Fr Mark Burger 2004

Fr. Mark Berger, a priest from Cincinnati, has a passion for missionary work and has spent time in countries like India, Nepal, Peru, and Mexico. He is dedicated to helping people deepen their relationship with God and teaches spirituality by emphasizing the importance of learning how to see and hear from God. He believes that God speaks to us every day and wants to have a deep and profound relationship with us. Fr. Mark encourages individuals to pay attention to their possessions and to ask God to remove anything that keeps them shallow in their faith. He also shares his own experience of living as a hermit in the desert, which was a life-changing event for him. He attended Roger Bacon High School and was ordained a priest in 1980. Many of you might know him because he has been a pastor or assistant pastor at a number of parishes in the Cincinnati Archdiocese. Currently Fr. Mark is the pastor of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Westchester, Ohio, which is a suburb of Cincinnati. He is also the dean of the St. Andrew Deanery. Fr. Mark has a true appreciation for the greater world around us. One of his chief interests is missionary work, so he has spent time in countries in different parts of the world, living in varying cultures to get a sense of the Church in the Third World. Among the countries he has visited in this search are India, Nepal, Peru, and Mexico. While living in Israel on sabbatical, he experienced life as a full-time hermit in the desert. Fr. Mark's life extends far beyond his responsibilities as a pastor. He preaches many retreats, teaches people to pray more deeply, serves as a spiritual director to many, and works with alcoholics and other people dealing with addictions. As you will soon recognize when you experience his presentation, Fr. Mark is far removed from his hermit days in the desert. Gentlemen, let's give a warm welcome to one of our own Cincinnati natives, Fr. Mark Berger. What I'd like to do today is a little different than what you've been hearing this morning. It's the same message in a different form. One of the things that I do all the time when I'm in the car is I always have a book on tape, because what comes to the radio doesn't really feed me, so I always choose lots of different books to listen to, and the one that I've been listening to recently is one on the Cosmos that makes my brain freeze up, because I'm learning all kinds of things about physics I never knew or cared to know, and I also learned about the Cosmos. And I was riding in the car the other day, and they were describing the solar system and that there are a billion, billion, billion, six billion, billion stars in the universe. And as I was driving along, I was thinking, that's a lot of stars, and as I'm thinking about all those stars, I was immediately drawn into a kind of prayer, and I even spoke in my heart to God and said, God, what the hell's with all the stars? And God's response to me was, they are all creatures. I made all those stars. Look at them. When you go out, look at the stars. I made every one of those stars. As we begin, think of those stars. They are mere creatures. The one who created all those stars is here. And that one who created all those stars is here for you. He's here for each one of us. And the one who created the universe became one of us, because that is so big, and we are so frightened of anything big, God became an instant for us. And he invites each one of us into a very deep and profound relationship. The problem is, most of us settle for a superficial relationship. What God has invited me to do as a priest for the rest of my life is to make sure that when I speak with any group, I invite them into a deep and profound relationship with the Living God. The Living God is here right now. And what I want to do is invite you into a conversation with the Living God who wants you to go deep in your faith, very deep. Now when I teach spirituality to folks, I always begin with two definitions. These definitions are important if you're ever going to go deep in your relationship with God. The first is, the definition of spirituality is learning how to see. And the definition of prayer is learning how to hear. As we begin our time together, I'm going to invite these friends of mine, the musicians, to lead us into a kind of prayer. Asking the Holy Spirit to anoint our eyes so that we can learn how to see, and to anoint our ears so that we can learn how to hear His quiet voice. And I will explain more of my own experience with that quiet voice. He doesn't always say nice things, but He wants to speak with you. He wants to touch your heart. And so what I invite you to do right now is to close your eyes and become aware of the One who made the universe, the One who created those billions of stars, created you. And as much as God takes delight in the stars, He takes more delight in you. As the music begins, open your ears to hear His voice. Let the Lord touch your eyes so that you may see. Close in me, open my eyes that I may see. Come fill my heart and let me know, Spirit of God, I am yours. Spirit of God, who dwells in me, open my eyes that I may see. Come fill my heart and take me home, Spirit of God, I am yours. Spirit of God, I am yours. Spirit of God, you are with us. And as you have gathered us together today, touch our hearts. Let them open. Open our hearts to receive you. Help us to know your presence and to know your voice and to know your will for us. Be with us now. When St. Francis of Assisi was converted, God spoke to his heart. And he went out preaching the gospel everywhere. And when he would go to groups, they'd look at him and say, We know you, you're the carouser. Who are you to be talking about this? Just who are you? And his response was, I am the troubadour of the Lord. I am the messenger of the great king. Now I wanted to start with that today because you know when people ask me to come and talk here, my immediate response was, no way. And the reason I said no way was, I'm not a senator. I'm not a former astronaut. I'm not a former coach. I'm not a jujitsu guy or whatever he was over there. He scares the living daylights out of me. He scares the hell out of me. I'll be good. I promise. I'm not any of those things. And then I went to prayer. And in prayer, the Lord's voice. Now when I was growing up, I would hear people say, The Lord spoke to me and I'd think, Oh God, how much money does he want now? And I didn't realize he does speak to us until he did. And I'm going to invite you today to pay attention in your own life because God wants to speak to you and in fact does speak to you every day. And I want to teach you how to hear him. And so when I went to prayer saying, Lord, why should I go there? I don't have any great office. I'm just a parish priest. And in my ear, in prayer, was his unmistakable whisper, You are my messenger. I'm sending you there. You don't have to worry about you. You worry about what I tell you to say. Now how can you say no to that? And that's why I'm here. I'm here because God has moved in my life in so many different ways, on so many different levels, and every time God has moved, he takes me deeper and deeper and deeper. My vocation to priesthood, God, it starts when I watched my father be a religious person and not be weird. When I watched an uncle of mine, my favorite uncle, when I would sneak off to church in the morning, he was there. And he wasn't a weird guy. Jesus was real to those two. And so the beginnings of my vocation as a priest began by observing two men who were holy and who made it real. Today I invite you to look around in your own family. Who are the holy men in your family? They're important to notice. They're a gift from God. And I'm here today as a messenger of the King to remind you that God has chosen you to be a holy man in your family. He needs you to be a holy man in your family. And I want to begin with the reading. I'm not going to read it. I'll tell you the story. The reading is the famous reading of a rich young man who was good. If you looked for the definition of good in the dictionary, this picture would be there. From the beginning of his days on earth, he was a good man. And when he heard Jesus preach, his heart was moved. It was really moved, deeply moved. So when he met Jesus, he couldn't help himself. And he said, Lord, what more must I do? And Jesus gave him the commandments. And as he heard all those commandments, he said, I've kept all those commandments since I was a young boy. And the Bible says Jesus looked at him with love and said, there's one more thing you need to do. What Jesus was doing was grabbing him by the ankles and yanking him deep. Sow all you have and give to the poor and come follow me. And the man, a good man, a really good man, became depressed. Because, the Bible says, he realized that his possessions were many. His possessions were many. The men who spoke so far today have spoken very profoundly about a particular kind of possession. The possession that lust can bring. But greed can possess us. Anxiety can possess us. Depression can depress us. There are a thousand different ways to be possessed. And today, I'm inviting you to notice your possessions, to pay attention to them, and to ask God to remove them. Because what possessions do to us is they keep us shallow. The worst kind of Christian, the absolute worst kind, is the one who says the right things, but doesn't do any of them. A superficial relationship with God is deadly. Because we think we've got the answer, we act like we've got the answer, but our life is not in His. Now, in that little intro, they said, I lived as a hermit in the desert. The most life-changing event of my life. I recommend it. It's not easy. I went to Israel. And actually, one of the great gifts that our Archbishop does for his priests in this diocese is that he gives us an opportunity to take sabbatical after so many years. And when I was thinking about a sabbatical, I thought, well, you know, I could travel all over the world and maybe kind of take a cruise, do something really good. And so I went to prayer, and in prayer, which at that point was, I thought, pretty good, but was pretty shallow, what came to me was, go be a hermit. I thought, what the hell? I want to go on a cruise and you're sending me to be a hermit. What could that do to make me rest? I need a rest. I'm worn out. You're sending me off to be a hermit. And I thought, okay, God, if this is really from you, this is going to fall into place because I don't know how to be a hermit or even where to go. And so I said, okay, God, I dare you. Don't ever dare God. I said, God, if I'm supposed to be a hermit, you make it happen because I don't know where to start and decide I'd rather go on a cruise. The next day, I was meeting with a good friend of mine, Gloria, who was telling me about a friend of hers who is a deacon in Israel who just came back from being on retreat in the desert of Israel. And I thought, Gloria, I'm going home now. And as I was thinking, she has no idea what she's saying to me. She said, you have to meet him. In fact, he's coming for lunch today. Stay for lunch. And as we talked, I stayed, like a fool, I stayed. And as I was sitting at lunch listening to this guy talk about Israel, I thought, I don't want to go to Israel. There's war there. I feel like I'm in a war here. If I'm going to go rest, I don't want to go to a war zone. But he said, you know, whenever I need a good rest, you know where I go? And I said, where? And he said, to the desert. I said, where in the desert? He said, the desert monastery of John the Baptist east of Jerusalem in Nineveh. It's a great place. In fact, I'll tell you what, I can call the Abbot and you can get there. And I said, isn't that nice? Gloria, can I go home now? And I went home. I thought, that's the sickest thing God ever did to me. So, as I was driving home, by the time I got home, it didn't seem sick anymore. It seemed like it might be a neat thing to do. So, I said, okay. Made the arrangements. Ended up in this monastery out in the desert. I had no idea what I was going to be doing. I took some books and when I got to the monastery, he said, you want to be a hermit? And I said, yes. He said, give me the books. That's a nice novel. Give me the books. And he said, we have a hermitage attached to our monastery. You can stay there. And I must tell you that we've had about 22 different priests come to be hermits. Nobody stays longer than a week. I thought, I can last a week. But I lasted three and a half months. It was the most profound experience I had for this reason. God taught me how to pray. I thought I knew. I was a priest for God's sake. And I went to prayer the first day and I said, God, for God's sake, I'm a priest. And he said, yes, for my sake, not for yours. And the abbot said he would give me three stories that would help me become profoundly in love with the Lord like I had never done before. And I said, okay. And from that moment on for the first three days, the first day is a story you may have heard. It comes from Zen Buddhism of all places. But it's the story of a disciple coming to a master saying, I want to know and love and serve God not in a shallow way but in a profound way. And the master says, come with me. And he takes him by the hand and leads him to the lake. And as they're walking toward the lake, the master walks into the lake and the guy thinks this guy's nuts. Walks into the lake and they're together shoulder deep in the lake. The master takes this disciple's head and pushes it under the water and holds it there. And the guy thinks he's going to let me up in a minute but he doesn't. He holds him down until just about the time he's going to pass out and he is fighting like anything. He thinks the guy has gone crazy and is killing him. Finally, he lets him up and he starts cussing out this master and says, what kind of person are you that would kill and he looked him in the eye and he said, when you want God as much as you just wanted air, then you're ready to start to go deep with God. And the abbot looked at me and said, read the story and tell me, do you want God that much? And I said, not really. That would be too hard. But as I prayed, I kept getting drawn back into go deep with me. Go deep. And so I was led into a very, very strange experience. I went to church, this little chapel every day and spent nine hours in prayer. If you had told me years ago I'd be spending nine hours in prayer, I would have said, well, I won't tell you what I would have said. I would have said, that's not possible. But I spent nine hours in prayer and in that prayer I was given two more stories. And the abbot said to me, the reason your prayer is told to you in this story. So he gave me this story, which I love. It's the story of two monks coming back to the monastery after they were out for a leisurely walk and one monk says to the other, you know what I would really like right now? And the monk says, what? He says, a smoke. I would love a cigarette. Wouldn't you? And he goes, absolutely. I would love a cigarette. And he said, you can ask. So they go to the monastery the next day. Meditation begins. One monk comes out and he's not very happy. He's walking all by himself around. He sees the other monk coming toward him, smoking. He said, hey, how come you get to smoke? And when I asked the abbot to smoke he said, no. He said, well, how did you ask the abbot? He said, I said, yes. He said, didn't you ask the abbot? He said, yes, I did. He said, how did you ask him? He said, Father abbot, when I go out for a smoke tomorrow, may I meditate? So when I, when I asked the abbot who gave me that story, what's this mean? He said, the problem with your prayer is you want to add prayer onto your life. You invite prayer into your worldly life. That's what you need to do. Invite your worldly life into your prayer, not the other way around. Don't live your worldly life and add prayer into your worldly life. That's not what you need to do. You need to invite prayer into your worldly life and add prayer on the ends. Prayer has to be at the center. God has to be at the center of your life. If God's not at the center, you're not a believer. This is what God said. He said, Mark, you are full of yourself. You are worried about what you want. You are only worried about what you need. You are not worried about me. 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