Mark Szewczak

Looking Closer at the Hail Mary: IS

March 20, 2012 By Sarah Reinhard Leave a Comment

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

A reflection on the word “IS”

By Mark Szewczak

Mary, the mother-to-be of Jesus the Christ, is seen in a snapshot at the beginning of this prayer. She was a holy, righteous maiden of a poor Jewish family living in an out-of-the-way village.

In the first chapter of St Luke’s Gospel the Angel Gabriel greets her and she was troubled. Troubled?! I suspect any of us would be terrified or seized with mind-numbing awe at the sight of a heaven-sent messenger! Was it the angelic apparition that caused her to be troubled? St. Luke tells us it was the greeting: “Hail, highly favored daughter. The Lord is with you.”

The Lord IS with you. A definite, abrupt, forceful statement that the Creator of the universe is with her, a poor Galilean girl. To her it was a right now moment. He is right now with her.

Putting ourselves in her sandals for a moment, how could we dare believe the concept that the Lord God of all creation, existing beyond time and space, all-powerful, all-knowing, IS with us? Like her we live in a world that demands that we earn our bread, feed our children, deal with the hardships and the mundane repetitions of life. Did she ever before confront this incredible reality: God is with her? Have we? If we think of it, dare to believe it, what does it do in our souls? What did it do to her soul as she confronted the immense reality of God with her?

In those few moments with the angel she found the strength to say that most important YES. She knows she’s not alone. God IS with her. Her Son came to show the rest of us the same, shocking, other-worldly truth. His coming foretold in Isaiah calls Him “Emmanuel”: “God is with us”.

God loves us each so completely that He IS with each of us right now, always and everywhere. We needed Jesus to give us this message and to keep giving it. Two thousand years later we still have trouble comprehending.

May we remember, in our praying the Hail Mary, the peasant girl who reigns now in heaven who was given the message, was troubled but then said YES. May we also have the courage to say YES.

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Mark Szewczak has shared his wisdom in this space before. He and his wife Nancy have three children and are studying for the diaconate program in the Diocese of Philadelphia.

image credit: MorgueFile

Filed Under: Faith, guest post, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Looking Closer at the Hail Mary Tagged With: Catholic, Faith, guest post, Hail Mary, Mark Szewczak, prayer, Virgin Mary

Guardian Angel as Horse

February 16, 2011 By Sarah Reinhard 2 Comments

This recent conversation was too good not to share.

Me, on Twitter and Facebook:

I am starting to wonder…could 3yo’s guardian angel BE a pony? She says yes. I flirt with heresy by tending to agree.

@MarkRSz (who has shared wisdom here before as a guest blogger), in a series of replies:

Each angel is a unique “species”. Further, our angels are ours fore protection and direction.

Since the angels are pure spirit, they are free to act in those ways most suiting the person they protect.

So, while not strictly a “pony”, her angel is free to relate as she would see a pony. Thus God is praised and she is protected.

Not only do I learn something new every day from my kids, sharing what my kids say via Twitter teaches me even more!

On Facebook, Renee shared this bit of insight:

Couldn’t a guardian angel make itself appear to be a pony in order to delight and gain the attention of a 3yo? ♥

I’m in process on reflecting on this. I have a feeling it will come out again later. Anyway, it was too good not to share.

What are YOUR thoughts about guardian angels and how they appear to us?

Filed Under: family Tagged With: Faith, life with children, Mark Szewczak, twitter

The Beauty of Brownies, by Mark Szewczak

September 14, 2010 By Sarah Reinhard 5 Comments

Mark Szewczak needs no introduction: you only have to be on the receiving end of his humor, wisdom, and kindness to feel the hand of God at work through him. He’s written here before (much to my delight), and today’s contribution not only makes me drool, it makes me smile even wider than usual. Mark, it turns out, is a fellow brownie savant. What’s not to love?

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Like most people I know, I have a “thing” for brownies. Not just any brownies, mind you, but perfect brownies. At times it feels almost like a crusade or maybe a quest, like Don Quixote, an impossible dream: perfection in a brownie.

Permit me to expand a bit (and not my waist, but that is a sad byproduct of this quest). Brownies must, of course, be brown. By that I mean sinfully chocolate. Dark unsweetened chocolate has reached the culminating point of its being: the reason for which it was created. The chocolate has moved through various phases of its lifecycle from cacao seed pod through fermentation to cocoa liqour, separation, and processing, to reach the final point, its reason for being: solid cocoa, the bitter essence of the elixir of the Aztec royals. It is THE reason for brownies. One might consider a brownie as a cocoa delivery package.

Let’s continue our considerations. One should find it difficult to sense that flour was in the room when the brownie was baked. I mean, well, it HAD to be there, but, understanding its place, it stays well out of sensory detection. Flour is joined with the usual ingredients of leavening, butter or margarine, eggs, and a little salt. These are all solid performers working behind the scenes to ensure success. They are unsung heroes in this drama.

Then we come to sweetness. The perfect brownie is pleasantly sweet, the way a delicious piece of semi-sweet chocolate is sweet. The sugar is added until there is just enough to bring out the true majesty of the chocolate; a hint of the savage in the chocolate remains, that residual bitterness beneath the sweetness.

Finally, there are the well-respected optional additives. Nuts if you must; good ones and in sufficient quantity to make an actual contribution to taste and texture without overwhelming the overall essence of brownie. Chocolate bits: semisweet only, please, and a particular favorite of mine. However, in all truth, chocolate morsels are not required to be a part of the perfect brownie. It must be said in their defense that the presence of these little packages of pure taste would never detract from perfection.

I have heard it argued that warm brownies are so much better than ones that have cooled. Perhaps this is true, but not because warmth adds to the flavor directly. Oh, I am well aware that the warmth allows more of the sense of smell to be involved, enhancing the experience. But that is true of many things and I contend that warmth is a nice-to-have but not a prerequisite for brownie perfection. It does however point to a larger truth which we will examine in a moment.

It follows from the warmth considerations that being in the kitchen when brownies bake is an added bonus, making the total brownie experience closer to perfection. Who am I to argue with the total experience? Yet this really is about the quest for the perfect brownie.

We are talking about an object of chocolate delight that is consumed slowly, lovingly, with immersion of the senses of taste, smell, touch and vision, and leaves a memory of complete delight. It is not about an overall brownie-making experience. That would be a different topic altogether. And don’t get me started on batches of brownies gone bad, those left a bit too long in the oven until they become hard or, gasp, burned.

I think the reason that a warm brownie is viewed by many as closer to perfection than a cooled one actually points us to the true essence, the underlying soul of what a truly perfect brownie is. The warmth enhances an otherwise less-than-perfect brownie to respond physically in the hand and mouth as if it were more perfect than it might be when cooled. Therein, I believe, is the uncloaking of the essence of a brownie that aims at perfection.

A truly perfect brownie is a package of chocolate goodness that is not too dry, not too crumbly, holds together well with some bulk to it and has a sense of moisture without it being under-baked. It has “tooth”. It is the 2010 USA derivation of that mystical Aztec drink. OUR cocoa is a baked cake with unique, almost magical properties of chocolate, sweet, substance, moistness, firmness and an almost indescribable experience of its consumption.

Unlike so many food fine food items, this brownie, this noble arrangement of chocolate and its supporting cast, is meant to be eaten. In the hand. Slowly, with milk if at all possible. And then pondered. Considered. The chocolate works first on our noses, then our mouth, then in our stomach. Each place is caressed by the experience. It is enough to stop a conversation. Enough to make adults into children. It may even be that which makes peace between enemies or gains friendship among strangers.

And there, my friends, is the true perfection of a brownie. Well made, it serves a more noble purpose than to simply nourish. It is a currency of our civilization. Serious. Important. Honest.

And oh so delicious. Amen.

Filed Under: guest post Tagged With: food, guest post, Mark Szewczak

School Seasons, by Mark Szewczak

August 26, 2010 By Sarah Reinhard 1 Comment

Here we are, the end of the Summer, and the world is full of school preparation activities. Final shopping expeditions and the back-to-school sales, packing for college or final summer vacations, young folks preparing for the next year or first year of high school, little ones excited about seeing friends again or sorry that endless playtime is over, that very, VERY first day of school. Everywhere the world is taking a large collective breath, counting down, buzzing with anticipation.

Right?

Of course, even for a couple of empty-nesters like my wife and me. I had this worry thing in my mind when our last one left the nest and entered the working world. No grandkids yet. It was strange facing this empty freedom stretching before us through Autumn, into Winter, into the rest of our lives. It sent me into a funk, that idea of growing old and useless and all that.

But…it hasn’t happened yet. I find myself surprised that my world still revolves around the cycle of the school year. Time still is determined by when kids have Christmas breaks, by the school pageants at church, and the anticipation of the Summer recess filled with vacations and outdoors.

What gives? Why am I still in this cycle? I have been thinking a lot about this lately. Old habits die hard? Maybe. After all, it’s been 30-plus years of the school year routine ingrained into our psyches. Yet somehow that doesn’t feel quite right. The question remains: Why do we who are without little ones follow this yearly school cycle?

I think I have part of an answer. See if you agree: the cycle of the school year really isn’t about school. Our little smidgen of God’s universe works in a seasonal flow. We know that, it’s obvious. The school year, holidays, farm planting cycles, work opportunities, the rainy seasons and hurricane seasons and dry times are linked to the cycle of the Earth’s seasons.

We see the school year because we find it familiar. Having kids going to school for 30 years means I still see the year oriented around school. If I was a farmer, I would see the year oriented around soil prep, planting, fertilizing, harvesting. For a baker, the year revolves around holidays and wedding seasons…same with florists. These human, social, work, and school activities overlay the seasons on God’s Earth. The Divine Planner made us a part of this miraculous parade of the seasons. Pretty simple, pretty dramatic. Maybe scary.

Now consider one of Jesus’ teachings as described in the Gospel of Matthew:

Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you…?

And then the take-home message for me:

Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. (Mathew 6: 26-30; 32-33, New American Bible)

So there is a hint of an answer for me and a great deal of relief. I don’t really worry much anymore about the empty nest. My wife and I are anxious less often about being older or not having kids to send off to school or should we take a vacation in October because we CAN.

My nest may be empty but my life, seeking God’s kingdom, is not ended. I am finding that there are many seasons of social interaction that have always existed but that I didn’t see.

In seeking His kingdom as first priority, the cycle of the year can be one of joy and fulfillment and service. My hours and days in reality are quite full. I realize I have a place here and a part to play, one given to me by our Heavenly Father. A plan in harmony with all the seasons, leading to the Kingdom.

Oh, and that empty nest? They will all be home to celebrate Labor Day.

Filed Under: guest post Tagged With: back to school, Education, empty nest, Faith, guest post, Mark Szewczak, seasons

Tears as Gift

August 9, 2010 By Sarah Reinhard 7 Comments

A Mary Moment Monday post

I hate crying. As a certified (and probably certifiable) ENTJ, I hate the fact that I have this tendency to…cry. I don’t mind it in others; I can even see it as a beautiful expression of the moving of that person’s heart. I don’t mind sentimentality so much in other people. In myself, though…well, I don’t like it. At all.

Especially in Mass. Or when a priest talks. (Seriously. Priests touch my heart. It is beautiful…and embarrassing.)

In the last nine years since becoming Catholic, I have cried more than I ever cried before. The tears just seem to slip out, to slide down my face. Then my nose gets in on the action and, well, it only gets worse.

I was complaining about mentioning this on Twitter and Facebook before Friday night’s Meet-n-Greet (which was part of the Catholic New Media Celebration). My five-year-old daughter, who had been crying when I left her at the airport, was expecting to talk to me via the uStream. I was thinking of singing her a lullaby, except that the thought that I might get choked up. I knew, in fact, that I would get choked up.

One of my dear friends (who’s been wise in this space before) made a comment I’ve been thinking of ever since:

Smiling that you said crying is private. God created us to cry publicly, right on our faces. Maybe He had a good idea. Besides, just do a disclaimer at the beginning about tears being possible. Everyone loves you and knows how deeply you feel about things. That’s part of why we love you. [Emphasis mine.]

I thought of that when I was sitting at the CNMC during Fr. Roderick’s opening prayer. I thought of it when I used the last of my napkins during Fr. Reed’s keynote address. I thought of it when I was praying in the Adoration chap el (and missing most of Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s remarks).

I thought of it at Mass yesterday, holding my husband’s hand, feeling the joy of the Eucharist, reveling in both the experience of the weekend and the comfort of being home.

I was crying at each of those times. Tears came: unbidden, unwanted, unexpected.

Mark Shea commented, when I was moaning talking about my propensity toward tears before dinner Saturday night, that I should be thankful for them.

And, even though I know that tears are a gift, I can’t seem to believe it when I’m in the middle of crying and snotting at Mass. Even though I know they’re coming, even though it’s almost like watching the radar and predicting a big storm in two hours, I never fail to be both surprised and dismayed by their appearance.

Some people maintain there’s a strength in crying. I can tell you that, when I cry, I do not feel strong. I do not feel anything except small, humble, open. When I think of that cocktail of experience, I realize that there’s a cleansing in the crying that I will continue to need until I beat down the ego that keeps me from receiving God and His grace.

Tears are powerful…and they are uncomfortable. Even though I’m a frequent cry-er, I’m never at ease with my wet face and dripping nose.

This is yet another chance for me to turn to Mary. She’s invoked as Our Lady of Tears, and maybe there’s a reason that the rosary of Our Lady of Tears came into my life.

Maybe, when I’m sniffling and snuffling at Mass and trying to find a way to remember to keep tissues in my purse, I can think of Mary, tears sliding down her face as she watches her children on earth stumble and struggle with daily life. Maybe, when I’m wishing I didn’t have to hide in the restroom to get a hold of myself, I can say a prayer for the mother who buried a child, for the wife facing her husband’s daily health struggle, for the daughter seeking her father. Maybe, when I’m most resentful of the tears that accost me unawares, I can give them to Mary, so that she can wash her Son’s feet and turn my pitiful disconsonance into something beautiful for Him.

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Filed Under: Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Mary Moment Mondays Tagged With: CNMC, crying, Faith, gift of tears, Mark Szewczak, Mary Moment Monday, Motherhood, SQPN, Virgin Mary

The Work of the Church

July 24, 2010 By Sarah Reinhard 2 Comments

The other day, a good friend sent me a message, asking for prayers. I wrote him back and told him that I would add his intention to a novena I’m praying, as well as to my daily prayers. To be honest, it was sort of a knee-jerk response, the kind of thing I would have told pretty much anyone who wrote me to ask for prayers. “Sure, I’ll pray for you. Just let me go write it down.”

I replied to his effusive thank you with a shrugging response, pretty much saying, “Hey, isn’t that what anyone would do?” I don’t think about that as being real work.

He wrote me back again, and his response made me think about prayer — and the work of prayer — in a new way.

Praying is doing the WORK of the Church. It is work. It takes time, energy and commitment. We may all be called to pray but how many of us actually do that work? I am guilty of being spiritually lazy at times and failing to converse with God, telling Him about those I care about, listening for His guidance.

One important thing I myself struggle to manage is being noticed and praised for something I should be doing all along. I know it’s called positive reinforcement in the dry psychological circles but I am a huge failure here. I dismiss praise from others because I somehow feel unworthy. For ME, it’s part of my life-long inferiority complex which has its roots in childhood. I am only now realizing that I am GOD’S child. He loves me and lavishes His sweetness on me in ways I am only now seeing.

Your note triggered those thoughts about myself. I think the really best answer is not that I give you credit (though I do, so there!) but that I rejoice that you in the Body of Christ come to [my] aid, in the Body of Christ. We share in the divine ecstatic dance of the Father with the Son from which the Holy Spirit flows and gives life to the world.

You and all who pray for others deserve to remember that you are part of the dance, especially when you do something for someone else, even something as “little” as praying to the God of the universe for a brother you have never met. Instead of credit, call it joy.

I have had intentions so dear, so special, so important to my heart that, when people have told me they’re praying for them, I have been moved to tears. I know how it feels to be appreciative of the power of the time others take to remember my intentions to God. So, this week, I’m going to pay closer attention to doing this work of mine well, because it is so very, very important.

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Filed Under: Faith Tagged With: Faith, from the mailbag, intercession, Mark Szewczak, prayer

Watermelon Days, by Mark Szewczak

July 16, 2010 By Sarah Reinhard 1 Comment

Today I welcome Mark Szewczak back to my corner of cyberspace. (If you’ve missed his previous posts, you’re missing some real gems.) Thanks to Mark for once again sharing his wisdom and tender heart with all of us.

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A recent, excellent column by Colleen Mitchell triggered some thoughts I’d like to share. A good starting place is a line from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, “When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.” (1 Cor. 13:11, NAB).

That kind of sums up my life, a constant struggle to put away childish things, thoughts, desires. I congratulate myself from time to time when I have a success, being an “adult” and “responsible.” But you probably know as well as I that there is this constant tug buried deep in our psyches battling to suppress that inner child, to be a “grownup”. I haven’t run into many adults who, having put away childish things, are not locked in the seemingly endless, mindless rat-race of life in this millennium.

We forget to pray, forget that God is next to us, ignore our own health, lose track of our lives in countless ways, often leading to anxiety and depression. I am certainly that person and I know that I can be very unhappy with myself and am not sure what to do about it.

With this as a backdrop, the other day, after dinner, my wife brought me a bowl of cubed watermelon along with hers as we sat to watch Jeopardy. How thoughtful she was and I looked forward to us sitting for a half hour and relaxing together after our long busy days. I took the first bite.

Immediately, as if by magic, I was transported back in time to a summer when I was around 12, on vacation at my grandfather’s mountain cabin with extended family around us. The watermelon…so sweet, so wonderfully chilled…just like that day. It was early evening and my sisters, brothers and cousins had been swimming in the creek down the road. We had been playing wiffle ball in the yard and developing a delightful hungry feeling in our stomachs. It was warm; sun shining through the leaves of tall trees and if you listened past our laughter you could hear bees buzzing and birds singing.

I was a city kid. The only grass and trees I knew were in the church yard. For me, to be at that summer cabin was to experience a complete immersion into a 12-year-old’s vision of heaven. Towering trees, fields of tall grass in the valleys between the mountains, endless play, new things to explore, sweet fragrant air, a boundless future. The eternal banquet promised in scripture consisted of hamburgers, corn-on-the-cob, potato salad and…watermelon. My loved ones gathered around the table laughing, joking and just enjoying being together, a simple yet full existence that contained no measurements of success or struggles between good and evil, worry and fear.

That single taste of watermelon resurrected that clear visceral memory of my 12-year-old self back to the front of my memory. What an amazing thing, a single sensory experience causing such a profound re-experience! I thought of another passage of scripture, this time from Matthew where Jesus said, “I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3, NAB). I was being reminded, wordlessly and lovingly, that putting aside childish ways is not the same as being child-like in faith, hope and love.

That summer glimpse of heaven had remained dormant for more than 40 years, waiting on the Lord to unlock it and present it to me at a time I needed it. He reminded me to be as a child in my belief, trust and love of my Lord and my fellow pilgrims in this life, a message I need now and going forward to the next phase of my life. Letting myself be led forward, not in a rat-race but in a procession of laughing, singing people moving toward the light. I sure hope the watermelon is as sweet and cold as I remember!