fr_mark_burger 2010

Father Mark Berger spoke at a conference and shared some personal anecdotes. He emphasized the importance of quieting the mind and listening to God's voice. He also mentioned experiencing confusion and receiving questions from God during his prayer sessions. Ultimately, he realized that living a divided life is detrimental and urged everyone to be true to themselves and to God. Many of you were at our conference last year. You may recall how Father Mark Berger opened his presentation. He commented that his friends gave him a hard time about how we treated his biography, that all we said about him was that he was born and raised in Cincinnati and he attended Roger Bacon High School. In contrast, we raved about this coach or that author or another celebrity. So as I have said, we listened. I asked Father Mark to send us his thoughts on an introduction. He offered several and in the interest of authenticity I checked out each one. He said he was recognized as the greatest homilist west of the Alleghenies. What he didn't say was that the recognition came from his mom. While in the seminary, Father Mark said he was voted by his class as the most likely to be an archbishop. His classmates tell me he stuffed the ballot box. Lastly, we could go on but I'll cut it short, Father. He said he's in line to be a pope, Pope Mark I. I checked this one out with his boss, Archbishop Schnur. The archbishop agreed he's in line, but he described that line with the name of a movie that has biblical overtones. He said Father Mark's at the end of the line that stretches from here to eternity. I could go on, but you get the point. In all seriousness, Father Mark has one of the most important roles of our conference, preparing us for the sacrament of reconciliation. He manages that gift to us exceptionally well. He has done so in five prior conferences. We appreciate Father Mark as one of our most powerful speakers. Gentlemen, let's give a warm welcome to Father Mark Berger. Father Mark Berger. Thank you. None of that was true, but it's good. We are gathering now for the most important part I think of today. There's so many good things that happen during this day, but this next part is about you and God. You know, they have a chair here that represents Jesus sitting among us. It is Jesus who has sent me here for you. I am here to speak with you. And it's amazing when I prepare for this, because the way God treats me is interesting. But to begin, about six months ago, I was in my chapel up in Westchester praying and asking God about this event and what I should be saying here. And he said, I am sending you as John the Baptist to prepare a way for my son, to prepare a way for my son to touch hearts on that day. Your job is to get things out of the way. So that that shot from my son to those men is clear. And my response in prayer was, how do I do that? And the response was, remind them about me. And I said, give me a scripture, and he gave me this scripture. You are Israel, and this is what the father said in prayer. About this day and you. He said, when Israel was a child, I loved him. And out of the various slaveries of life, I have called my son. But the more I called out to him, the further away he went from me. He slipped through my fingers, sacrificing to idols and burning incense to other gods. Yet it was I who taught him to walk, who took him in my arms. I drew my son with human cord, with bands of love. I was to him as parents who raised an infant to their cheeks. Yet, though I scooped to feed my child, he never knew that it was I who was his healer. Today, in this place, the father who created everything, who created you, is inviting you to realize that you are his son and your healer. He is your healer. And before you can receive the healing, before you can receive the gift that God wants to give you today, you have to come to me and you have to come to me. And before you come to me today, you have to come to some quiet. You have to be still, because the message that God wants you to hear can only be heard in this busy world if we get quiet. And so I've asked our musicians that come with us and are with us today to invite us into the quiet, because you're here today at the Father's invitation. It's the Father's loving call that has brought you here. The Father wants to do something in your life. Whether you're 14 or 95, the Father wants to do something in your life today. And you will not receive it if you're not quiet enough to hear the voice. So as the musicians begin to sing, allow that music to take you to a quiet place in your heart, and listen to the Father's loving call. He's the one who stooped to heal you, though you never knew it. He's the one who sustained you, though you may never have been aware of it. He's the one that's called you here, and He wants to speak to your heart. Close your eyes. Come to the quiet. Come to the quiet. Come to the quiet. Come to the Lord. These dry and restful waters cannot meet me. You need not have fear. Your heart will find me. Come to the quiet, just me. In our life's journey, we find twists and turns. We search to find some meaning for it all. It is not in the din, but in the quiet that God speaks. We only need to pause and hear the call. Come to the quiet. Come to the Lord. These dry and restful waters cannot meet me. You need not have fear. Your heart will find me. Come to the quiet, just me. The days all rush by. We have so little time. Our spirits long to simply find some peace. Let us go to that place and be united with the Lord and find the strength that leads us through our days. Come to the quiet. Come to the Lord. These dry and restful waters cannot meet me. You need not have fear. Your heart will find me. Come to the quiet, just me. The world around us can be selfish in our way. The Word of God has fallen on deaf ears. Just step back for a moment. Put your focus on the Word and be renewed in faith and hope and love. Come to the quiet. Come to the Lord. These dry and restful waters cannot meet me. You need not have fear. Your heart will find me. Come to the quiet, just me. And now we're ready to hear the Word. In my preparation for today, I had asked God to speak to me about what it is that He wants me to say here. Because what I say, what any speaker says here, may touch a heart, may strike a chord in your mind. You might even remember it for a while. But when God speaks to us at the heart level, that stays with us and we're changed by it. And so I was praying and there were four separate, very significant prayer experiences that I had that were meant for today. I didn't understand any of them. And the first one came and it was filled with questions. I sat down and said, God, what is it you want me to say? And what came back in my prayer was, I have questions for you. And I thought, that's my point. I'm supposed to ask the questions here, not you. But the questions were this. Why are you putting me off? Why are you holding me at arm's length? Why am I always for later? Why am I always at the end of the list? Why am I not first? I went into a great depression after that one. I thought, I didn't know I was doing that. And then the next time I sat down, I said, God, I need to know what it is that you want me to say. And He said, why are you putting me off? Why are you holding me at arm's length? I said, all right, I got that. Is that for me or for them? And He said, yes. So I said, okay, now this time no more questions. Just tell me what else I should say. Questions. What are you doing? What are you not doing? What's wrong with you? Okay. Then the next time I went, I said, God, no words. No questions. Leave me alone. And sometimes God uses images. And He did this day. It was an interesting one. It was early in the morning before 630 Mass. I used to get there about 430 or so to begin my prayer. And I was there praying. And I had this image. And it was an odd image. Don't tell the Archbishop this, but he was in it. Anyway, he was there. He was in it. And it was a magician's kind of a thing. And he was sawing somebody in half. Where do I tell him he's sawing somebody in half? But it was long way. He was sawing somebody in half. And then it changed. It wasn't him. Then it was somebody else sawing somebody in half. I never understood what that meant. And the next day I went and prayed and said, Lord, I don't understand that image. Give me a different one. And He did. And it was a room full of snakes and they were all laughing at me. Laughing snakes and sawed in half people. And I thought, what the hell does that all mean? And I did not know. I kept getting these questions. And every time I would sit down to pray and say, what is it you wanted to hear? I heard those questions over and over again. And it wasn't until this morning. I got up early to do my vigil and I was in prayer. And I kept saying, Lord, I don't have the message. And He said, you're right. You'll get it when you need it. I was in the green room this morning. I sat down. And He spoke in my ear. Powerfully. You know, I have to back that up a little bit. A couple weeks ago I got this letter from somebody in my parish. And I made the mistake of reading it because it was one of those anonymous ones. I read it and I shouldn't have. But I laughed at it so much I thanked God for the letter. Because it began, you used to be a good priest. I think sometime you were a good priest. But you're not anymore. And I thought, oh, I wonder what I did. He said, you said hell in church. No good priest would ever say hell in church. And I said, what the hell did you say? I didn't feel a thing. Of all the things they've heard me preach, all they heard was that one word, hell. And I was thinking of that this morning as I was in the green room. And because I was laughing, I was saying, God, I haven't heard a thing yet. And I hope you're going to give me this message. Because I don't know what it is yet. And you know what He said? He began by saying, hell, I'm going to tell you. I said, what is it? And He said, dumbass, don't you get it? And I said, no, what is it? He said, what's wrong with you? What's wrong for all of these men? What's wrong for the world right now is that you cannot live a divided life. I said, that's what the sowing in half was? Yes. You cannot live in this world and be true to me and live a divided life. You cannot do it. It will not work. You will be miserable. You'll never going to find peace if you're living a divided life. Either your heart belongs all to me or not at all. You cannot give part of your life to me. Only all of it. And as I sat in the green room, I said, Lord, what is the scripture that I should read? And then again, dumbass. Chapter 6, Matthew. And here it is. Jesus said, Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes, where thieves cannot break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be. The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is unhealthy, your world, your whole body, will be full of darkness. And if then the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be? Remember this. No one can serve two masters. For a slave will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink or about your body and what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father who loves them, feeds them. And are you not of more value to me than they? And can any of you, by worrying a single minute, add a single hour to your life? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon, in all his glory, was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field which is alive today and dead tomorrow, will he not much more clothe you, O little of faith? Therefore, stop worrying. What will we eat or what will we drink or what will we wear? For pagans strive for these things. And indeed, your heavenly Father knows what you need. Strive first for his kingdom and his lordship over you, and all these other things will be given you as well. Do not worry about tomorrow. Think back at your life. How long in your life have you been divided? How long have your heart been calling you one place and your friends calling you another? Do you remember high school when you tried to live everybody else's idea of who you should be? Do you do that at work? Do you try to fit in to the mold? Do you try to be somebody you know you're not called to be, and yet to fit in you have to be somebody? The Lord is saying to you now, all the troubles in the world today come from not living a single-hearted life. You cannot give your heart to other things and leave God on the outside. You cannot live as if God is just one more thing in your life. What he says to me in prayer every day this week, he said it over and over again, stop trying to fit me into your life. Fit yourself into my life. I'm not an extra. I'm not something on the periphery. I'm the one who created you and loved you, and I know that you're wounded, that you are hurting, that your life is painful, and I know that you're carrying a lot of stuff. I know that you are. In my prayer in the green room, I said, so what's with the snakes? The snakes, he said, have a great gift to teach you that when part of your life is dead, when you're carrying dead ideas, when you're carrying a dead weight of a burden from the past, when you carry that with you, it kills your spirit. Learn from the snakes. When your skin is dead, shed it. Step out of it into new life. You cannot live a divided life. You can only live a single-hearted life. Jesus has called you. He's calling you now to live a single-hearted life. He was one person that the Father sent, one solitary person, who has changed history. He divided history so that you would no longer have to divide your life. God doesn't want you torn apart on the inside. God doesn't want you called in nine directions. God wants your attention, and when you give it to Him, when you seek His kingdom first, everything else will fall into place. Trust me, I've lived it. I know it. I'm surrounded by people who live it. They know it, and you know it. Because if you look in the mirror, you may say, oh, all the things I've done wrong, all the things I've failed to do, all the burdens I've carried. You're not seeing the whole picture. There's more to you than you know. It was the Father who created you, who stooped to feed you, who healed you though you didn't know it. He is with you. He is with you right now. I'm going to ask musicians to sing, and when they sing about one solitary life, the solitary life of Jesus, I'm going to ask you to open your heart, really open your heart, and ask Jesus to be part of your life. Ask Jesus to come in your life and make sure that you are living single-heartedly, that any divisions in your life will be healed by that one solitary person entering into your heart. Invite him in now as our singers sing. ♪ One life, one solitary life To change the course of history One man, one very special man To fill a very special need One love, one pure and perfect love Alive in spite of all the odds One plan, one very simple plan Uniting all mankind with God One life, one solitary life But what that single life has done One man, one ever-living man Who gives new hope to everyone I do not claim to understand it I only know that it is true The entire world was changed By that one solitary life That one solitary life, that one man, Jesus is here among us. He's calling you that if you have a divided heart to allow him to heal it. If your heart has wandered away from your wife or from your children, allow the Lord to come and to heal that wound. If you've been abused in some way or carry a resentment or feel lost, you've been through a divorce, your life seems ended, you've lost a job, you can't find work, you feel abandoned by God and your heart is broken, Jesus is the healer of all broken hearts. Whatever in your life is wrong, if you've made bad decisions, if you've committed some sin, if there's something in your life that steals your peace, Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He came to heal and to give you peace. One of his closest associates in preaching is Paul the Apostle. He gives us a remedy for what to do when we are divided at the heart, when we find ourselves not single-hearted but divided. This is what he says. Believers, put to death therefore whatever in you is earthly, fornication, impurity, passion and evil desires, greed, which is a form of idolatry. On account of these, the anger of God can come. They are the ways you also once followed when you were living in life, but now you must get rid of such things and bring your heart in union with God. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourself with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek or Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, narcissian, slave, free. All are in Jesus. Therefore, as God's chosen ones, brothers, holy and beloved, clothe yourself today with compassion, with kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Bear with one another and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other just as the Lord has forgiven you. So you also must forgive. And above all, clothe yourself with love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And then let the peace of Jesus Christ rule in your heart, in which you indeed were called into the one body. And then be thankful. Let that word of Jesus dwell in you richly. Teach and admonish one another in all wisdom and with gratitude in your single hearts. Sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God and whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to the God and Father through him. Brothers, you cannot live a divided life. Allow the healer of all hearts to heal your divided hearts and give you his peace. And the Lord comes today and asks you to walk with him. Whatever divides your heart, whatever keeps you from peace, whatever worries you or makes you bow down, whatever burden you are carrying, in this final psalm, place all of that in Jesus' hands. And I encourage you to seek out the sacrament of reconciliation and ask the Lord to heal your broken heart, your wounded heart, your divided heart, and know that like snakes dreading their skin, you can shed all that stuff and step out into a new life, no longer sawn in half, no longer bearing dead weight, but full of his grace and his life. I invite you now to invite Jesus to walk with you as you consider your own heart and ask him to heal what needs to be healed. In my tri-hose walk with me In my tri-hose walk with me When the shades of life are falling I want Jesus to walk with me In my tri-hose walk with me When the shades of life are falling In my tri-hose walk with me In my tri-hose walk with me In my tri-hose walk with me When the shades of life are falling I want Jesus to walk with me Every year before we approach the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we ask to renew our faith, to renew our baptismal promises. And so I'd ask all of you to stand, and the response to each of these questions is two words, I do. And so I ask you, do you reject Satan and all his works and all his empty promises? Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth? Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died and was buried, rose from the dead, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father now? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting? This is our faith. We are proud to profess it in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.