.” So, this week i search the internet with a simple question, How many varieties of apples are in the world. The answer: more than 7,500 varieties. What a great blessing.

And then I thought about how even in the more than, there were even a more than because of the natural; where were they grow, how much rain and when it came, the sun, the wind, the chill of night and heat of day, the altitude and soil, all producing a difference. Then the man made: the pruning, the irrigation, the fertilizer and the other ways trees are cared for, including the genetic selection and engineering, producing again variation in variations. I think you get the point.
Each tree, each apple from the tree produces a fruit that will taste different…but it is still an apple.
Can the tree produce bad fruit. Yes. Lack of care, natural environmental problems and disease or other issues can cause a tree to produce bad tasting and rotten or inedible fruit. And if the conditions persist, it may mean the destruction of tree…but not always.
This is where God’s grace is important. We as the tree called to produce good and abundant fruit can at times fall short. We can allow the contagion of sin begin to poison the fruit of life we are called to be to others and if we persist in the sin we will die. But in God’s grace we can be healed and nurtured back to the fruitful tree of abundance where the blessing we share give life to others as we grow as one family together.

What is important to remember is while we are all called to produce abundant of good fruit, each of us, whether apples or pears, oranges or kiwis, the varieties of gifts is more than is imaginable is the blessing of God’s abundance and mercy.
God Bless Fr. Mark.

So long as I still have life breath in me, the breath of God in my nostrils,
My lips shall not speak falsehood, nor my tongue utter deceit! (Job 27:3-4)

Reflecting on the truth and reading this little reflection this morning, I thought: How many times do I fall into the “little white lie” and what would it look like if you could read my soul? The thoughts of my heart? To stand transparent in faith is analogous to standing naked in life. It is allowing everyone to see you as you are, with wrinkles, scares, fate and muscle, the tattoos, the youth, the aging and burdens placed for complete inspection. We may ask ourselves; how often do I look in the mirror and give thanks for the gift of my body?
As a priest in the Worldwide Marriage Encounter movement for the past 15 years one of the best and most difficult parts of the apostolate of the Catholic Church is sharing my feelings and thereby exposing/being transparent about parts of my life, the allowing another into the messy, joyful, wounded and gratitude filled life I and everyone experiences.
And it is hard! Why? Because of ego, embarrassment, lack of trust to name a few. The quote from Job above reminds us of the ultimate goal…to be open and transparent with our words and actions to God and to our neighbor.
In our relationships with others, this means that just like standing before the mirror and giving thanks to God for our body, we must be able to ultimately stand before the mirror of the Holy Spirit and give thanks for our soul even with the scars we have placed on it because of disobedience and sin. It is in this action of gratitude and thankfulness that the Sacraments can begin their works in the grace of God’s mercy.
This vulnerability of opening our heart to another is seen in the sacramental union of husband and wife in a particular way. The union becomes in a especially transparent way the two becoming one flesh. The intimate union of God’s creative goodness fulfilling the vulnerability of our Lord Jesus in the manger and on the cross of life. When this begins to occur the vulnerability and transparency becomes the choice of loving…to share the life and to receive the life given in the equality of dignity…
God Bless
Fr. Mark.

The Spirit is a Spirit of truth. We cannot afford to tell half truths or “little white lies,” let alone larger more serious lies.
The goal is to be so transparent that if people could read the secret thoughts of our hearts, we would not be embarrassed by what they might see.
May my every thought and my every word be righteous and loving. (Daily Meditations With The Holy Spirit by Rev. Jude Winkler, OFM Conv. for June 22)

Discovering the Joy of Christ in embracing and pondering the crucifix.
Recently during confession, my confessor asked me to remind myself that the joy of the priesthood was found in the cross we have been given and choose to share in Jesus Christ. In this case he asked me to look especially at a certain painting, in this case El Greco’s “Christ on the Cross”
When I went home that night I looked around and discovered dozens of Crosses around my rooms, my office and the whole rectory. I went into our Church building to again be surrounded by images of the Cross including the great crucifix placed above the altar in the sanctuary. But did I see joy?
Then I remembered years ago when I was do a catechism series using Bishop (then Father) Robert Barron’s Catholicism Series for a group of women. We came to one point where Bishop Barron was discussing the saving power of the cross and pointing out the joy of God, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit in this very agonizing painting of Jesus on the cross. As we sought for ways to understand this in our lives, one of the women, a mother described it in this way. She said she would gladly suffer anything to know that her children were safe and would live. She would accept all the pain, abuse and torture to know they would live. And if she had to die for them, she would be alive in joy.
“But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Gal 6:14)

I believe this is the joy my confessor asked me to contemplate and embrace in the reality of the cross in my life. Making it very clear, the suffering and pain are real and in many cases necessary in the faith we embrace, as we embrace the cross.
One of my greatest temptations is to take God for granted and allowing the noise of the world to enter into the silence of God’s glory. This happens in prayer, is serving and in sharing time with others. It is the falling into the trap of allowing the smart phone to dictate the day rather than the relationships as we let drift by. It is choosing to run your life on a calendar/agenda rather than hearing the silent blessing of life and the joy of knowing another in the care and comfort of his embrace and our embrace of him in the insignificant worldly acts that become the life blood of joy filled moments.
It is just spending time hearing Jesus from the cross, where he whispers once more. “come and follow me!”
God bless