Year of St. Mark the Evangelist

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Each January for the past few years I have enjoyed participating in Jennifer Fulwiler's Saint Name Generator where, after saying a short prayer I click a button and a saint comes forward to accompany me for the coming year. This year St. Mark the Evangelist is my prayerful companion.  I find it especially providential that the Gospel readings at daily Mass just happen to be from Mark so I have been paying extra close attention to them.  I've also spent the past month reading and reflecting upon the Gospel of Mark, the shortest of the four Gospels to be written, in my daily prayer time.  What a great way this has been to immerse myself in learning about my friendly saint and the Lord as well!

In researching St. Mark I found so many different stories and they all seemed to contradict each other. In the end I'm not sure what is really the truth of his life but will share what I found to be the most fascinating aspects about the saint.

St. Mark had traveled with Paul and Barnabas and was possibly a source of contention dividing the two in their evangelic travels.  In the end, all made peace and Mark was known to be a great help in spreading the good news of Christ.

St. Mark was a close friend and possibly a relative of St. Peter during the early years of Christianity, and it was from Peter that St. Mark learned about the life of Jesus.  St. Mark payed close attention to Peter's preaching and recorded everything that he learned from our first Pope, and that's where I feel that I just may have something in common with my 2017 patron.  Most of the blog posts that I share here are taken from my notes written while listening to moving homilies or talks given by great priests.  In addition, St. Mark is a patron of imprisoned people, so there's a connection with the title of this blog, too.

In St. Mark's Gospel he mentions a man with a water jug at whose house the disciples were to prepare the passover.  That house may have belonged to Mark's mother, Mary.  His Gospel also mentions a man who ran away naked from the Garden of Gethsemane. There is speculation that St. Mark may have been the man with the water jug and the man fleeing from the Garden.  He is also mentioned as having been present at the wedding at Cana where water was changed to wine.

St. Mark is identified with a lion because he begins his Gospel with St. John the Baptist described as a "voice crying out in the wilderness." St. Mark was martyred in 68 AD when he was dragged through the city of Alexandria for two days until he died.  His relics can be found in Alexandria and at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice.  St. Mark's Feast Day is April 25th.

St. Mark is the patron saint of stained glass window makers, although I haven't been able to make a connection as to why that might be so other than the fact that he painted pictures with his words.  But with that patronage I've decided that this will be the year that I will work on making more sea glass mosaics under his guidance.  From the time I started collecting sea glass ten years ago I had always thought that I'd like to make a mosaic of the Virgin Mary but never thought I would be up to the task and had no idea about how to begin on my own.  So it must have been St. Mark's influence that caused me to discover a lovely mosaic of Mary and Jesus made by a woman from Helsinki that was shared in a sea glass group on facebook, and upon seeing it I knew that I, too, could piece together the same image.

My friend Christi of Lumen Christi Art who designed and helped me to make a Sea Glass Tree of Life mosaic two years ago had sent her Milwaukee Journal Sentinel entry for Christmas Artwork, the icon of "Mother of God of Tenderness," as a Christmas card this past year. Of the icon she wrote:  "Christ draws our attention to His mother and there is an additional detail of love where we see that Jesus' arm is around His mother's neck.  The little face tenderly pressed against His mother's face is Christ Immanuel, the Glory of God and Creator of all."  

Using Christi's icon and my new friend from Helsinki's art as examples I have begun the work under the patronage of St. Mark.  Our Lady's face was certainly the most difficult part so far and I'm nervous about bringing Jesus' face to life after the difficulty I had with His mother's face.  I'm sure that if I would try to replicate this mosaic I would make lots of changes the second time around to improve it, but for a first effort on my own I'd say it's going pretty well and I am learning a lot.  I only have so much glass available to me so using limited supplies poses a challenge, as well.  My mosaic definitely has more of a folk art feel than classic art but I am enjoying the work and the deep prayer that accompanies the task.  The image below is my humble beginning.  I'll be sure to share the finished project in a future post.

Prayer (source)

“O glorious St Mark, through the grace of God our Father, you became a great Evangelist, preaching the Good News of Christ. Obtain for me I pray you, lively faith, firm hope and burning love; patience in adversity, humility in prosperity, recollection in prayer, purity of heart, a right intention in all my works, diligence in fulfilling the duties of my state of life, constancy in my resolutions, resignation to the will of God and perseverance in the grace of God even unto death. Through the same Christ Our Lord, Amen.”

Here's a nice reflection on St. Mark by my friend, Fr. James Kubicki, SJ from the Apostleship of Prayer.

Our Lords the Poor

 "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me....Amen,I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me." ~from Matthew 25:31-46

"There are some people whom God takes and sets apart.  There are others he leaves among the crowds, people he does not "withdraw from the world."  These are the people who have an ordinary job, an ordinary household, or an ordinary celibacy.  People with ordinary sicknesses, and ordinary times of grieving.  People with an ordinary house, and ordinary clothes.  These are the people of ordinary life.  The people we might meet on any street.  They love the door that opens onto the street, just as their brothers and sisters who are hidden from the world love the door that shuts behind them forever.  We, the ordinary people of the streets, believe with all our might that this street, this world, where God has placed us, is our place of holiness.  We believe that we lack nothing that we need.  If we needed something else, God would have given it to us."  ~Servant of God Madeleine Delbrel

Samantha Vosters and Shannon Seegers  (Photo Credit:  Tom Klind)

My family and I are blessed with the friendship of a lovely young woman, vibrant and joyful, who has committed her life to serving the poor, working at our parish's Riverwest Food Pantry.  On the Feast of Christ the King, Samantha Vosters made a personal vow of poverty, chastity and obedience giving her heart completely to Jesus and the Church as a laywoman, modeling her life after Servant of God Madeleine Delbrel, a Frenchwoman who was also committed to serving Christ through the poor.

During Mass at St. Casimir Church, concelebrated by three priests with a standing room only crowd, Samantha vowed to remain poor and pure and to follow God's will in her life as she gives herself more completely to serving the poor.  Those in attendance included not only Sam's family and close friends, but also all of those in the parish and community whom Sam serves in her work.  The love that the congregation has for Sam, and the admiration that they feel for the good that she does, was palpable.

photo credit:  Tom Klind

In his homily, the priest, a personal and long-time friend of Sam's, was visibly choked up as he shared the story of how, when he first came to know Sam, he felt that she was simply a happy and joyful person, full of laughter and smiles, and he didn't see much beyond her good-natured personality.  But when he came to see her heart, he knew that she was someone truly special with a deep love for the Lord and a desire to give her all to Him.  I was moved to tears by the priest's emotion.

But it was during the offertory that I really became emotional.  It's the custom at our parish for members of the congregation to come forward bringing gifts, both food and financial donations, leaving them at the foot of the altar for the poor within our community.  As people were moving forward, I noticed an elderly woman walking very slowly and deliberately, not to the altar with a gift, but to where Sam was sitting with her parents.  Sam turned to the woman, grinned her huge smile, and stood up to embrace the woman.  They held each other long before the woman finally released her hold and shuffled slowly to the back of the church and out the door.  It was a deeply touching and beautiful scene, evidence of the kind of love that Sam so freely gives and receives day in and day out in her life devoted to giving to the poor.  And I knew that it wasn't just any elderly woman embracing Sam, but it was Christ in the distressing disguise of the poor, giving love and gratitude for a saintly young woman who has already, and will continue, to give her life for her brothers and sisters in need.

"The poor are not only brothers and sisters to be loved in a brotherly way because they are our brothers and sisters, they are also "our lords the poor" because the poor man is Our Lord.  He is the sacrament of our encounter with Christ, of our love given to Christ."  
~Servant of God, Madeleine Delbrel

Continue the Journey

"Stand up and go; your faith has saved you."  ~Luke 17:19

Fr. Luke Strand (source)

This past Wednesday, Fr. Luke Strand, the Vocations Director for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, presided at Cor Jesu, the popular  Holy Hour with confessions and contemporary Christian music, which is followed by Mass.  Cor Jesu is held every Wednesday evening beginning at 7 pm at St. Robert's Parish in Shorewood, Wisconsin.  It was the last time that Fr. Luke will be present at Cor Jesu, which he founded, for the remainder of the year, as he takes some time away to receive necessary treatment for the colon cancer with which he was recently diagnosed.

Please do hold Fr. Luke deeply within your prayers during this time of his healing, praying especially for the intercession of St. John Paul II and St. Luke.

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Poignantly, he spoke about healing in his homily; not physical healing, but spiritual healing.  We enjoyed Luke's Gospel account (Lk 17:11-19) about the ten lepers who were healed, but only one of them returned to offer thanks to Jesus for his healing.  Fr. Luke said that we, like the lepers, are all in need of healing, not necessarily from leprosy, but from our sin.  And like the lepers who were afraid to come too close to Jesus, who stood at a distance calling out to Jesus to have pity on them, we are often afraid, too, of coming too close to the Lord.  We're afraid that our sins are too terrible, that Jesus can't really heal us, that we are too enmeshed in the darkness of our sinfulness.

Fr. Luke noted that the lepers weren't healed at the moment when they called out to Christ, but rather, their healing occurred as they journeyed away from Jesus to show themselves to the priests.  The journey is what seems to be the key.  Regardless of where we are in our walk of faith at the present moment, despite our sinfulness and infirmities, we need to continue the journey, to carry on without stopping, for it's only in the journey that our healing will occur.

The leper who returned to offer thanks to Jesus, wasn't necessarily healed for all-time, according to Fr. Luke.  His illness may have returned at a later time, and he might have had to return to the Lord to seek healing again.  And, once again, he may have been afraid to come too close to the Lord.  We, too, once healed from our sinfulness, might find ourselves falling back into sin again and again, and will need to go back to the Lord to seek spiritual healing many times over the course of our life's journey.  But journey on in faithfulness we must go, trusting that the Lord will always be waiting to lovingly heal us if we but turn to him in humility and trust.

Dear Lord,

We ask that you allow your faithful servant, Fr. Luke, to continue his journey of faith.   As he turns away from Your service to show himself to the doctors for medical care, heal him from his cancer.  Keep him from fear and allow him to enjoy many return visits to You, unabashedly coming close to Your Heart, to ask for whatever healing he may need.  Assist him in carrying his cross and allow him to use this time of suffering to enhance his already holy service to those who are burdened with crosses and leprosy of their own.

Thank you for blessing our Church with this holy, wise and faithful priest.  In deep trust, we pray.  Amen.

Proverb for a Husband

"Dad, I just want to say thank you for always being there for me and being on my side even when I am wrong.  Thank you for disciplining me when I do something wrong.  It's always nice to have someone like you to help put me on the right track.  I love you, Dad.  You are my champion."  ~Mary's written message in Paul's 49th birthday card

Mary's expression upon seeing Paul get choked up while reading her message in his birthday card

There's a scripture passage in Proverbs (12:4) about a worthy wife being a crown for her husband.  I love that passage and hope that I am proving to be a worthy wife and mother.  But, there really should be a passage about worthy husbands being a crown for their wives and children, for if there was such a thing, I would proudly proclaim it in gratitude for my husband, Paul.

It isn't easy being a dad these days, but Paul has proven to be exemplary at his calling.  No matter the difficulties he faces in raising five children, now all well into their teens and young adult years, no matter how tired he may be working two jobs and volunteering at our parish food pantry, giving cooking demonstrations to those in need, he continues to stand firm in offering loving discipline to our children and loving assistance to me in all situations.

And I turn to God in absolute amazed wonderment at the beautiful gift He has bestowed upon me in the form of my cherished husband.  I've done nothing to deserve such a joyful life, and in fact, have sinfully grumbled and complained more than necessary despite the fact that I have suffered nothing more than ordinary sorrows in the now and then.  I look around and see tragedies and hardships befalling many in all walks of life. Like the rain falling on the good and the bad alike, so do heartbreaks afflict all, both holy and wayward.  But me?  God chooses to place a strong and holy man beside me, one who never backs down from his responsibilities, who lifts me up when I stumble and points me ever so gently toward the good God from whom all of life's blessings are bestowed.  And I fail more often than not to be truly grateful.  It is, perhaps, my greatest sin.

So in this month when my husband of twenty-three years has entered his final year of his forties, and in this month when giving thanks is the custom, I offer long-overdue thanks to God for my husband, Paul, along with heartfelt contrition for all of the ways in which I've failed to be gracious and thankful for him in the past.  If I were a writer of scripture, this would be my proverb, and it would perfectly describe Paul:  

"A good husband is a valiant guard.  He protects his wife and children from sin and calamity, and when even his best efforts to keep them on the straight and narrow appear to be in vain, he never gives up or backs down.  He is constantly looking to the future and trusting that God will prevail beyond our sinfulness.  He is the tower rising above the rubble of dismay and regret.  He lovingly cares for his family, providing for all of their needs and leading them in the ways of God, and doing so with joy in his heart and laughter in his throat.  He stands firm in all circumstances.  Let him be praised here on earth and into eternity where he will meet his divine reward and proudly wear his crown of blessing."

The Leaves Shall Be For Healing-Tree of Life Sea Glass Mosaic Progress

"Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him." ~Revelation 22:2

Christi Jentz and I spent another lovely afternoon gluing pieces of sea glass to our Tree of Life mosaic. Her pictures turned out so beautifully, really showing the progress we have made on this joint project, and I'm pleased to share them here.  Autumn, spring and summer are "leafing out" well and we chose my patterned white pieces for the winter ice.  The marbles as the fruit of the tree stand out nicely!  Christi wrote a post for 9/11 on her Lumen Christi art blog, recalling the passage from Revelelations that the "leaves shall be for healing." Visit it and offer your own prayer for our nation. (link).  

See previous links here and here.

Sea Glass Tree of Life Mosaic-Update

"Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him." ~Revelation 22:2

Doesn't it look pretty with the light shining through?
When we are finished, the entire window will be covered with glass.

Last June my friend, Christi, and I began to plan out a sea glass mosaic project depicting the Tree of Life from the book of Revelation and I shared our beginnings here.  We recently spent six hours on a lovely late-summer day to seriously begin the work.  Since our first session in June, I diligently worked at sorting the many  jars of assorted colors of sea glass that I had accumulated over the last seven years.  I purchased an old window from our local rehab store thinking about how gorgeous the mosaic would look hanging in a window, and then I waited patiently until Christi and I could find a date that would work for  the two of us to gather at my kitchen table and begin the painstaking process of gluing the sea glass shards to the window glass.

When Christi arrived at my house, the first thing we did was to give my recycled window a critical look and decided that it was too shabby, too large, and in too much disrepair to use for our project.  So off we went to another store that sold windows that had known a former purpose.  The very first window we noticed when we walked into the store turned out to be the most perfect window for our project and we purchased it with some of the funds that I earned selling my poetry notecards at the Kansas City National Religious Art Show last July.  (For more on that story, visit this link.)

With the perfect window in hand, Christi offered a quick prayer offering our work for the glory of God and we began spreading the glass out on the table, and, using E6000 glue, set to work meticulously gluing brown glass for the tree trunk, and blue and white pieces for the river, onto the glass.

My collection of sea glass marbles is extremely small with only 12 pieces in all, and I had hoped to keep them in little plastic containers on my front porch window as a treasured prize forever, but Christi convinced me that the marbles would be put to better use as the seasonal fruits on the tree where they would really stand out.  Of course she was right. Her artistic eye instinctively knows what will look best.  Slowly, I am learning the spiritual discipline of detachment.

And so we carried on most pleasantly gluing the sea glass marbles and shards to the window when all too soon it was time for my children to arrive home from school and for Christi and I to clean up the project pieces and set them away for another day.  But this time we don't want to wait months before setting about the task once again and we set a date for the following week.  I can hardly wait to see how this will turn out when we are through and am anticipating a life-time of pleasure and prayer as I look at, and through, the glass recalling the bounty and goodness of God.

So much glass to choose from!
Can you pick out the subtle differences in shades of green and the faint difference between lavender and white?

A work in progress!

Setting the spring flowers in place using tiny mussel shells for the leaves and blue sea glass for forget-me-nots.

You can see that Christi had drawn a rough outline on the glass with blue marker.
We decided that it would have been better to have drawn it on the bottom of the glass so we could wash it off.  Can you see it through the blue water on the sides?

The large glass pieces along the bottom sides represent the 12 houses of Israel.

3 Reasons I Love Catholicism Vol. 7

"The Lord tells us: ‘The first task in life is this: prayer.’ But not the prayer of words, like a parrot; but the prayer of the heart: gazing on the Lord, hearing the Lord, asking the Lord.” ~Pope Francis

The heart of any religion is prayer, isn't it?  Our personal relationship with God, our love for Him, our desire to draw near and be held close by Him is what keeps us returning to church again and again and gives us the courage to live our faith in our daily lives regardless of the circumstances within which we find ourselves.  So for this edition of 3 Reasons I Love Catholicism, a monthly link-up hosted by Micaela at California to Korea, I am sharing my three favorite forms of private prayer.

1.  Lectio Divina:  Here's a prayer form with staying power, meaning when I pray lectio divina, I can feel the effects of the prayer throughout the remainder of the day, long after my quiet time of prayer is over.  I was first introduced to lectio divina, or divine reading,  by a spiritual director seven years ago, and not a day has gone by since then that I have not put it into use in one way or another.  Lectio Divina consists of four elements:  Lectio (reading), Meditatio (meditation), Oratio (prayer), and Contemplatio (contemplation).  When reading a scripture passage (I usually choose the Mass readings of the day), I try to find one particular sentence that speaks to my heart and use that for my prayer.  In my experience of slowly reading a passage of scripture, meditating upon its meaning, praying with it-asking God to allow His words to enter into my heart and change me, and then resting in His love, I have found a source of peace that I can turn to again and again when the upheavals of daily living threaten to break my spirit.  Spending significant time with scripture brings important and uplifting passages easily to mind in times of need and I am thereby comforted.  Some of my favorite scriptural passages that I find myself praying with over and over again after having used them in Lectio Divina are:

"Come now, let us set things right, says the Lord.  Though your sins be as scarlet, they will become white as snow.  Though crimson red, they will be like wool." ~Isaiah 1:18

"Look to Him that you may be radiant and your faces will not blush with shame."  ~Psalm 34:5

and of course...

"I say to myself, I will not mention His name, I will speak in His name no longer.  But then, it becomes like a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones, I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it."  ~Jeremiah 20:7-10

2.  The Rosary:  I grew up with the rosary.  Every night at 6:15, a local radio station would air the  rosary and my family would join in.  If my brothers and sisters and I were outside playing, my mom would simply call out "It's 6:15!" and we all knew that meant come to the kitchen and get on your knees for prayer.  Today, the rosary remains a valued part of my prayer life.  My sisters and I get together once each month to pray the rosary together, and I enjoy a daily walk on my lunch break to pray the rosary and reflect upon the stories of scripture that are contained within the mysteries of the rosary.  Each night when I go to bed, I take a rosary with me, clinging to the beads and knowing that the Blessed Mother is holding onto me just as tightly as I hold onto her rosary.

I love this quote about the rosary from Pope John Paul I, who only reigned for 33 days in 1978:

"To be, for a half hour at least, before God as I am in reality, with all my misery and with the best of myself; to let rise to the surface from the depths of my being the child I once was, who wants to laugh, to chatter, to love the Lord and who sometimes feels the need to cry so that he may be shown mercy, helps me to pray. The rosary, a simple and easy prayer, helps me to be a child and I am not ashamed at all."

Not in the habit of praying the rosary and want more information on how to do it?  Here's a nice instructional:  How to Pray the Rosary by Syte Reitz 

3.  The Liturgy of the Hours:   Are you comforted to know that right now, somewhere in the world, someone is praying this ancient prayer of the Church?  The Liturgy of the Hours or The Divine Office sanctifies the day.  The clergy and religious are required to pray The Divine Office, but anyone can join in and pray without ceasing using this rich form of prayer.  The Liturgy of the Hours consists of Lauds (Morning Prayer), Terce (Mid-morning Prayer), Sext (Midday Prayer), None (Afternoon Prayer), Vespers (Evening Prayer), and Compline (Night Prayer.)

For myself, I am only in the habit of praying Lauds each morning, but the thought of people praying for the entire Church at regular intervals throughout the day brings me comfort and peace.  Someone is always reaching out to God on behalf of all of humanity and we are blessed.

There is a easy to use online resource for the Liturgy of the Hours.   If you are interested in joining your prayers to the voices of many others in the church, visit Universalis here.

"Lord, open our lips, and we shall praise your name."  ~from Liturgy of the Hours

Visit Micaela for more reasons to love Catholicism.