Bishop Marshall's Pastoral Letters and Articles

Gathered as One

Bishop Marshall talks about “faith that is convenient to us.”

Rethinking Our Sunday Mass Schedule

(originally published in the Church Today, July 27, 2026)

One of the earliest surviving descriptions of Christian worship comes from the First Apology of St. Justin Martyr. It was written in approximately 155 A.D. and was addressed to the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius. You can find a large portion of the text in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ¶1345. His description begins: “On the day we call the day of the sun, all who dwell in the city or country gather in the same place.” He continues with a description of a liturgical service that we would easily recognize as Mass. From the earliest days of the Church, Christian communities came together on Sunday to hear and reflect upon the word of God and to share in the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ – bread and wine over which the leader of the assembly gives thanks “for a considerable time.” St. Justin uses the Greek word for giving thanks – eucharistian – to describe this prayer. St. Justin’s words are notable – not only as a historical record of Christian worship – but as evidence of the unity to be found in the early Church – “all who dwell in the city or country gather in the same place.”

To this day, Catholic Christians gather for Mass each Sunday, not in the same place though. Instead, we gather in numerous locations in cities and towns – some Catholic churches are even within walking distance of each another. We also gather in small groups three or four or more times during each Sunday – not because we cannot all fit in the worship space at the same time, but because we have come to expect worship that is convenient to our schedule or our personal preferences. Rather than the single celebration that characterized the early Church, we are divided into small groups that may not fill even one-fourth of the building’s seating capacity at each celebration. Too often parishioners in the same church do not know each other; they only know those who sit near them at “their” Mass.

This situation developed when vocations to the priesthood were plentiful. Each priest was required to celebrate one Mass on Sunday. Indeed, they were limited to celebrating only one Mass on Sunday except with the permission of the diocesan bishop. Most bishops permitted priests to celebrate two Sunday Masses. Parish schedules were established with this in mind. If a parish had three priests, for example, they could have six Masses. When all Sunday Masses could only be celebrated in the morning, that often meant a crowded schedule. In the early 1960s, for example, my home parish, St. Michael Church in Memphis, had three priests and our Mass schedule was 6:00am, 7:30am, 9:00am, 10:30am and 12 noon. That schedule was necessary as our church was small – it would eventually be repurposed as the school gym. In 1963, a new, larger church was dedicated. The seating capacity of the new church was approximately 1,000 whereas the old church accommodated only about 200. And yet, eight years after we moved into the new church, our Mass schedule still included the same five Masses, even though we had only two priests. Except on Christmas and Easter Sunday morning, we were never even close to filling the new church. Why did the parish not take advantage of the new, larger church and reduce the number of Masses? Because many of our parishioners were inflexible. The 6:00am crowd were steadfastly opposed to going to a later Mass, while the Noon crowd could not imagine getting up any earlier.

When Saturday anticipatory Masses became permissible, some of the earlier Masses lost their appeal, but the one-hour Communion fast brought pressure to add Sunday afternoon and evening Masses. And yet, as Masses were added, ordinations to the priesthood were dropping. Bishops were forced to grant permission to priests to celebrate three or four or more Masses each Sunday just to meet the demands of their congregations. Is there any wonder why we often scramble to find a priest to celebrate Mass when one of our priests gets sick?

Sisters and brothers, when we go to a wedding feast, we either adjust our schedule to be at the wedding and the reception on time or we send our regrets. We do not expect the bride or groom to repeat their vows several times on their wedding day in order to make their celebration most convenient to us. Each Sunday, we are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb. We come together to receive the Body of Christ and to become the Body of Christ. In a church with a seating capacity of 300, do we really need four Masses attended by only 60 people each? Candidly, do we make Mass the high point of our Sunday and adjust our schedules accordingly? Or do we make our personal schedule first and then find a Mass that fits – and do not go if one does not.

The early Church faced many challenges. Within 10 years of writing his First Apology, St. Justin had been martyred during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Even in the face of persecution, the early church persevered. Today, most of us do not face persecution or death – and yet we do not even risk inconvenience in order to practice our faith.

Canon law is clear. Except as otherwise permitted by law, “[a] priest is not permitted to celebrate the Eucharist more than once a day.” (Canon 905 §1). That same canon provides “If there is a shortage of priests, the local ordinary [i.e., the bishop] can allow priests to celebrate twice a day for a just cause, or if pastoral necessity requires it, even three times on Sundays and holy days of obligation.” (Canon 905 §2). Clearly, we have a shortage of priests, so there is a just cause for each priest to celebrate two Masses on Sunday (and often on other days in the case of a funeral Mass or a wedding Mass, for example). As bishop, however, I must determine whether there is a true pastoral necessity that would require a priest to celebrate more than two Masses on Sunday on a regular basis.

In the month of September, each parish and mission in the Diocese of Alexandria will conduct a count of those attending each weekend Mass. If the number of Masses is reasonable for the combined size of the congregations and the seating capacity of the church, then any changes would be merely an opportunity to evaluate the quality of the liturgy in light of the mission of the Church. If, however, the schedule of a parish requires a priest to celebrate three or more Masses each Sunday on a regular basis (i.e., not in an emergency because a brother priest is sick, for example), then I must determine that there is a true pastoral necessity, namely that the attendance at each Mass regularly exceeds approximately 75% of the seating capacity of the church. If the combined Sunday congregation of a given parish at all of its Masses could easily fit into one or two Masses, then, as bishop, I will step in by withdrawing the permission in that parish for additional Masses of convenience – as there would be no pastoral necessity.

I know that we want happy, holy and healthy priests, not those who are over-burdened and exhausted. I invite you to prayerfully consider whether you could be more flexible by participating in Mass at a different time rather than asking our priests to retain a full schedule of Masses that are unnecessary, repetitive, and are not justified by a true pastoral necessity.

The Church is the People of God

Bishop Marshall talks about what being a “church” means.

Buildings are not The Church

(originally published in the Church Today, June 22, 2026)

Last September, I travelled to Chicago to attend the Mission Bishops Conference sponsored by the Catholic Extension Society. On the final day of the conference, many of us went on an optional excursion to the town of Dolton, Illinois, one of the municipalities on the south side of Chicago. We visited the former site of Saint Mary of the Assumption parish. Established in 1886, a combined school and church building was erected in 1917. Eventually, a separate church building was completed in 1957. The parish and school served the parishioners who resided in many small homes that surrounded the campus. As far back as the 1980s, the neighborhood had begun to change – fewer homes and fewer residents, more businesses and industries. The parish school closed in 1989 after years of declining enrollment. In 2011, Saint Mary of the Assumption parish was merged into a neighboring parish and the Assumption campus was sold. Though the buildings have been abandoned and are in disrepair, they still give witness to the faith that was planted and nurtured on the campus for 125 years.

If you look only at the campus, at the decaying buildings and overgrown weeds, the history of Saint Mary of the Assumption parish would seem to be a sad and depressing one. But the true legacy of Assumption parish cannot be measured by the former beauty of the church or the size of the abandoned classrooms. The true legacy of Assumption parish can be found in their sacramental registers – evidence of the many people baptized and confirmed, the children who received First Communion, the many sick people who were comforted in the Sacrament of the Sick, the many souls commended to the Lord in funeral rites, the couples who were married, and the religious vocations nurtured on that campus.

If you opened the Saint Mary of the Assumption baptismal register for 1955, for example, you would find the record of the baptism of Robert Francis, the third son of Louis Marius Prevost and Mildred Agnes Martinez. That same record might also record his First Communion, his Confirmation, and – eventually – his ordination as a deacon and a priest of the Augustinian order. If the register was still being meticulously kept, it might have also recorded that he was ordained a bishop in 2014, three years after his home parish had been closed. Today, I suspect, that record has certainly been amended to include a notation of the election on May 8, 2025, of Robert Francis Prevost as Bishop of Rome and Vicar of Christ who assumed the name of Leo XIV.

Sisters and brothers, like many other dioceses in our country and throughout the world, the changing times have forced us to reconsider whether many of our parishes and missions are sustainable. We are closing some locations – churches and chapels that hold blessed memories for those whose names are recorded in their sacramental registers. While some of these sacred spaces may remain available for an occasional liturgical celebration, some – like Saint Mary of the Assumption parish in Dolton, Illinois – will be permanently closed. My baptism, for example, was recorded at Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Church in Memphis, Tennessee. That church is now closed and its buildings have been abandoned. Yes, my home parish might be gone, but the faith that was nurtured, the grace that I received in the sacrament of Baptism at that location remains present and active in my life. We honor and respect the many and varied parishes and missions that have nurtured the faith in the thirteen civil parishes of the Diocese of Alexandria. We are grateful for the sacrifices that built those locations and that sustained their ministries over the years. Most of all, we rejoice that the generations of faith that were nurtured in those sites now undoubtedly include many who dwell with the heavenly host, and others of us who are still striving to serve the Lord whether close to home or throughout the world.

In 2024, we began a Pastoral Planning process entitled “Together as One Church: Embracing a Future of Hope.” We are indeed invited to come together as one Catholic Church – in union with that boy baptized in a now-closed parish who was recently elected the Supreme Pontiff. We are asked to embrace a future of hope – expressed in charity and in evangelization, walking together in mission.

Diocese of Alexandria files to reorganize under Chapter 11

Bishop Marshall talks about the decision to file.

Reorganization of financial affairs

(originally published in the Church Today, November 24, 2025)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Peace be with you!

About one year ago, there were some reports in the media about the Diocese of Alexandria considering entering a bankruptcy proceeding. After consultation with my priest consultors, diocesan advisors, and after my own prayerful consideration, I write to tell you that I have directed attorneys for the diocese to file a petition for a Chapter 11 reorganization of its financial affairs under the U.S, Bankruptcy Code.

This is not an easy decision and one of my many concerns is the impact it will have on the spiritual well-being of the Faithful of the Diocese. However, after reviewing the facts in front of us, I determined it was the most prudent course of action. Here’s why.

This action is occurring because some past priest-perpetrators sexually abused minors, actions that are evil, sinful and go against everything the Church and the priesthood represents. As a result, there are financial claims pending against the diocese that exceed our means.

In taking this action, we have two goals. First, we want to do as much as we can, as fairly as we can, to compensate those who have been harmed. Second, we want to carry on the essential ministries of the diocese so we can continue to meet the needs of our parishes, parishioners and others who rely upon the Church for assistance. A Chapter 11 proceeding is the best way to achieve these goals.

Alexandria is a mission diocese, meaning we already rely upon others to sustain the work of the Church. As such, our resources are scarce. Chapter 11 will allow the diocese to use available funds to compensate all abuse survivors with unresolved claims in a single process overseen by a court, ensuring that all are treated equitably. Second, by serving as a final call for legal claims against the diocese, the proceeding will allow the Church to move forward on stable financial ground, focused on its Gospel mission.

The Diocese is also committed to making sure that nothing like this can ever happen again. We will continue our outreach to abuse survivors as an ongoing ministry of the Church. We will continue the policies and practices we have implemented to keep children safe.

Some of you may feel disheartened or frustrated by this development. Some may feel anger or resentment that we have come to this moment. I have experienced the same emotions. We are at this moment for one reason: some priests sexually abused minors. For that, I feel deeply ashamed. As your bishop, I apologize to abuse survivors for the harm, pain and suffering they experienced and continue to experience in their lives.

I also want to apologize to all the faithful priests, deacons, religious and laity whose ministry may have a shadow cast upon them by this next step in the process.

This bankruptcy applies only to the diocese itself. Our parishes and other Catholic entities are separately incorporated under state law and are not affected by this filing.

Our hope is that the diocese can reach a global settlement with those who have claims in the very near future. We have already been in negotiations for some months with a group of lawyers whom we understand represents the vast majority of currently known abuse survivors. If we can reach an agreement toward the beginning of the case, we would be able to avoid the lengthy delays and unnecessary professional fees that would otherwise result.

I know there will be many questions to answer as we move through this legal process. Our website – diocesealex.org – will serve as a repository for information. Some answers will come only as the process unfolds. I promise to share information with you in an open, candid and straightforward way.

Although this will be a difficult journey, what inspires me is the Faithful of the Diocese. I have witnessed your faith I action: in worship, in charity and in service. So even as we proceed with this Chapter 11, I am confident this good work will continue.

Our Pastoral Plan, Together as One Church, will also continue. We must remember that we are pilgrims on a journey to our eventual heavenly home. We cannot allow our mission to stagnate, even though the diocese is in legal proceedings.

Lastly, I ask that you pray for the Church, especially in the Diocese of Alexandria, asking God to give us wisdom and grace in our decision making. Together as One Church, we will move forward, not forgetting our past, but addressing it and taking appropriate responsibility for those who were harmed, and placing our trust in God, who is our strength and our hope, and who is with us always.

With assurance of prayers and with faith in Jesus Christ, who makes all things new, I am,

Sincerely yours in Christ,

+RWM

Confirmation Season 2025

Bishop Marshall talks about this busy Confirmation Season.

A Journey of Hope

(originally published in the Church Today, July 28, 2025)

From the Second Sunday of Lent through Pentecost Sunday, I celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation in 31 separate liturgies. Because 2025 is a Jubilee Year, I took a different approach to my pre-liturgy conversations with the candidates for Confirmation. Usually, I talk to them about the Sacrament of Confirmation and I try to reassure them if any are anxious. I did that again, but this year I also focused our conversations on the theme of this Jubilee Year – “Pilgrims of Hope.” We talked about a life of faith as a journey. Faith, after all, is not a “one and done” experience, but a lifelong journey/pilgrimage.

Our faith may begin quietly when we are introduced to prayer or in a burst of energy after a life-changing experience, but that beginning is not meant to be the end. We are called – impelled by the Spirit, in fact – to nurture our faith and to grow in our relationship with the Lord. Almost all of the candidates could relate to this experience and recognized that their journey of faith was not taken alone. Countless others walk with us – parents, relatives and friends; godparents and Confirmation sponsors; fellow candidates for Confirmation and fellow parishioners; as well as those saints who have gone before and are supporting us with their prayers in heaven. If we are, indeed, walking toward the Father, then our pilgrimage is supported by our Lord Jesus Christ and our steps are encouraged and enlivened by the Holy Spirit.

Yes, the “pilgrim” part of our conversations went very well. Things became more difficult when we tried to speak about “Hope.” I should point out that there were a few adults confirmed at some parishes, but the majority of our Confirmation candidates are high school Juniors (11th grade). Regardless of the age of the candidate, most found it difficult to define the word hope – at least in Christian terms. Hope, for many, was eventually getting what they want – hoping for a new car or for a college scholarship or for things to get better. Some found it difficult to remember a time when they were hopeful. Others had lowered their expectations – hoping only for what they knew that they could achieve on their own. Still others equated “hope” with “faith” in that faith in Jesus Christ means that all of my dreams are possible.

True Christian hope, the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, “is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness . . .” (CCC ¶ 1817). In other words, our hope is not that God will grant us every wish. Our hope is that our needs, desires, and wants will lead us to conform our lives to the will of God. Yes, we hope to achieve happiness. Hope and faith complement one another when we accept that true happiness, the fulfillment of all our hopes, will only be found in the person of Jesus Christ. That is where we people of faith often diverge from those without faith. For those without faith, hope is reduced to a gift registry or a “Letter to Santa.” For those with faith, those who recognize that our only happiness will be found in God, hope becomes the spark by which we let go of mundane desires and instead long for the most profound blessings of an eternal relationship with our loving God.

In calling for the celebration of a Jubilee Year in 2025, the late Pope Francis quoted St. Paul’s letter to the Romans: Spes non confundit, which means “Hope does not disappoint.” We know that “hoping” for the fulfillment of all of our desires will disappoint us eventually: when the new car breaks down, when our health gives out, when the dream job becomes difficult. True hope – Christian hope – does not disappoint because it leads us directly to Jesus Christ.

I often concluded my conversations with our Confirmation candidates by letting them know that they are a reason for my hope. Their desire for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation gave me hope that the mission of the Church will continue in subsequent generations. I also invited them to spend a few minutes before the Confirmation Mass began in prayer, asking God to pour out upon them the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially the one or ones that they might feel that they needed most at that time.

All in all, I was impressed and encouraged by my conversations with our young people. True, a few may have been just going through the motions – but I always remember that God can work with anything. Most of the candidates, however, were truly seeking the fullness of God’s Spirit in their lives. I have no doubt that God rewarded their sincere hope.

Live Jesus in our hearts,

Most Reverend Robert W. Marshall, Jr., Bishop of Alexandria

Astonishing!

Bishop Marshall’s reaction to the election of Pope Leo XIV.

"Peace be with all of you!"

(originally published in the Church Today, May 12, 2025)

“Peace be with all of you!” With these first words of the Risen Christ, Pope Leo XIV began his service at the 266th successor to the Apostle Peter. Born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago, Illinois, our new Holy Father has become the first American citizen to serve as the Supreme Pontiff. How astonishing!

We greet Pope Leo XIV with excitement and with great joy! While we are proud that he is an American, it is important to remember that his life has been much different than ours. Pope Leo is an Augustinian, a missionary who has spent much of his life ministering to the people of Peru. He taught in a Peruvian seminary and served as a parish priest. Eventually, after serving as the world-wide head of the Augustinian order, he served as a bishop in Peru. He was appointed to lead the Dicastery for the Bishops in 2023, at which time he was made an archbishop and later a Cardinal. While many of us have visited other countries, Pope Leo has spent much of his life outside of our country. He has a global perspective that uniquely qualifies him to lead the universal Church.

Pope Leo described himself as a “son of St. Augustine,” who has taken the charism of the Augustinian order to heart. The Augustinian charism is community building and, in his first address to the world, Pope Leo encouraged us to engage in dialogue, to build bridges, as a way of making peace. Clearly, our world has much to learn from the new Bishop of Rome.

I ask you to join me in prayer for our Holy Father. May our loving God guide and direct his steps. Through his words and actions, may God draw us together in peace as a Church and as a world. As we continue to pray for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis, let us also ask our Lord to bless Pope Leo XIV with health, strength, wisdom and courage in the years ahead.

Bishop Robert W. Marshall, Jr.

Bishop Marshall relates his experience

Bishop Marshall celebrates 5th anniversary as Bishop of Alexandria

Answered the call

(originally published in the Church Today, April 21, 2025)

Five years ago on April 21, 2020, Father Robert W. Marshall, Jr., a priest of the Diocese of Memphis, answered the call when the Holy Father appointed him as the 13^th Bishop of the Diocese of Alexandria.

Bishop Marshall shares his vocation journey during an interview recorded in the fall of 2024 at the annual USCCB Bishop’s Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, MD.

Together as One Church

Bishop Marshall talks about the Diocese of Alexandria Pastoral Plan

Embracing a future of Hope

(originally published in the Church Today, December 23, 2024)

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

Week after week, in large gatherings and small, people of faith all over the world and speaking a variety of languages gather around the altar of God to celebrate and receive the Holy Eucharist, the sacramental presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. We come “Together as One Church” in the Lord’s great banquet and we are sent forth in mission to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to a lost, suffering, and hungry world. Here in Central Louisiana, the roots of our Catholic faith run deep. Spanish and French missionaries first planted the seeds that have sprouted and grown for centuries. As people of faith, the Church has lived out its mission by bringing the blessings of our Catholic tradition to many towns, villages, and communities. The landscape has changed over the years, but the Gospel message remains unchanged.

Sisters and brothers, the world is vastly different than it was 100 or 50 or even 25 years ago. Through digital communication, we have become connected to every part of the world, but we have also become disconnected from our neighbor, from our community, and too often from God. In many national studies, we learn that our younger generations may be culturally connected to their faith tradition, but too many lack a vibrant relationship with the living God. As disciples of the Lord, as the Church of Jesus Christ, we are called to read and respond to the signs of the times. We must bring the healing message of Christ to the hearts of all.

To face this new reality and to respond to the needs of our time, I am inviting you to participate in a process of pastoral planning, of prayer, dialogue, and discernment in which we can open our eyes to a new vision for the Church here in Central Louisiana. We are calling this process “Together as One Church: Embracing a Future of Hope.” Each parish and mission will be asked to reflect upon the strengths of their church community, the challenges that confront it, and imagine how we might more effectively respond to Christ’s call to spread his message of Good News. We will seek to form a sustainable structure of vibrant, mission-driven parishes, schools, and ministries. We will be encouraged to support the health, holiness and the morale of our priests, as well as renew our commitment to support religious vocations from among our own parishes, schools and missions – and, yes, from our own families. And we will be challenged to seek out and welcome others and to walk together, hand-in-hand, into a future of hope.

I look forward to these next months of prayer and discernment in which we seek to renew our mission as disciples. May we share with one another our hopes and dreams, our needs and our struggles in an effort to embrace a future of hope. I invite you to participate in the process in your parish or mission. Please visit our diocesan website – www.diocesealex.org – to watch a video message from me and to read more about the process.

Most of all, I humbly ask you to pray with me – seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our discernment. We stand on the shoulders of generations of faithful Catholics who accepted the task of discipleship in their own times and have handed the faith on to us. May we embrace this process, “Together as One Church” and recommit ourselves to a vibrant, mission-driven Church that witnesses the love of Christ to all.

Live Jesus in our hearts,

Most Reverend Robert W. Marshall, Jr., Bishop of Alexandria

Pilgrims of Hope: 2025 Jubilee Year

“Spes non confundit – Hope does not disappoint.”

(originally published in the Church Today, November 25, 2024)

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

“Spes non confundit – Hope does not disappoint.” With this quote from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, our Holy Father Pope Francis summons us as “Pilgrims of Hope” to celebrate 2025 as a Jubilee Year. Since the year 1300, the Church has invited the faithful to observe Jubilees – at first, every 100 years; later, every 50 years; and more recently, every 25 years. Recalling the Great Jubilee of the year 2000 proclaimed by Pope St. John Paul II, in which we joyfully welcomed the new millennium, Pope Francis calls us to look beyond the difficulties of the present age and to experience hope:

Everyone knows what it is to hope. In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring. Even so, uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feelings, ranging from confident trust to apprehensiveness, from serenity to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt. Often we come across people who are discouraged, pessimistic and cynical about the future, as if nothing could possibly bring them happiness. For all of us, may the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope.

As pilgrims of this renewed hope, we are invited to journey toward a prayerful encounter with the Lord at sacred spaces throughout the world – the four major basilicas in Rome, other historic and sacred sites in the Holy Land, and many other great churches all over the world. A pilgrimage to a sacred space is an ancient tradition. In St. Luke’s gospel, we are told that the Holy Family – Jesus, Mary and Joseph – travelled annually to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover. Great Eucharistic Pilgrimages converged in Indianapolis this past summer for the National Eucharistic Congress, and “Walking with One” is the ongoing activity of this final year of the National Eucharistic Revival. In this diocese, I will designate St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in Alexandria, the Minor Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Natchitoches, and several other local churches as Jubilee pilgrimage sites. Look for a “Pilgrim’s Passport” as a guide to these diocesan sites in the coming year. A true pilgrimage, however, is less about the number of miles travelled, and more about an authentic journey of the heart toward a new or deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. May our pilgrimages of hope in 2025 – whether long or short – draw us more closely to our loving God.

We will be building on the message of hope in other ways in the coming year. In the Diocese of Alexandria, we will soon begin a program of pastoral planning and discernment to help us come together as one church and to embrace a future of hope. Each parish and mission will be invited to acknowledge their particular blessings and challenges and discern how they might more effectively proclaim the Kingdom of God. Look for an announcement about this project on Tuesday, December 3, the Feast of St. Francis Xavier, our patron saint.

Another characteristic of a Jubilee Year is an emphasis on reconciliation and forgiveness. Each of us is invited to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation on a regular basis. The fountain of God’s mercy flows abundantly from the Sacred Heart of Christ – we are invited to drink from that fountain and to experience the grace of forgiveness offered to us by the Father. Our parishes will make a renewed effort to offer opportunities for celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation individually and we, as a Church, will be seeking God’s forgiveness for the sins of the past too often carried out in the name of the Church. More than that, we are encouraged to imitate the love and mercy of God by becoming a more forgiving people – leaving behind the grudges and grievances of the past and seeking reconciliation with those who may have hurt us.

A Jubilee Year also challenges us to put our faith into practice – by engaging in spiritual reading, studying the Bible or aspects of Sacred Tradition at your parish or at one nearby and by acts of charity and corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Our minds may expand in study and we may experience a closeness with the Lord in prayer and certainly in our reception of the Eucharist, but Jesus Himself invites us to encounter Him in the face of a brother or sister in need or our comfort, compassion or assistance. We will be inviting your participation in both efforts at growth and evangelization and in acts of charity and works of mercy throughout the year.

Our observance of this year will begin on the Feast of the Holy Family – Sunday, December 29 – with a procession to St. Francis Xavier Cathedral. Visit our website – www.diocesealex.org – or check out our Facebook or Instagram pages for the details of this and other Jubilee Year celebrations. May we draw closer together as one church in this Jubilee Year – closer to our ever-faithful God and closer to our brothers and sisters in faith. Embrace this year of hope!

Live Jesus in our hearts,

Most Reverend Robert W. Marshall, Jr. Bishop of Alexandria

National Eucharistic Congress, Indianapolis

Bishop Marshall’s experience attending the event.

July 17-21

(originally published in the Church Today, August 26, 2024)

From July 17-21, over 50,000 Catholics gathered in Indianapolis from all parts of the United States (as well as from other parts of the world) to participate in the Tenth National Eucharistic Congress. The United States hosted an International Eucharistic Congress in 1976 (the nation’s bicentennial year), but it had been 83 years since the ninth national congress in 1941 – only months before the attack on Pearl Harbor and American involvement in World War II. Needless to say, both our nation and the world have substantial changes since both of those historic congresses.

A Eucharistic Congress – whether diocesan, provincial, regional, national or international – draws participants into prayer and reflection on the importance of the Most Holy Eucharist in the life of the Church. Through the celebration of Masses, time spent in Eucharistic Adoration, and inspiring and educational talks and musical performances, participants are encouraged to deepen their understanding, appreciation, and reverence for the gift of the Eucharist – Christ’s enduring, real presence among us.

The recent congress in Indianapolis came at the conclusion of the second of three years of a National Eucharistic Revival. Concerned about recent polling showing that many Catholics lacked a complete understanding of the Eucharist, and in the wake of the separation from the Eucharist that many of us experienced in the first months of the pandemic, the bishops of the United States called all dioceses, parishes, and parishioners to focus on the Eucharist as the source and summit of our Catholic faith.

At the congress, we heard nationally known speakers – Cardinal Christophe Pierre, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Bishop Robert Barron, Father Mike Schmitz, Sister Miriam James Heidland, Chris Stefanik, Dr. Scott Hahn, actor Jonathan Roumie, and from many others who were less well-known but whose faith stories were inspiring and encouraging. Masses were celebrated in the Roman Rite – in English, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese – and in several of the Eastern Rites of the worldwide Catholic Church – evidence of the diversity among the faithful here in our own country. The music at our liturgies and at the evening presentations also reflected the heritage and diversity of the faith present in our nation.

A highlight of the congress was a Eucharistic Procession through the streets of downtown Indianapolis – from the Indiana Convention Center to the Indiana War Memorial and Museum – a distance of over a mile. The route was lined with participants in the Congress and others from the area, all of whom were enthusiastic in reciting prayers, singing, and welcoming the Blessed Sacrament with applause and shouts of joy. At the conclusion of the procession, the period of Adoration and the celebration of Benediction were profound in their reverence and exultation. It was moving to see so many people of faith lining the streets on a Saturday afternoon, joyously acclaiming the real presence of Christ under the appearance of bread and wine.

As wonderful as the National Eucharistic Congress was – and can continue to be as many of the talks and presentations are available on a digital platform at www.eucharisticcongress.org – the National Eucharistic Revival now moves to a Year of Mission. Having encountered Christ once again in our celebrations of the Eucharistic we are invited into mission – to share our experience with others. Perhaps our experiences will inspire others to deepen their own understanding and reverence for the Eucharist or will invite them to attend Mass for the first time (or the first time in many years) or will open their hearts to a true encounter with the Lord.

To assist the faithful in undertaking this Year of Mission, the National Eucharistic Revival is encouraging us to get more involved in our parish, to participate in a study or prayer group, and to engage in acts of charity. In particular, we are invited to participate in the Revival’s program entitled, “Walk with One.” Rather than evangelizing a town, city or nation, we are merely asked to witness and support one person over the course of the next year – someone who may not have yet encountered Christ, or whose faith has lapsed or whose faith has grown stale. For information about how you can participate in this initiative, visit www.eucharisticrevival.org/walk-with-one.

If you were not able to attend the National Eucharistic Congress, I encourage you to read or watch some of the presentations, to engage in the faith formation activities of your parish or of our diocese, and to walk with one or more people as together we grow closer to the Lord.

Live, Jesus, In our Hearts Forever: The Joy and Promise of the Holy Eucharist

Bishop Marshall’s Pastoral Letter about the Eucharistic Revival.

Introduction

(originally published in the Church Today, September 26, 2022)

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

As you may have heard by now, the Church in the United States was startled a few years ago when we viewed the results of a national poll. It seems that two-thirds of those who identify themselves as Catholic do not believe that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. In other words, they do not believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Altar.

In response to this statistic, and sensing that – though the poll numbers may be exaggerated – there has been a decline in Eucharistic faith among Catholics over the last few decades, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops prepared and released a document entitled, “The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church.” It is a fine document that seeks to explain the sacramental theology of the Real Presence. In addition, the bishops have authorized a three-year “National Eucharistic Revival” which seeks to encourage a renewed interest in the Mass – our central act of worship as Catholics.

Both of these efforts are valuable. We need to study, to refresh our understanding of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and the USCCB document can help with that task. We also need to reawaken our interest in the Mass and in the Eucharist and the Revival may indeed bear fruit. Yet if two-thirds of American Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist – I suggest that it is not because we have failed to adequately explain our doctrine or have made Mass attendance too difficult or receiving Holy Communion too burdensome. No, I am convinced that over the last few decades, as our world has transitioned from in-person communication to electronic and digital platforms, from a face-to-face conversation to a quick text message, from a close relationship with family and friends to one that is more distant and remote – some how we abandoned or forgot or never experienced the close, abiding, intimate encounter with the Lord offered to us in the Holy Eucharist. We have heard that Christ is there in the Eucharist – his Body and Blood hidden under the appearances of ordinary bread and wine – but we have not always experienced his presence. We may have a faith that is now based on memory or curiosity or habit, but we need to experience – or to re-experience – the overwhelming love of God poured out for us in all of the sacraments and especially in the Eucharist. Jesus is anxious to encounter us. We need to rediscover the path to him and to remove any obstacles that block the way. Jesus wants to heal us, comfort us, to nourish and sustain us. In the silence of our hearts, we have to be willing to admit that we need his loving presence.

I intend this letter to be the preface of a Pastoral Letter that will ultimately be called: Live, Jesus, in our Hearts Forever: The Joy and Promise of the Most Holy Eucharist. I hope to present a chapter a month here in the Church Today and on our website. As the letter progresses, they will be assembled on our website and, perhaps, eventually published in some form. I am under no illusion that I have the definitive answer to the difficulties of our time. My hope is that I can present enough examples, spark enough interest, and offer enough suggestions for prayer or spiritual growth that each person – in his or her own way and with the help of God – may experience a true encounter with Jesus Christ. I invite you to continue reading. At the end of each section, I will present some questions that you can take to prayer or discuss with your family, friends, or prayer group. Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God.

– Most. Reverend Robert W. Marshall, Jr.
Bishop of Alexandria

Questions for Reflection or Discussion

Can you identify a time when you had a real encounter with the Lord? Describe the encounter. Have you returned to that physical, emotional, or spiritual place seeking to renew that encounter?
Do you find yourself more cutoff from personal contact with others? Is much of your life spent online? Do you find these digital encounters satisfying?
Are you nourished and fulfilled by your faith or are you just going through the motions? Do you have real hope of an encounter with the Lord or have you settled for dryness and distance?
What are the obstacles in your life that may prevent you from an encounter with the Lord? If you can name them, have you prayed about how to overcome them or put them aside?

Live, Jesus, in our Hearts Forever:
The Joy and Promise of the Most Holy Eucharist

CHAPTER 1: Living in the Presence of God

(originally published in the Church Today, October 24, 2022)

In the tradition of St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, each period of public prayer begins with the sentence, “Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God.” In a high school classroom – where I first heard it – the invocation is a very effective way of quieting a room full of students frantically finishing homework or anticipating the test they were about to take. As a priest, and now as a bishop, I have learned that it is also a sensitive way to begin prayer in an interfaith setting. Yet this simple Lasallian phrase is much more than useful – it carries with it an important theological concept. Too often, we human beings begin our prayer with the attitude of a detective – “I am searching for you, God; help me to find you.” We look for the path that will lead us to God as though we were on an exploratory expedition – seeking the North Pole or the wreck of the Titanic or the Lost Ark. We imagine that God is somewhere out there and that it is our job to find him.

When we pray, “Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God,” we are reminding ourselves that God is not lost – though often we are. God is not in some far distant land – though he is there too. God is right in front of us and behind us and beside us, surrounding us with his love. As Pope Francis recently pointed out, well before our interest or desire for God, the Lord’s love and desire for us always comes first (Desiderio desideravi, 6). What prevents us from recognizing God’s close and abiding presence at all times is our own limited view. We believe in something only when we can see it and hear it, taste it, touch it or smell it. Our senses fail us when we try to capture God and hold on to him. We cannot possess God – we can only dwell in his presence.

Yes, God is all around us, as we have been told since our childhood, but how does that change anything? We can’t seem to feel his presence, to keep our minds and our hearts fixed on him. Again, the Lasallian phrase is full of wisdom. All we need to do to become aware of God’s presence is to “remember” where we are. Remembering is not only a calling to mind, it can evoke an emotional connection. Try to remember your 16th birthday, for example, without thinking about when you got your driver’s license. Try to remember a wedding without smiling again at the joy of the newly married couple. Try to remember the funeral of a loved one without feeling again the ache of that person’s absence. Yes, our memories are often filled with emotions. They transcend time and take us back 10 or 20 or 50 years to a time when we were younger and, perhaps, more impressionable. So it should be with our experiences with God. As St. de la Salle once wrote, “Apply yourself often to remember the presence of God. Look upon this practice as your greatest happiness.” (Letter 87 – To an unknown Brother). When we remember that we are in God’s holy presence, we may indeed be filled with happiness, with joy or peace or love. From time to time, we might also experience some anxiety, trepidation, or guilt – a clear signal that something about me or my life needs to change. When we remember that we are in the holy presence of God, that memory should be more than a fact check – as though we were picturing God as one more student in the classroom or one more dinner guest. God is never just “one more.” God is always the One.

Remembering that we are in God’s holy presence should enable us to stand again in the shadow of the Almighty, should help us to feel the embrace of God’s love and fill our hearts with his peace. But what “should” happen is very rarely what “does” happen. Our minds are often cluttered with the distractions of this world – with thoughts of work responsibilities and preoccupations, skewed by our own desires and biases, and, yes, by our sinful inclinations that lead us away from God. So at every moment of every day we are in God’s holy presence, but experiencing that closeness is difficult for us. We may find that we need assistance with our prayer lives.

Maybe we need a visual focus to enable us to avoid distractions in prayer. We might find it difficult to pray in parts of our world – or even in parts of our very busy homes – for they may seem to be as chaotic as Times Square. It is often a good practice to find a “prayer corner” in our home – a quiet place with a crucifix or other religious images. Others may find that a space in a garden or elsewhere in God’s creation is more conducive to prayer. Maybe we need some auditory assistance – a recording of a hymn or piece of instrumental music or just some “white noise” that will drown out the constant dings and beeps from our electronic devices. Perhaps we need an intellectual focus for our prayer – a Bible passage or prayer book or spiritual reading that can get us started. Or maybe we just need to clear our minds completely and concentrate on listening for God.

Any or all of these techniques can assist our daily prayer, but sometimes we need to go to the source. We need to pray where we can be assured of God’s presence. We need to pray in the real, physical presence of God. We need to go to church and place ourselves in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Yes, when the distractions of the world become too much, when we are overwhelmed by the busyness of our lives, we can go to our parish church and sit before our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. We can look for an adoration chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed in a monstrance, or we can just be content praying before the tabernacle, where the nearby flickering sanctuary lamp assures us of Christ’s real presence. Think about “making a visit” to the Lord – by remembering his holy presence wherever we are, or by entering a Catholic Church where we know that the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ is physically, tangibly present. How comforting to be in Christ’s presence!

Our times of private prayer can deepen our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If we have neglected prayer for some time, it may seem as though we are reintroducing ourselves to the Lord every time we remember to pray. If we develop the habit of daily prayer – at home or in church – then each day we can resume an ongoing conversation, not begin anew each time. Of course, prayer should be more than going through the motions, reciting or reading prayers as quickly as possible. Our goal is to open our hearts to the Lord and allow him to fill our hearts with his love and mercy. In future chapters we will reflect upon how the Eucharist will both deepen our personal relationship with the Lord and open our eyes and hearts to one another.

Questions for

Reflection or Discussion

How often are you aware that you are in the presence of God? Only when you are in church or only when you pray or at other times as well?
Does your awareness of God’s presence make a difference in your mood, your outlook on life? Does it bring you reassurance and peace? Does it help you to avoid sin and seek beauty and truth?
How often do you stop by your parish church (or a Catholic church near where you work) just to visit with the Lord? Perhaps this week you could give it a try.

CHAPTER 2: Nourished in Communion

(originally published in the Church Today, November 28, 2022)

Many times over the years, when I was the only priest in a parish or now that I am a bishop, I have lived alone. While I enjoy the company of others, I must admit that it is nice to keep my own schedule and not try to coordinate with other members of the household. After all these years, however, I still miss the company of others at meal time and I find it difficult to cook for just one person. It is wonderful to be gathered around a table with a large group or just one other person, sharing a conversation and a meal – formal or informal, haute cuisine or simple and basic. Yes, food naturally gathers us together.

It is no accident, therefore, that of all of the ways that our Lord Jesus Christ could choose to continue his Real Presence on earth after his Ascension, he chose the basic building blocks of the cuisine of his time and culture (and of many others in the centuries that have followed) – ordinary bread and ordinary wine. The Lord revealed his wonderful gift, the Sacrament of Unity, at the Last Supper. The Sacrament was to prefigure his Passion and Death on the following afternoon and it was to find its deepest meaning in his Resurrection on Easter Sunday – but it originated in the context of a meal and our daily celebration of Mass re-presents the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ in that same context. Just as Jesus was surrounded by his Apostles at the Last Supper, we too gather with the larger Christian community for the celebration of Mass – to break open the Word and to be nourished by his Body and Blood.

Nourishment is essential to our understanding of food. We eat some foods primarily because we enjoy them. Whether they remind us of what we ate growing up or we have developed a taste for something sweet or salty or spicy and crave that particular food from time to time, some foods we eat for sheer pleasure. At other times, we eat to keep up our strength or to stay (or become) healthy. We realize that consuming food is essential to our life. If we do not eat or drink, then eventually we will die. The Eucharist both reminds us of our need for physical nourishment and provides us with the life-giving spiritual nourishment of our intimate connection with the Lord. In the Sacrament of the Altar, our souls are nourished and sustained.

In the first chapter of this letter, we reflected upon the invocation, “Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God.” We focused on the words “remember” and “presence” – our basic human need to recognize and remember that God is always with us, that the divine presence surrounds us. Now I invite you to notice that the sentence is spoken in plural: Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God. The Eucharist comes to us in the communal celebration of Mass – the family of God gathered in prayer and worship, uniting their hopes and dreams, their joys and sorrows with the offering of bread and wine which we invite the Holy Spirit to transform for us. We rejoice that the Eucharist remains available for us for private prayer after Mass, and as food for those who cannot gather with us. It is often taken to those who are sick and homebound, an individual encounter with the Lord that flows directly from the larger celebration of the sacrament.

My friends, we want and need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We need our time alone with him to remember his presence. We need to speak with him and to listen to him in the silence of our hearts. But each authentic encounter with the Lord always leads us beyond ourselves. Christ always opens our eyes to the needs of others and opens our hearts to care and compassion for our brothers and sisters. At the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we are invited beyond praise and adoration into that mystical, intimate relationship we call Communion. We refer to the Sacrament as Holy Communion because our reception of the Eucharist allows us to enter into Communion with God and with one another.

When we are blessed to receive the Eucharist, to “receive Communion,” God leads us to himself, to a deep, intimate relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our God is “One” and “Three,” a single God in three divine persons. God himself is a communion of love – and he invites us into that communion. Even when we are “alone with God,” we are not alone – we recognize that we are in the collective and individual presence of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. As humans, we are likely to find ourselves more able to relate to the Son of God, to the person of Jesus Christ, because Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. Jesus is the very image of the invisible God. He is our point of connection with God. But Jesus is Son only because there is Father. The relationship between Father and Son is central to God’s very nature. There is another person within the Godhead from whom Jesus is distinct but with whom he is so closely united in love that they become one. Saint Augustine described the Father as the Lover, the Son as the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit as the Love that unites them. In Scripture, we hear the voice of God the Father proclaim, “This is my beloved Son.” God does not use the word “beloved” by accident. The love between Father and Son is real, and deep and abiding. On this side of heaven, we will never be able to adequately explain the Trinity, the dynamic of love that unites Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but even our frail human nature can appreciate that we can truthfully say that “God is Love,” because there is both a unity and a distinction in God that transforms what could be a self-centered focus into a dynamic, life-giving love that only expands and never contracts.

So it is with our worship. Jesus reveals his love for us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by nourishing and sustaining his Church, all of us who believe and are invited to share in the Eucharist. Jesus draws us both to himself and to one another. In the gospels, we hear of two particular examples of Jesus gathering with a group of his disciples to “break the bread” – the several accounts of the Last Supper (Matthew 26: 17-29; Mark 14: 12-25; and Luke 22: 7-38), and the one account of encountering the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke: 24: 13-25). In a large group at the Last Supper and in the small gathering with only two disciples in Emmaus, Jesus revealed himself – his merciful love and his abiding care for his disciples – in the breaking of the bread. This revelation came not to one person individually, but to two or more persons united in prayer, united in a common desire for a deeper communion with the living God. In the next chapter, we will explore the Emmaus account in more detail.

Chapter 2 Questions for Reflection or Discussion:

Think of the wonderful meals you have enjoyed in your life. Did you eat most of them alone or in the company of others?
Do you find comfort and support in the company of your family? Your friends? The Christian community?
Does your relationship with God open your eyes to the needs of others?
Have you considered how the Eucharist draws you in to the “family table” of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
What connection, if any, do you feel for those with whom you gather for Mass?

Live, Jesus, in our Hearts Forever:
The Joy and Promise of the Most Holy Eucharist

CHAPTER 3: Were Not Our Hearts Burning?

(originally published in the Church Today, December 26, 2022)

In the final chapter of the Gospel of Saint Luke, we hear of two unnamed disciples who were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the afternoon of the first Easter Sunday. They were joined by a man they did not recognize. These disciples were troubled and confused. Their teacher and Lord had been crucified and now they learned that his body was missing. Their fellow traveler sought to ease their anxiety by explaining how the Scriptures had foretold the mission and ministry of the Messiah. Reaching Emmaus, the traveler joined the disciples at table. When the traveler took bread, blessed and broke it, the eyes of the disciples were opened and they realized that they had been in the company of Jesus for hours on the journey. Jesus suddenly disappeared, which left the disciples asking themselves, “Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” Then they returned to Jerusalem and shared their news with the Apostles, describing how they recognized Jesus “in the breaking of the bread.” (Luke 24: 13-35).

The Emmaus account is familiar to us. We naturally focus upon the climactic moment at table when the disciples recognized Jesus. In the early Church, the celebration of the Eucharist was often referred to as the “Breaking of Bread.” Yet the story of Emmaus is deeper than the “Aha!” moment at table. It has much to teach us about the structure of the Mass and our need to be nourished. Although the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass always invites us into Communion with God by sharing in the One Bread and One Cup of the Eucharist, we are also fed at each celebration by our reflection upon the Word of God. Scriptures are always proclaimed at each Eucharistic liturgy – selections from the Old and/or the New Testament and always a passage from one of the four Gospels. We do not celebrate the “Liturgy of the Eucharist” unless we have first celebrated the “Liturgy of the Word.” The two parts are intimately joined together. The Emmaus story introduces us to this structure of the Mass – first, a reflection on the inspired Word of God and then on a sharing of the Lord’s own Body and Blood.

Saint Luke begins the Emmaus story with two disciples who are wondering what the events of the preceding three days meant. Had everything they hoped for been dashed? Was the death of Jesus the end? When the traveler (Jesus) joined them on the road, they could have remained silent or engaged in small talk. Instead, the disciples were honest. They opened their hearts to the stranger, sharing with him the joy they had found in Jesus and their own pain and confusion over his death. Jesus responded to their openness by explaining the Scriptures to them – undoubtedly the best homily ever given! Yet, I suggest, the discussion with Jesus had such a profound impact upon them because they had been honest about their thoughts and feelings and were open to his input, his wisdom, his love.

How many times do we go to God in prayer and pretend that everything is just fine? Too often, we recite the same prayers – in the same order – when we are happy and when we are sad, when we need healing and wisdom and when we need to give thanks for God’s blessings. As he showed the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus can cause hearts to burn with love – but only if those hearts are open and receptive, only if we are vulnerable enough to let God in. When we come before the Lord in prayer – before the Blessed Sacrament or in the quiet of our home – and especially when we come to Mass, it is important that we be open and honest with the Lord. We may not choose to share our struggles with everyone else in church, but in our quiet prayer we are invited to acknowledge the burdens that we carry, the wounds that need healing, the frustrations of our lives. Honesty before the Lord is vital. If we approach God with everything figured out – pointing out the sins of others and convincing ourselves (and trying to convince God) that we are perfect, then it is likely that our hearts will not be moved. The Lord continually offers us healing, forgiveness and peace – but we are not likely to receive them if our hearts remain closed, if we cannot acknowledge our need for God’s grace.

That grace often comes to us in our reflection on the Scriptures. Whether we meditate on a passage by reading it and praying with it several times, or we read a section of the Scripture and seek insight on that passage in a commentary, published reflection or from a related passage that we may find cited in the footnotes, our exploration of Scripture offers us a window (and sometimes a wide-open door) into the wisdom of God. Rather than centering our prayer only on our thoughts and feelings – telling God what we think, praying with Scripture helps to facilitate a dialogue with God, enables us to receive his perspective, his healing grace on the joys and sorrows of our lives.

In the celebration of Mass, we hear at least three Scripture passages (counting the psalm) each day and four passages on Sunday. The homily might focus on one or two of them. We can take what we heard in the homily to prayer if it is pertinent to our lives, but we may find that one of the other passages – a psalm or second reading, for example – touched our heart more deeply. We can pray with that passage, read and re-read it, reflect on it, quietly open our heart to God and reveal to him why that Scripture touched us so deeply at this particular time.

If you were touched by one of the readings at Mass, but do not remember the exact part of Scripture you heard, you can always look it up after Mass. The readings for the entire liturgical year can be found at www.bible.usccb.org/daily-bible-reading. If you are a day or two behind, click on the “View Calendar” button to find the date you were looking for. Of course, you could also use this resource to prepare for Mass by reading the Scriptures of the day before Mass begins. That practice may enable you to open your heart to the Lord more fully, knowing what is going on in your life and how the readings address that longing. Jesus nourishes us at each Mass in Word and Sacrament. May we allow him to set our hearts aflame in our reflection on the Scriptures and through our reception of Holy Communion.

Chapter 3 Questions for Reflection or Discussion:

When was the last time your heart was “burning within you”?
Are you comfortable reading Scripture or somewhat intimidated by all of the various books and types of literature?
If you are reading a Gospel passage, for example, do you take the time to read the introduction to that Gospel found in your bible?
Have you ever participated in a Bible study – in person or online? A focused reflection on a particular book of the Bible or a wider survey of Bible history or a particular genre of the Bible (Psalms, Prophets, Epistles, etc.)?
Have you prayed with Scripture in the practice known as “Lectio Divina”? Here is an introduction to the practice if you are interested: https://bustedhalo.com/ministry-resources/lectio-divina-beginners-guide

Live, Jesus, in our Hearts Forever:
The Joy and Promise of the Most Holy Eucharist

CHAPTER 4: Opening Our Hearts to Love

(originally published in the Church Today, January 23, 2023)

In the last chapter, we discussed the Emmaus account wherein two disciples found that their hearts were burning in their discussion of Scripture with the stranger they met on the road. Stopping for a meal, they recognized the stranger as Jesus in “the breaking of the bread.” If we find it difficult to relate to that story, if we find that our hearts rarely burn with faith and love, then I suggest that we are not alone. Too often, we do not even give our hearts the chance to encounter a spark, much less to catch fire. In our digital world, we have become accustomed to moving from one website to another with the click of a mouse, pausing for 30 seconds or so to watch one video clip, reading a few tweets, acquiring one bit of information here or there, and then moving on. We rarely pause and reflect on what we have seen or heard or read. Even those of us who grew up in a much slower world find that our attention span has diminished. We can only imagine what it is like for the young people of our time who have never lived without a cell phone and texts and sensory overload. A sustained encounter with the Lord, remembering that we are in his holy presence, seems to be impossible – but the saints of our tradition bear witness to the fact that it was always difficult. In one of his meditations, St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle asks, “How long has Jesus been knocking at the door of your heart and been waiting to enter, and you have not wished to receive him?” (Meditation 85.1). We might quibble with the word “wished,” I suppose. We might say that we have been too busy or too distracted or that there was so much going on that we did not hear the soft knocking. However we might describe the sensation, we must candidly admit that often we miss an encounter with the Lord because we are not prepared to receive him.

Opening our hearts to the Lord may be the most difficult task we face if we seek to appreciate the great gift of the Holy Eucharist. Many of us sense an emptiness in our lives and we try to fill that void through constant noise and visual stimulation and activity. We are too busy for the Lord. Others of us desperately want the Lord but we expect him to overwhelm us or knock us off our feet. Even if he does that, we often do not recognize him because we have some other explanation for what happened. Still others of us do not open the doors of our hearts because of our fear or our shame. We are afraid of God’s rejection or his disapproval. We treat the Lord as we do company at the front door – we busily try to clean the house (or at least the front room) before we answer the door. The problem, of course, is that the room of our heart is never completely prepared for God because we have not invited him into the messes of our lives. We want to encounter the Lord when we are perfect, but we cannot be perfect without him. As St. de La Salle wrote, “If you wait until you are without defects before receiving Communion, you will not receive Communion in your lifetime! We go to Communion to become holy, not because we are holy.” (Meditations 55.1 and 55.2). Yes, if we have committed any mortal sin, we are asked to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation prior to receiving Communion – but that does not mean that every defect in our character has been removed, or that we have been healed of every fault. We are forgiven by the Lord in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but our brokenness and our susceptibilities to sin often remain. Somehow, we must accept that God wants to encounter us as we are – wounded, broken, imperfect, but open to returning God’s love. We come to the Eucharist to be nourished – but also to be healed. When we are physically ill, we often go to the doctor only as a last resort. We pointlessly seek to heal ourselves rather than turning to a professional for help. When we are spiritually troubled, we do not always turn to God in prayer, even though God continually offers us his forgiveness, compassion and love. If we have the courage to open the door of our heart, then God – especially as present in the Eucharist – will offer us his love and his peace.

As I write this chapter, we are mourning the death of Pope emeritus Benedict XVI. His first encyclical letter as Supreme Pontiff, Deus caritas est (DCE) or “God is Love” offers us some poignant insights into the nature of our relationship with God. The title comes from the First Letter of John and reminds us that Love is God’s very nature, his essence. Pope Benedict speaks to us of “the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others.” (DCE, 1). Greek philosophy, Pope Benedict reminds us, described the divine power as the object of human desire and human love. By contrast, the Scriptures describe God as one who loves humanity with a personal love. In metaphysics, the divine power is the object of love; in Scripture, before God is ever the object of our human love, God first loves us. (DCE, 10, 11).

This preeminence of God’s love is profoundly important as we contemplate the divine presence in the Eucharist. The nature of God found in the Old Testament becomes incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. The God who is Love, becomes love incarnate in Jesus. “The real novelty of the New Testament,” Benedict writes, “lies not so much in new ideas as in the figure of Christ himself, who gives flesh and blood to [God’s love] — an unprecedented realism.” (DCE, 12). It is this incarnate love, this flesh and blood reality, that we are invited to receive in the Holy Eucharist. That divine self-gift is the very nature of Christ, the very nature of the Eucharist. And in the Eucharist, we are offered not just a glimpse, not just a taste, but a union, a Communion, with the living God. (DCE, 13, 14). This union, as noted in Chapter 2 of this letter, is a true participation in the union of love that is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. In the words of St. de La Salle, “The Son of God has come to earth and wishes to come into our hearts to make us sharers in his divine nature.” (Meditation, 85.3). But St. de La Salle also reminds us that with the profound gift of the Eucharist, comes a challenge, “See to it that your Holy Communion produces between you and Jesus Christ a union so strong that you will never separate yourself from him.” (Meditation, 49.2). The extraordinarily good news for us is that Jesus Christ desires that union – and offers us all the graces necessary to make it happen. We need only order our minds and hearts to cooperate with that grace. We need only open our hearts to love.

Chapter 4 Questions for Reflection or Discussion:

How easy is it for you to open your heart to another? To God?
Have you experienced rejection or betrayal in your life that makes you reluctant to open your heart even to God? Have you found that human love is imperfect?
Do you ever find yourself to be too busy, too timid, or too ashamed or afraid to open your heart to God?
Do you believe that God first loves you – even if you do not yet love him? Are you willing to believe that – unlike human love – God’s love is perfect?
Are you prepared to take the risk of returning God’s love and allowing him to form a union, a Communion with you?

Live, Jesus, in our Hearts Forever:
The Joy and Promise of the Most Holy Eucharist

CHAPTER 5: Making Eye Contact with Jesus

(originally published in the Church Today, February 20, 2023)

In the first chapter of this letter, we discussed ways to focus our minds and hearts in our times of prayer. As humans, we often need some sensory help to set aside the distractions of the world in order to center ourselves on Jesus. We pay attention to the “voice” of our prayer time, whether audible to others when we pray aloud or just in the quiet of our internal conversation. We may find it helpful to have some external stimulus for our thoughts – Scripture or other spiritual reading or the rosary, for example. We also suggested that prayer happen in a special place in our home or garden and/or while looking at a particular image – a crucifix or icon or painting or statue. Of course, when we are in church, we naturally turn our attention to the Blessed Sacrament, whether in the tabernacle or exposed for adoration in a monstrance. Eucharistic adoration is a particularly effective way of focusing ourselves on Christ. Though under the appearance of bread, gazing upon the Body of Christ with eyes of faith helps us to remember that we are always in the holy presence of God. Yes, we humans often need assistance if we want to maintain our connection, our “eye contact” with God in prayer.

When we enter a crowded room, we often look around to see if there is someone we know, someone with whom we can connect and speak with. Usually in these crowds, two or more people will be gathered in small groups having conversations. We sometimes find it difficult to break into one of these conversations, to capture someone’s attention, to “catch their eye.” Sometimes, we feel most alone in a crowded room when we feel unseen, invisible. Too often, we carry that same experience into our prayer. We sometimes imagine that we have to compete with others for God’s attention – we have to do something to get God to look over at us. The fact is that God is continually looking at each one of us. His eyes never leave us. We are the ones who get distracted. We are the ones who look away, or turn our backs, or hide in shame. God never takes his eyes off of us.

In his homilies, audiences and exhortations, Pope Francis has frequently spoken about “the gaze of Jesus.”[i] In reflecting upon the call of Matthew (Matt. 9:9), the Holy Father says that, “It all starts, then, with the gaze of Jesus.” The gospel account is clear – Jesus “saw a man” (that is, Matthew) before Matthew saw Jesus. It was clear to all that Matthew was a tax collector, a collaborator with the Roman Empire, a sinner, but Jesus saw a man. Pope Francis emphasizes that humans often see “the adjective” first – “sinful man” – rather than just the noun – “a man.” The gaze of Jesus “goes to the essence,” and looks upon us with the unconditional love of God. Every human person is beloved of God and God sees us in this context.

In speaking of another passage of Scripture – the encounter with Zacchaeus (Luke 19:5) – the Holy Father says,

And this is important: the first glance is not from Zacchaeus, but from Jesus, who among the many faces that surrounded Him – the crowd – seeks precisely that one. The merciful gaze of the Lord reaches us before we ourselves realize that we need it in order to be saved. And with this gaze of the divine Master there begins the miracle of the conversion of the sinner.[ii]

Just as St. John reminds us that we love God because he first loved us (1 John 4: 19), so Pope Francis reminds us that we see Jesus because he first sees us. Christ always sees us with love and mercy and compassion – often not in the way we view other people and, indeed, often not in the way we view ourselves. We see ourselves and others as loaded with the “adjectives” of the world – unworthy, sinful, flawed, rejected, while God sees us as the “noun” – his beloved child. Yes, we are called to do better, to leave our lives of sin behind – but sin is what we do; it is not who we are. Repentance, conversion, begins with the loving gaze of the Lord. Continuing his reflection on the encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus, the Holy Father states,

[T]he gaze of God never stops at our past, full of errors, but looks with infinite confidence at what we can become. And if at times we feel we are people who are “short in stature”, not up to the challenges of life and far less of the Gospel, mired in problems and sins, Jesus always looks at us with love, he looks at us: as with Zacchaeus, he comes towards us, he calls us by name and, if we welcome him, he comes to our home.[iii]

We need not fear the eyes of God. Pope Francis reminds us that God never looks down on us to humiliate us; rather, Christ lowers himself so that he may wash our feet. In this posture, he looks up at us and restores us to our human dignity.[iv] It is no accident that Christ lowered himself to wash our feet at the Last Supper, on the same night and in the same Upper Room where he established the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. In the Eucharist, God places himself at our level and offers himself to us, for us. He seeks communion with us – feeding and nourishing us, renewing a heart-to-heart connection, making and maintaining eye contact with us.

In our prayer, we turn our minds and hearts and eyes toward God. When we look at the Blessed Sacrament, we see the real presence of Jesus – his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity under the appearance of bread. With eyes of faith, our eyes can connect with the eyes of Christ. That should be a goal of our prayer – to maintain eye contact with Jesus. Remembering that Christ is always looking at us with love, we need to return his gaze. We need, in the words of St. Jean Baptiste de la Salle, to “remember that we are in the holy presence of God.” We need to experience his unconditional love and his abundant mercy. We need the grace to see ourselves as Jesus sees us – without the adjectives that the world imposes on us, without the labels we put on ourselves. And we need to look on others as Christ looks at us. As Pope Francis observes, “Remember that it is legitimate to look down on someone only to help them get up again: nothing more.”[v] Christ is always there, looking at us with love, washing our feet and helping us to get up again. Why would we ever look away?

[i] Pope Francis, General Audience, January 11, 2023.

[ii] Pope Francis, Angelus, November 3, 2019.

[iii] Pope Francis, Angelus, October 30, 2022.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

Chapter 5 Questions for Reflection or Discussion:

How often do you seek to make eye contact with Jesus in prayer? Are you interested in looking into his eyes? Are you afraid of how he will look at you?
Do you find yourself looking for God? Is it difficult to remember that he is always looking at you?
Are you looking up to heaven to see God? Do you ever remember that Jesus is the one looking up at you while washing your feet?
Do you find yourself getting self-conscious when maintaining eye contact with another person? Do you have the same experience with God?
Do you find yourself looking down on others? To judge them or to help them get up?

Live, Jesus, in our Hearts Forever:
The Joy and Promise of the Most Holy Eucharist

CHAPTER 6: Eucharistic Prayer: Thanksgiving, Offering, Invoking, and Remembering

(originally published in the Church Today, March 27, 2023)

In previous chapters, we have discussed focusing our prayer on the Holy Eucharist, especially through participation at Mass and in private prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. We discussed praying with Scripture or with other spiritual reading material. Yet the Mass itself – and particularly the extended prayer of the priest and people which we call the “Eucharistic Prayer” – provides an excellent instructional manual for the content and structure of our prayer.

As we have heard many times, the word “Eucharist” means “thanksgiving.” We are called to give thanks to God not just for one day each November, but each and every day. God has abundantly blessed us throughout our lives. Jesus Christ suffered, died and rose from the dead to save us. Gratitude, therefore, must be a consistent part of our daily prayer. Our society speaks often of rights, entitlements, those things which we are “owed.” There is some value in that approach – after all, many people live with an overabundance of wealth and privilege while others are denied even the basic necessities of life. As people of faith, we must work to ensure that everyone has adequate food, clothing and shelter, that the sick are cared for and that each person is treated with dignity. At the same time, we Christians must move beyond a perpetual search for what we are due, a constant drive to acquire more – and instead open our eyes and our hearts to the many blessings our loving God has poured into our lives. Expressing our gratitude to God forms us into people who recognize that we are completely dependent upon God for our very life’s breath. A Eucharistic-centered life is one lived in gratitude to Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Recall that the Mass is divided into the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. In the Liturgy of the Word, we hear and reflect upon the Sacred Scriptures and seek insight on how the Word of God impacts my life, my prayer, my relationships. Each time we encounter Scripture, we hear the divinely inspired Word of God – we meet Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God. In the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we encounter Christ in the flesh – under the appearance of bread and wine – and we seek nourishment and communion (both topics we have covered before in this letter). Of course, the prayer though which ordinary bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ is called the Eucharistic Prayer. It begins with the “Preface Dialogue” (The Lord be with you. Lift up your hearts. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.) and concludes with the Doxology (Through him and with him and in him . . . ) and the Great Amen. This Eucharistic Prayer is prayed primarily by the priest celebrant, though we have responses and add our affirmation in the Great Amen. There are actually four primary Eucharistic Prayers (and several other special ones) from which the priest-celebrant can choose, but all include certain basic elements which form the basis of our further reflections.

The entire Eucharistic Prayer, as it is now called, has traditionally be referred to as the anaphora – a Greek word that in this context means “carrying up” or “offering.” It is a word that continues to be used in the Churches of the East. It is a very appropriate word because in this prayer the people of God offer back their lives, their very selves – in the form of bread and wine, which we ask the Father to change into the very Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of his beloved Son. Each Eucharistic Prayer is Trinitarian, it is addressed (or offered) to God the Father, through God the Son, by the power of God the Holy Spirit. Our prayer should also be Trinitarian in that we should acknowledge and address Father, Son and Holy Spirit. At various times in our day or in a particular situation, we might address one Divine Person in particular – seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we make decisions, for example, or conversing with Jesus when reflecting on a particular gospel passage. Yet at some point each day, we should pray directly to each member of the Trinity, offering our prayer to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit individually. The beauty of our Triune God is that we are invited into a divine community of love – not just one relationship, and if we neglect the Trinitarian nature of God then we risk making our faith only one-dimensional.

In each Eucharistic Prayer, we express our thanks, our gratitude to God, and we offer him our prayer, our lives, our joys and sorrows. Each Eucharistic Prayer also includes two invocations of the Holy Spirit called an epiclesis. The first of these is quite visible – the priest-celebrant extends his hands over the bread and wine and asks that the Holy Spirit “make holy these gifts” so that they “may become the Body and Blood of your Son.” (Eucharistic Prayer III). We ask the Holy Spirit to take our humble offerings and sanctify them, make them holy, so that God the Father may be pleased to make present God the Son. In our private prayer, we could include a similar epiclesis, a similar invocation of the Holy Spirit, asking the Spirit to sanctify our entire lives, or heal a particular situation or relationship that we have brought to prayer. Seeking the power of the Holy Spirit is a wonderful way of making our prayer both Trinitarian and Eucharistic – embracing the full dimension of the God who is Love.

There are, in fact, two invocations of the Holy Spirit in most of the Eucharistic Prayers. In the first epiclesis, we ask the Holy Spirit to make our gifts holy so that they might become the Body and Blood of Christ. In the second epiclesis, we ask that the Holy Spirit sanctify us who receive the Eucharist – that “we may be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit.” (Eucharistic Prayer II). In addition to asking the Holy Spirit to sanctify our lives, we might also invoke his power to heal a relationship, to draw us away from sin and make us better disciple.

Finally, each Eucharistic Prayer also includes a memorial, a passage in which we remember the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ which is made present for us in the Eucharist. This remembering is called the anamnesis, another Greek term, which means reminiscence or memorial sacrifice. When we pause to remember our loved ones who have died, we make them present in our thoughts. We relive in those moments the times of joy, or the times of struggle, that we shared with them. In the same way, when we remember the life, death and resurrection of Jesus at each Mass, we make those events real for us – though none of us witnessed them first hand. When we pray privately, we might also include an anamnesis, a remembering of the Paschal Mystery – the life, death and resurrection of Christ – for it is only by the love and mercy of God made present in those events that we have the blessed hope of eternal salvation. We should remember the saving work of Jesus Christ not only at every Mass but in our own prayers as Jesus died and rose for all of us and for each of us.

When we look for a structure for our times of prayer, consider the structure of the Eucharistic Prayer: a heartfelt expression of gratitude, an offering to God of the joys and struggles of our lives, an invocation of the Holy Spirit to sanctify the subject of our prayer, and a constant memory of the saving action of Jesus Christ. These four touchstones will not only enhance our private prayer but will call us back to Mass again and again so that we might be drawn into a deeper Communion with the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 6 Questions for Reflection or Discussion:

Do you live a life of gratitude or one of entitlement? How do you express your gratitude to others? To God?
Do you see your life as an offering to God? What kind of offering is it? If you are not offering your life to God, are you offering it to something or someone else?
Do you consciously pray to the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit beyond saying the words when making the sign of the cross? Are you drawn to one Divine Person more than another? Why might that be?
Do you ever invoke the Holy Spirit in your prayer? Do you ask the Spirit to make your life or a particular situation holy? Are you actively seeking holiness? Are you presuming that holiness will just happen if you do the right things?
Do you ask the Holy Spirit to draw you closer to your family? Your loved ones? Your brothers and sisters in faith? Have you thought of the Eucharist as drawing us together as one body?
In prayer, do you consciously remember the life, death and resurrection of Jesus? Do you see his presence in your life? In the sorrows that you experience? In the joys?

Live, Jesus, in our Hearts Forever:
The Joy and Promise of the Most Holy Eucharist

CHAPTER 7: Whoever Eats This Bread with Live Forever

(originally published in the Church Today, April 24, 2023)

In the last chapter of this letter, we focused on the Eucharistic Prayer and how the basic elements of that prayer (thanksgiving, anaphora, epiclesis, and anamnesis) can enliven and inform our personal prayer. The central Scriptural reference in each of the versions of the Eucharistic Prayer is the “institution narrative,” an amalgamation of the four accounts of the institution of the Eucharist found in the New Testament (Matthew 26: 20-29; Mark 14: 17-25; Luke 22: 14-20; and 1 Corinthians 11: 23-25). Though there are some variations among the accounts, they are consistent when it comes to Jesus’ words when holding the bread and when holding the cup of wine. At the Last Supper, Jesus refers to the bread as his Body and the wine as his Blood. As the incarnate Word of God, his words have profound meaning. By uttering those words, Jesus transforms ordinary bread and ordinary wine into his Body and Blood – and entrusts that same power to his Church. Yes, these accounts of the Last Supper are vital to our understanding of the sacrament, but there is one more Scripture passage that provides great theological insight into the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist – the “Bread of Life” discourse found in the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John.

This chapter of John’s Gospel begins with one of the accounts of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish – the miracle by which Jesus fed a large crowd with only five barley loaves and two fish, a feat so astounding that there were twelve baskets of fragments left over. Needless to say, the crowd was impressed – so impressed that they followed Jesus across the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum seeking another “sign.” They had been dazzled by the miracle they had experienced and they wanted to see more. These people may have been on the road to faith, but at this point in the journey they could best be described as intrigued and curious. They wanted another sign. The satisfying meal that Jesus had provided from such meager offerings reminded them of how Moses had fed the people of Israel with manna in the desert (the “bread from heaven” as the Old Testament describes it). Jesus corrected the crowd – “[I]t was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (John 6: 32-33). Still eager for a sign, the crowd begged Jesus, “Sir, give us this bread always.” (John 6: 34). The response of Jesus startled them even more than the miraculous multiplication of loaves: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” (John 6: 35). The crowd was murmuring at this response – how can he have come down from heaven? Jesus restates his point more emphatically, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. . . . Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” (John 6: 51-55). Jesus continued, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” (John 6: 56). The gospel tells us that many in the crowd found this concept, this truth too hard to believe. They walked away and returned to their former way of life. After they departed, Jesus asked the Twelve if they also wanted to leave. Simon Peter responds, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6: 68-69).

At the Last Supper, Jesus explicitly connected the Eucharist to his Death – “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.” (Luke 22:20). In the Bread of Life Discourse, he also connects the Eucharist to eternal life, that is, to his Resurrection. The Eucharist, therefore, is our perpetual memorial of the fullness of the Paschal Mystery. At each Mass, the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Christ is made present for us, but not in a way that repeats the Sacrifice of the Lord. Rather, in our celebrations of the Eucharist we return again and again to the central mystery of our faith. We are the ones who are drawn again to the Upper Room and to the foot of the Cross and to the empty tomb. Christ does not repeat his death and resurrection, we are instead invited to encounter Christ – crucified and risen – as our spiritual nourishment and as the source of our redemption. With daily manna, the Lord God fed the Israelites in the desert until they came to the promised land. In the Eucharist, we ask the Father to feed us with the Bread of Life until we reach the promise of heaven.

The second part of the title of this pastoral letter is “The Joy and Promise of the Most Holy Eucharist.” The promise of the Eucharist is most effectively articulated in the Bread of Life discourse. Jesus promises us that if we eat this bread, if we eat his flesh and drink his blood, then we will have eternal life. The Eucharist, the deep and intimate Communion with Christ offered to us in this Sacrament, is our passage-way to eternal life. He does not promise us health or wealth, power or pleasure – he promises us that we will live forever. Jesus made that promise real in the Paschal Mystery, in his Passion, Death and Resurrection, but the promise was fully articulated in this passage from John’s Gospel and is most effectively celebrated in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. When Jesus says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him,” he gives us the hope to pray as St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle did – Live, Jesus, in our hearts forever. Indeed, St. de La Salle challenged his brothers and challenges us: “When Jesus Christ is in you, is he there as a living bread? Do you allow him complete freedom to communicate his divine Spirit to your soul? Is he living in you to the extent that you can say it is no longer you who live, but that it is Jesus Christ who lives in you?” (Meditation 48.1). In the relationship – in the Communion – with Jesus Christ that is offered to us in the Eucharist, that is nourished in us through the Eucharist, we are offered an eternal dwelling with the God who is Love, and Christ seeks to make an eternal dwelling within us.

Yes, in the Eucharist, Christ offers us the promise of Communion, the promise of eternal life. The dilemma of our age challenges us: Do we continue to believe that Jesus is, as St. Peter confessed, “the Holy One of God,” and do we find joy in the Communion he offers us? Do we return to Mass again and again to re-connect with the One who saves us, who brings us joy? As humans, we are hard-wired for joy. As children of God, we are naturally drawn to God – indeed, only God can satisfy our basic needs, especially our quest for joy and happiness. Without a deep and abiding relationship with God, we try to satisfy our need for joy with earthly pleasures. We find this pleasure in so many different ways – some healthy and life-giving, some not. Some pleasurable experiences lead us to God, others expressly lead us away from him. Unless we have encountered God, encountered true happiness, then we will settle for something less, for simple pleasure. In the person of Jesus Christ – truly human and truly divine – we have the perfect guide to happiness and joy. In the sacraments – and especially in the Eucharist – we have been given the perfect opportunities to encounter Christ, to encounter happiness. Have we found that joy? Do we continue to search for joy or have we settled for only pleasure? Do we recognize in the Eucharist both joy and promise? As he did with the Twelve, Jesus asks us, “Do you also want to leave?” May we respond as St. Peter did, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Chapter 7 Questions for Reflection or Discussion:

Please read one or more of the institution narratives: Matthew 26: 20-29; Mark 14: 17-25; Luke 22: 14-20; or 1 Corinthians 11: 23-25? Do you hear the same words you hear at Mass each week? Do you notice the slight differences? Can you picture yourself at the at the Last Supper hearing Jesus speak these words? Do they echo in your heart?
Please read the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. Are you looking for a sign? Have you found that sign in the Eucharist? Jesus did not convince all of his disciples that he is the Bread of Life. Did he convince you? Why or why not?
The promise of eternal life is described in the Bread of Life discourse and made real in the Resurrection. Is that promise enough for you? Have you found the joy and promise of the Eucharist or are you still searching for more?
Do you recognize the connection between the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Paschal Mystery – the Life, Death, and Resurrection of the Lord? Do you think about that connection each time you participate in Mass? Why or why not?
Please read again the questions posed to us by St. Jean-Baptiste de LaSalle that can be found in the next to last paragraph of this chapter. Do you allow Christ to communicate to you when you have received the Eucharist? Do you allow him to make a home in your heart?
Do you find joy in your relationship with Jesus? Do you look for joy in your experience at Mass? In your reception of Holy Communion? Have you settled for pleasure and not true joy?
Are you convinced that Jesus is the Christ, the “Holy One of God”? Do you believe that he has “the words of eternal life”? If so, how does that belief impact your life?

Live, Jesus, in our Hearts Forever:
The Joy and Promise of the Most Holy Eucharist

EPILOGUE: Sharing Eucharistic Faith with a New Generation

(originally published in the Church Today, May 22, 2023)

Over the course of the last 50 years, technology has moved us from a letter-writing society to one that communicates by text messages. Instead of leisurely reading the morning paper, we are now bombarded by information popping up on our phones at all hours of the day and night. Childhood used to be filled with imagination and outdoor play – now it is marked by advancing levels in the latest video game. With liturgies that touch the very basics of our human existence – bread and wine, water and oil, proclamation of the Word, meaningful gestures – there is little wonder that we Catholics are seen as out-of-step with the digital age. For decades, parents have lamented the fact that their children and grandchildren do not practice their Catholic faith with the same commitment as did their ancestors. With all of these “modern” challenges, I offer a few suggestions to help parents connect their 21^st century children with the ever-ancient, ever-new Catholic liturgies. These suggestions are simple and, perhaps, self-evident, but I present them just to spark some interest and creativity.

Read to your children from a young age. One of the best training grounds for both spiritual and academic excellence is a connection to the written word. Even before they can read for themselves, introduce your children to books, not just to video screens. Someone else’s imagination comes to life in the digital world. Help fuel your children’s own imagination through the words of a book. And, with age-appropriate selections and stories, introduce them to the Bible and especially to Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God.

Have dinner with your children on a regular basis. Too often, our meals are fast food – either from a take-out restaurant or from our refrigerator as we are walking out the door. Have a scheduled time for a meal, sit at the table and have a family conversation that includes your children. It does not need to feature fine china or linen tablecloths every night, but there should be plates and flatware and napkins. We cannot expect our children to appreciate a Eucharistic liturgy that is intimately connected to the Passover meal if they have no regular experience of gathering for a family meal.

Pray with your children. Help them to develop regular times for prayer – in the morning, at meal time, before bed, and at other times that may work for your family. This is an opportunity to teach your child the basic prayers – Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, Grace before meals, etc. – and a time to encourage them to pray spontaneously, in their own words. Invite them to name those people or events that they would specifically like to pray for. Being open to hearing their intentions and joining them in prayer teaches them that prayer is not just repeating a formula but actually taking their needs to God.

Introduce your children to the liturgical year and help it come to life. Most of us decorate our homes for Christmas, and we have some decorations for Easter, but other solemnities, feasts and seasons get neglected. Help your children appreciate the anticipation of the season of Advent with an Advent wreath and appropriate prayers, for example. Talk about the connection between the Epiphany and the King Cake of Carnival season. Simplify décor and table settings in Lent and encourage sacrifices. Continue celebrating Easter beyond the dyed eggs. The lengthy periods of Ordinary Time are opportunities to make the Gospel parables and images come to life – sow seeds in a garden, bake bread (with and without leaven), take your children fishing or out to a farm to pick some fruit or vegetables, or help your children with a simple carpentry project – and talk about the Biblical connection before, during and after the activity. At an appropriate age, visit your family’s cemetery plot/mausoleum on or near All Saints and All Souls Days and introduce the concept of praying for the dead and the many uncanonized saints in our own families. In other words, be creative in helping your children connect their faith to real life experiences.

Introduce your children to liturgical prayer. At mealtime or other times of family prayer, incorporate a Scripture reading and include a responsorial psalm or intercessions, a prayer to the saint of the day or Alleluias in the Easter season. Take some Holy Water home and have your children use it to bless themselves – especially in the Easter season. These simple additions can make the Church’s Sunday liturgy more accessible to a child.

Recognize and celebrate each child’s patron saint. If your child has a saint’s name, obtain a medal or statue or just print out a picture of the saint. Discuss why you gave your child that name – whether directly for the saint or because of the connection to a family member or friend. Encourage your child to learn about their saint and invoke the saint on a regular basis. Make the saint’s feast day something special in your home – engage in an activity with a connection to the saint’s life or just enjoy a festive dessert on that day.

Discuss with your child what they learned in their religious education class. When your children are school-age, enroll them in a Catholic school or in a parish religious education (CCD) class. These classes help them to make friends with other Catholic children and learn about their faith in a classroom setting. No formal religious instruction, however, is an adequate substitute for learning the faith from their parents – in word and by example. When they return from class, talk with them about what they learned and help to reinforce the lesson or make the connection to their everyday life. Religious instruction is important, but a classroom teacher cannot always touch the heart of each child with the important truths of faith. As you are your child’s primary religious educator, please help to bridge this gap or respond to their curiosity if they were particularly intrigued by a topic.

Make Sunday special. Whenever possible, make the connection between church and home. At Sunday dinner, discuss the readings, prayers or homily your family heard at Mass. Light candles at the Sunday table. Invite guests to your Sunday dinner or share some of the food with a neighbor, friend or relative who may not cook for themselves. Pay special attention to what is said in the car during the ride to and from Mass. If your children hear you mention something that you particularly remember from the readings or prayers of Mass, then they will learn to listen for themselves. If they hear nothing but complaints about the homily or the music or distractions at Mass, then that is what they will look for. As often as possible, talk positively about liturgy and about your parish. Your children will find the negative – you do not need to be the one to point it out.

Share your own faith with your children. This is probably the most important point. Your children need to hear how faith helps you live your life. Discuss with them the reasons you help others or make charitable contributions. Share with them your favorite Scripture passages. Talk about important moments in your faith journey – how you felt at First Communion, Confirmation, at the major annual feasts. Share with your children how God supported you in difficult times – the death of a loved one, an illness or a disappointment in life. Discuss the moments in your life when you felt closest to God. If you want your children to have a faith that is alive, they first need to know that you have a faith that comforts and sustains you.

Bishop Marshall attends Course of Formation in Rome

Bishop Marshall’s talks about his experience including the audience with Pope Francis.

Formation for New Bishops

(originally published in the Church Today, September 26, 2022)

Bishop Robert Marshall attended the Course of Formation for new bishops in Rome in early September. This course has been postponed for two years due to the pandemic. The following are from the social media posts that Bishop Marshall shared while on this trip from September 1-8.

I am attending the Course of Formation for new bishops at the Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum in Rome. This course has been postponed for two years due to the pandemic. This session includes bishops from throughout the world ordained in late 2019 through 2020. A second session follows in a week or so with 2021-2022 bishops.

It is sometimes a challenge to find a common language with a fellow participant. Fortunately, most know either English or Spanish. I am with Bishop Francis Malone (Diocese of Shreveport) in the first photo. Happy Birthday, Bishop Malone!

Our conference began on Thursday evening (Sept. 1) with Eucharistic Adoration and Vespers led by Cardinal Marc Ouellette, Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. The Opening Mass of the Holy Spirit was celebrated by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State. It was a multilingual celebration for approximately 150 bishops from throughout the world.

Our conferences on Sept. 2 focused on synodality and our experiences of listening sessions in our dioceses. We broke into small groups by language and geographic diversity. I was with Latin bishops from England, Norway and the Philippines, Eastern Rite bishops from Iraq and Australia, and three other American bishops from California, New Jersey and New York. The Catholic populations that we served ranged from 7,000 to 700,000 (Alexandria was in between). It was amazing to hear of the work of the Holy Spirit among peoples in vastly different climates, cultures, political, and economic regions. The Church is truly universal.

On this first Saturday of September (Sept. 3), we new bishops were honored to concelebrate our morning Mass in the Borghese Chapel of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, one of the four major basilicas in Rome and the largest church in Rome dedicated to Our Lady (see photo below). In the Borghese chapel is the famous icon of our Lady and the child Jesus referred to as “Salus Populi Romani.” Also in the Basilica, under the main altar, is the Chapel of the Nativity which contains a reliquary that is said to include wood from the Manger in Bethlehem which held the newborn Christ. The Borghese Chapel is covered in marble and is larger than many of the churches in our diocese. I offered my Mass for the people of the diocese.

Another memorable day in Rome. Today, Sunday, Sept. 4, most of the new bishops traveled to St. Peter’s Basilica (photo top left on opposite page) to concelebrate the Mass of Beatification of Pope John Paul I, who reigned for only 33 days in 1978. The Mass was celebrated in the Plaza (photo on opposite page). It has been hot throughout our time here so we came prepared with sunscreen. It was raining this morning, however, so most of us came with umbrellas as well. It rained for the first half of Mass but it stopped at about the Preparation of the Gifts and the sun was coming out toward the end of Mass. Although his voice was clear, the Holy Father used a wheelchair to come in and merely presided at Mass while a cardinal was the principal celebrant. Our buses were parked in the Vatican gardens and we vested in the basilica itself. What a wonderful experience.

This evening, many of the American bishops were the guests of the priest-residents of Villa Stritch, a residence and community for American diocesan priests who work in the various offices or dicasteries of the Holy See. There are 15 active American diocesan priests working at the Vatican – bringing an American perspective to the reflections and decisions of the Curia. Thank you, Fathers, for your hospitality and your service to the Church.

Labor Day (Monday, Sept. 5) was a full day at New Bishops’ School. We began with Mass celebrated by Cardinal Lazaro You Heung-Sik, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy. We had presentations on the change of epoch from sociology professors and about how to communicate in these changing times from Dr. Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Dicastery for Communications and his colleague Dr. Natasha Govekar. We also heard reflections on the administration of a diocese from Cardinal Peter Erdo, Archbishop of Esztergon-Budapest and a prominent canon lawyer, and received an update on the Eastern Churches in union with Rome from Cardinal Leonardo Sandro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches. Of the 151 bishops participating in this conference, 45 are from Eastern Rite Churches. Today will focus on the family and on universal fraternity.

After a full day (Wednesday, Sept. 7) of presentations by Cardinal Kevin Farrell and the Dicastery of the Laity, the Family and Life, and by Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, and the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, the American bishops traveled to the Pontifical North American College where many of the American seminarians in Rome live. It is a beautiful place with a spectacular view from the roof. None of us could resist having our picture taken where so many television reporters have stood before (photo below). Thank you to the new rector, Msgr. Tom Powers, and to the faculty and staff of the PNAC for their hospitality.

Thursday, Sept. 8 was another very memorable day at St. Peter’s Basilica. We began with the celebration of Mass on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our celebration was at the Altar of the Chair directly behind the High Altar. This chapel features the famous stained glass window of the Holy Spirit. After Mass, the bishops walked down the stairs in front of the High Altar to venerate the Tomb of St. Peter. And that was just the beginning of our day!

After Mass, Father J. Stephen, MSFS, General Councilor and General Secretary of the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales, met me in St. Peter’s Basilica (photo right). The Missionaries are the order to which Father Anthony “Raj” Dharmaraj of St. Rita parish and Fr. Paul Kunnumpuram of Christ the King parish belong. Fr. Stephen had invited me to the Generalate, but our schedule was too busy. I was honored that he came to St. Peter’s to greet me.

After we took off our vestments, we were escorted to the Sala Clementina (Clementine Hall), a salon in the Apostolic Palace that was constructed in the 1500s by Pope Clement VIII in honor of Pope St. Clement I, the fourth pope. The hall is filled with marble and beautiful frescos. As we walked in we found chairs in a U shape in three rows around the room. At the front of the room was a large white chair. It was clear that our audience with the Holy Father would take place here (photo above). At about 10:05 a.m. (before we were told to expect him), Pope Francis entered the room by his own power, supported by a cane. He sat in the chair and engaged in a dialogue (questions by bishops, answers or thoughts from him) for almost an hour and a half. Regrettably, I do not speak Italian so I only got bits and pieces of what was said, but the Holy Father was alert, engaged, animated, and humorous from time to time. He seemed to be completely relaxed. I was most impressed. Then we greeted him one by one. I hope that photo will be available soon. It was a wonderful and moving experience.

At the conclusion of our audience with the Holy Father, we returned to Regina Apostolorum, packed and went our separate ways. This afternoon, I went on a pilgrimage to the Generalate (Headquarters) of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools – the DeLaSalle Christian Brothers (photo above). I graduated from Christian Brothers High School and Christian Brothers University in Memphis and have a long association with the Brothers and their ministry. Their founder is St. Jean Baptiste De La Salle, a French priest with a deep concern for the education of youth. His statue is high in the sanctuary of the Generalate’s Main Chapel and his relics lie in honor there. There is a museum at the Generalate that includes St. DeLaSalle’s cassock and a chair he once used in classroom instruction. I am very grateful that my visit coincided with that of Brother Tim Coldwell, FSC who was in from his current assignment in San Francisco. Brother Tim was my tour guide.

I was honored to be able to meet and visit with Brother Armin Luistro, FSC, the new Superior General of the Institute (pictured with me before an image of the Founder). Brother Armin was just elected to a seven year term at the General Chapter held earlier this year.

Another feature of the main chapel is a side chapel dedicated to the Christian Brothers recognized as martyred saints or blesseds. Among the stained glass windows is one honoring Blessed Brother James Miller from the Midwest District. We are praying for his canonization.

This afternoon was a prayerful and joyful reminder of my Lasallian heritage and proof that all roads lead to Rome.

[photo of Bishop with Pope Francis]

Holy Week, Easter, beckons hope and resurrection

Bishop Marshall talks about the challenges still faced as we emerge from the pandemic.

Participating in Holy Week still a challenge for many

(originally published in the Church Today, March 29, 2021)

Sisters and brothers in Christ,

Our season of Lent, our time away in the desert with Jesus, is coming to its dramatic climax. We are entering Holy Week, our annual commemoration of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Last year, in the earliest days of the pandemic when we were still locked down, many of you watched these liturgical celebrations play out on your computers, live-streamed from empty churches. I was on the other side of the cell phone-camera, challenged with participating in these beautiful liturgies with only a handful of other liturgical ministers. This year, though some will need to stay home to continue to protect their health, many of us can gather safely, with washed hands, wearing a mask, and maintaining a social distance. We invite you to discover again the richness of our Holy Week celebrations.

On Palm Sunday, we begin by commemorating Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The vestments are red; the mood is joyful. We are part of that crowd who greeted Jesus, waving before him palm branches and shouting Hosanna to the Son of David. And almost instantly, when the priest arrives in the sanctuary, the mood becomes more somber. We listen to a passage from the prophet Isaiah referred to as a Song of the Suffering Servant. From Mark’s gospel, we hear the story of the Lord’s Passion – of his betrayal and arrest, his trial, his carrying of the cross, and ultimately of his crucifixion. In one liturgy, we move from the unbridled joy of Palm Sunday to the abandonment and heartache of Good Friday. It is the perfect introduction to Holy Week.

Our next major liturgy is that of the Chrism Mass – celebrated in our diocese on Tuesday of Holy Week. Here we commemorate the institution of the priesthood and all of our priests will be invited to renew the promises made at their ordination. We also bless the Holy Oils to be used in each parish over the next year. Through this common blessing, all of us who, over the next year, are baptized, confirmed, ordained to the priesthood or anointed when we are sick, are united to this celebration.

On Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday evening, the Church invites us to enter into the solemn celebration of the Pascal Triduum – three distinct liturgies intimately connected to one another.

At our only Mass on Holy Thursday, we remember the Last Supper, where Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist and washed the feet of his disciples. Because of the pandemic, we won’t be able to re-enact this foot washing ritual this year, but we will hear the Scriptural account of it from John’s gospel. We are reminded that we are nourished by the Eucharist, by the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, not to sit on our hands, but to go forth and care for one another – to wash feet, if you will, and to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick. The celebration of Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper ends with the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament and some quiet time praying before the Lord, inviting him into our hearts.

On Good Friday, we take part in our most solemn and somber celebration of the year. The sanctuary has been stripped of candles and cloths. We kneel in silence as the priest and other clergy lie prostrate before the bare altar. As on Palm Sunday, we hear another of the Suffering Servant Songs from Isaiah. And we listen to the Passion Narrative from John’s Gospel. Our Universal Prayer – General Intercessions or the Prayer of the Faithful as it used to be called – is more solemn today. We introduce each intention and then pray individually for each. Once again this year, the Holy Father has added a specific intention for an end to the pandemic. Following these Intercessions, a cross is brought forth, perhaps veiled in purple. We are invited to venerate the wood of the cross – on which hung the salvation of the world. It is often our custom to kiss the cross, but that can’t happen in this pandemic, so our veneration will be more internal than external. Depending upon the size of the congregation and the layout of the church, we might be invited to come forward and make a bow or genuflect before the cross – or we may be invited to just kneel at our pew and pray before the cross held before us for our veneration. Our time of veneration signifies our humble respect and gratitude for the death of the Lord. Finally, we receive the Eucharist which was consecrated the night before at the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper. On this one day of the year, when we commemorate the Sacrifice of Calvary, the Church does not re-present that sacrifice with the celebration of Mass. Having been nourished by the Body of Christ, we will be asked to depart the church in silence.

On Holy Saturday evening, our Easter celebration begins with the Easter Vigil – one of the most beautiful liturgies of the Church’s year. We light and bless a fire and light the new pascal candle that will be used throughout the Easter season and will be used thereafter for both baptisms and funerals. That candle will, at first, be the only light glowing in a darkened church. After the Exsultet, the great Easter proclamation is sung, we will sit in vigil, listening to accounts from our salvation history proclaimed in up to seven Old Testament readings. At the conclusion of those readings, we sing again the Gloria that we have not heard in Lent. While the Gloria is proclaimed, the candles in the sanctuary are lit and we see clearly that the church that was stark and bare the night before is now adorned with lilies and assorted spring flowers and plants. We soon hear the word Alleluia again and we are reminded in the Gospel how the women went to anoint the body of the Lord only to find the tomb empty. Christ is risen and alive. We celebrate the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation with those adults who have been preparing for these sacraments through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and we celebrate the Eucharist for the first time since the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper two nights before.

The simplicity of Thursday’s celebration, the stark and somber celebration on Good Friday, and the glorious celebration of the Easter Vigil help us to physically acknowledge and appreciate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in a way that mere words cannot.

Easter Sunday’s celebrations are festive and filled with joy – a sharp contrast to the way we began Holy Week on Palm Sunday.

Please visit the diocesan website diocesealex.org for the times of each of the Holy Week services at the parishes and missions throughout the diocese or visit the website of your parish church for the times of each of these Holy Week liturgies. We hope that many of you can join us this year. Also posted on the various websites will be some of the options for watching the Holy Week liturgies by live-stream for those who cannot be with us in person.

Have a blessed Holy Week and a joyful Easter.

Enter into Lent intentionally

Lent during the pandemic

(originally published in the Church Today, February 22, 2021)

Brothers and sisters in Christ,

We began the beautiful season of Lent on Ash Wednesday, February 17. The gospels remind us that before he began His public ministry, Our Lord Jesus Christ spent 40 days in the desert in prayer and fasting. Our Lenten season is our annual imitation of this sacred practice – a time when we withdraw from some of the distractions of the world in order to deepen our spiritual lives. Most years, the season of Lent is a welcome respite from our hectic lives, a chance to decrease our social engagements and to increase our spiritual reading and our time of quiet prayer. This year, however, Lent may feel different.

For many of us, it may seem that we have been living in Lent for the past 11 months. As the world grappled with the burgeoning pandemic, most activities – both secular and religious – ceased last March. Even when we reopened, we did so with restrictions on the number of people who could gather, the distance that must separate one person or household from another, and with faces partially covered by masks. Those restrictions have changed over these past months, but have not been eliminated. It seems as though our lives have been significantly curtailed and many are wondering if these restrictions will need to become permanent. So how is our observance of Lent in 2021 different from our recent experience? Have we not spent these last months in the desert, so to speak, cut off from many of the people and activities that populated our lives way back in 2019?

What is different, I suggest to you, is that we are entering into Lent intentionally. We are choosing to walk with the Lord into the desert with the express desire to fast and pray. If you are at all like me, then we entered our months of quarantining most reluctantly. We were ill-prepared for the isolation that we would endure – we had not stored up on food, on prayer, or on patience. We found ourselves forced into learning new technology when we were perfectly content with the old – live-streaming and distance meetings on various platforms were now expected of us. Even as we have been separated from one another and from the larger Body of Christ, we may find that our lives are more hectic and more frustrating than they were before. We need Lent this year. We need to embrace – at least temporarily – the limitations the pandemic has brought us in order to open our eyes to the blessings that we might have missed along the way.

Yes, we stay at home more. Yes, in many ways we are living a simpler life. But are we living an intentional life? Have we used the time away from our pre-pandemic existence to voice our endless complaints about our circumstances or have we come humbly and gratefully before the Lord to voice our needs in prayer? Have we been separated from the joys of our social lives in order to wallow in self-pity or have our eyes been opened to the daily needs of the poor, to the loneliness of the homebound, to the burdens carried by the ill and infirm – all of which existed before the pandemic and will continue after the restrictions end? In other words, have we willingly embraced our time in the desert or are we still cursing the circumstances that brought us here?

The vaccines are offering us a little hope that this pandemic will end. As we spend time this Lent reflecting upon the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he offers us the sure and certain hope that the hardships and sufferings of this life will give way to the eternal joys of heaven. This Lent, may we open our eyes and our hearts to the presence of God who surrounds us with his love. May we experience our true hunger and thirst – not for a vacation or for an evening at a restaurant again – but for the happiness that will last – for eternal salvation and for the Savior who has purchased our redemption with his own blood. This Lent, I invite you to walk humbly into the desert, confident that the Lord will guide us through the darkness into his own wonderful light.

Live Jesus in our hearts . . . forever.

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