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A Time for Everything

Today is the Feast Day of St. Mark the Evangelist, a favorite of mine for obvious reasons. St. Mark was one of the four writers of the Gospels. Among other things, he’s quoted as saying, “For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul”. How true. In doing a little research, I found a Prayer to St. Mark: 

O, Glorious St. Mark
through the grace 
of God, our Father,
you became a great Evangelist,
preaching the
Good News of Christ. 
May you help us to know Him
well so that we may faithfully
live our lives as followers of
Christ.
Amen.

Today also marks the 5-year anniversary of when I first began posting these blogs. With roughly 1,600 on our email list, every Wednesday I send out a note of roughly 600 words. Although the topics vary, they most often have to do with real life issues, relating them back to our faith. Over five years, this is my 260th post, most of it being original content. 

Beginning with my conversion experience in March 2006 and based on my journey to date, I continue to believe that in understanding and internalizing the unconditional love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ that: 

  • The unimaginable is achievable,   
  • We can live Heaven here on earth, 
  • There’s a path to peace, joy, and fulfillment. 

As expressed in my book, online course, my talks, videos, and these blogs, I also believe that God made you and me for greatness, putting each of us individually on this earth with a specific purpose, with unique gifts and talents. 

I launched this blog right before my book came out. Having aspirations of sharing my message (really God’s message) with as many as possible, I was doing a fair amount of speaking, mostly local, and promoting myself and the ministry. We created an online course and promoted that too. Then COVID hit and we lost momentum. 

Something else happened over that time. I’m five years older, now sixty, and my priorities have shifted. With expanded responsibilities at work, I’m quite busy, including travel. Since the beginning, the writing and speaking have been done on the weekends and the older I get, the more I don’t want to be running in my off-time. Instead, I prefer hanging out with Cyndi and doing the things we enjoy on weekends. 

In discerning this, a couple questions come to mind. Is this about me or the message? Where can my greatest impact be? At Franciscan University of Steubenville, I have the privilege of leading a team of 30, in addition to being responsible for the 10 partner organizations that put on our conferences across North America. What if my efforts exclusively went towards them? What would the impact be, especially with our exponential reach? Understanding that these things aren’t mutually exclusive, where is God calling me?

There’s a time for everything. Life is made of decisions, and we can only say “no” if we have a stronger “yes”. All this to say that as a standard, we are going to begin posting once a month instead of every week. Given the time it takes to prepare each blog, I think it’s the right decision. My priorities (not the message but the means) have shifted and I feel God calling me in a slightly different direction. That doesn’t mean that we won’t be posting something else periodically, but our original content will be coming out monthly. 

I want to thank you for being on this journey with me. Your support is so appreciated. I know I’m biased but I don’t believe there’s a more important message to share. In fact, I am convicted that if more people knew the love of Christ, that we’d live in a much better country and world. Please pray for me as I do for you. We are experiencing very challenging times and clearly Jesus is the only answer. 

Btw, all my past blogs are on the website at https://markjosephministries.com/blog/. We have an online course as well as my book. If desirous and you have a financial issue, just email me and we’re happy to discount or provide them for free. Lastly, I’m happy to give the occasional talk or do a Parish Mission, especially locally. 

In closing, I want to thank two people. First, I couldn’t do any of this (website, blog posts, videos, etc.) without Mary Kate Cuccari, who’s the creative genius and designer behind the scenes. If you ever have the need, I’d recommend MK in a heartbeat. My wife Cyndi has always supported all of my endeavors, including this ministry. My best friend, I thank God for her every day. Thanks Babe!!!

As always, please email me at [email protected] with questions, concerns, comments, or prayer requests. 

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Remember…God made you for Greatness!!!

Mark Joseph

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Weekly Blog

What to do with Regret

We’re told we can expect two things in life, death and taxes. I often say a third we all experience is human tragedy. It doesn’t skip any of us…doesn’t matter our race or religion, gender, genetics, or socioeconomics. It could be something global like war, terrorism, or a natural disaster. Or it could be much closer to home like death of a loved one, divorce, addiction, or financial hardship. All of us are subject to it. 

One of the other things we all experience, I guess the 4th, is regret. If you’re human, you have regret. If you’re like me, you have regret. Regret is different than resentment, which is most often towards someone else….we typically resent others for offenses committed against us. 

Regret is a feeling of sorrow or remorse for a fault, act, loss, or disappointment. It’s typically what we feel when we’ve done something we wish we could take back…get a “do over”. It could be that we regret something that made a negative impact on us. More common I think is when we hurt someone else. Often times we’ve not done it intentionally. 

Bracketing my life in 10-year increments, I can remember regrets in every decade of my life. When I was single and married. Things I’ve done to my spouse, my kids, parents, siblings, and friends. Even collogues at work or mere acquaintances. Still to this day, I can’t tell you how many times I’d like to pull the words back in my mouth. Ouch!!!

So what do we do with it? You may have heard of Fr. Mike Schmitz. He’s not only a wildly popular speaker for our Steubenville Conferences, but the most popular Catholic podcaster there is, doing both the Bible in a Year and the Catechism in a Year. Not to my surprise, he has some great thoughts on regret. I’d suggest listening to his 8-minute talk here. In summary, he says, 

Have you ever heard the saying “don’t regret the past, because it’s made you into the person you are today?” While there’s truth to this saying, there’s also something that we as Christians should be aware of…we make mistakes, do things we wished we hadn’t, hurt those we love in the process.

While we don’t want to be burdened by the mistakes we’ve made, it’s safe to say that all of us have done things that didn’t make us the people God wants us to be.

Fr. Mike goes on to say…There’s a difference between regret and repentance, and it can best be seen when comparing St. Peter to Judas. Both men sinned gravely against the Lord: Peter denying Him during the time of His Passion and Judas delivered Him to crucifixion. The difference is, where Peter regretted his sins and repented, Judas let his sin consume him.

It’s okay to regret the things we’ve done in the past that took us away from the path of God, but we can’t dwell in this regret. Instead, we have to do something about it. We have to repent. Repentance is what gives us the strength to forgive ourselves and continue striving for the kingdom of Heaven. When we repent, we surrender ourselves and our mistakes to the Lord, and then He can use those mistakes to glorify our lives. God can use everything—even our worst sins—for our path towards eternity. Nothing given to God is ever wasted.

To me, repenting is authentically being remorseful (even apologizing) and trying to change….making improvements to who you are. 

At work we say the Divine Mercy Chaplet every day at 3PM.

One of the closing prayers reads as follows: Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to Your holy will, which is Love and Mercy itself.

God’s mercy is endless and He loves you more than you’ll ever know, no matter what you’ve ever done. He forgives you that much. We need to forgive ourselves.

As always, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] with comments, concerns, questions, or prayer requests. 

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Remember…God made you for Greatness!!!

Mark Joseph

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Weekly Blog

What Can I Do About It?

I don’t know about you, but I can’t believe what’s going on in our country and world…a sentiment I’ve expressed before, promising not to get political…same is true here. Too many bizarre things to list, the question that often comes to my mind is, “what can I do about it?” After all, the issues I’m referring to are national and international. I’m not involved in politics. I don’t have a platform. With rare exception, I’m not known…I don’t have a voice. And although I’m not complaining, my wife and I don’t have the wealth to make any significant impact. So again, “what can I do about it?”

Rick Warren
Matthew Kelly

Related, two of my favorites of our faith are Matthew Kelly (https://www.matthewkelly.com or https://www.dynamiccatholic.com) and Rev. Rick Warren, who I’ve mentioned before. Their messaging really speaks to me, whether it be their books, blogs, or talks. I’m going to reference both in relation to this blog.

It’s my lived experience that God gives us an opportunity to make a ministry out of our messes. Rev. Rick recently wrote in a post:

  • Life is full of heartache. We suffer, feel lonely, discouraged, and face criticism. And sometimes that can feel unfair.
  • Ask yourself this: Did Jesus suffer? Was he sometimes lonely? Was he tempted to be discouraged? Was he misunderstood and criticized unjustly?  Yes! Jesus understands suffering better than anyone.
  • None of us are exempt from suffering, loneliness, discouragement, or criticism, because God is developing in us the character of Christ. In order to do that, He takes us through some of the same struggles that Jesus experienced. 

In another post Rev. Rick states:

  • God will give you all the grace you need to endure hard times. But he also wants you to be willing to use your experiences to help other people. God doesn’t want you to waste your hurt! He may let you go through a period of darkness, depression, or discouragement so that you can comfort others with the same comfort he gives you.  
  • Your greatest life messages always come out of your weaknesses, not your strengths. 
  • The things in your life you wish you could change are often the very things God wants to use to help you grow in spiritual maturity and as a ministry. While God works in you, he also wants to work through you to help others.

Matthew Kelly wrote a book called Holy Moments. It speaks to how each of us individually have the opportunity to change others’ lives on a regular basis, one Holy Moment at a time. Like all of Matthew’s books, a great and easy read.

I think the answer to the question I pose above (“what can I do about it?”) is in combining these two concepts. In my life, it’s those things that I’ve most struggled with that God has most blessed in me helping other people…making a ministry out of my messes. Add to that the idea of Holy Moments, whenever you get the chance, on a regular basis. And although a Holy Moment doesn’t have to be specific to your giftedness, often born of your challenges, blessing others with your experience is a great way to do it.

How do I impact the craziness in the world? How do you do it? One Holy Moment at a time, using the gifts God gave us, given the experiences He’s blessed us with.

As always, please email me at [email protected] with questions, concerns, comments, or prayer requests.

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Remember…God made you for Greatness!!!

Mark Joseph

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Weekly Blog

The Pittsburgh Steelers and America

During the 1970s, I was 7 to 17 years old. What a great age, during an incredibly exciting time to be a Pittsburgh sports fan. We were the City of Champions. The Pirates had won 2 World Series and the Steelers 4 Super Bowls. Pitt won a National Championship in ’76 as well. The oldest of 4 boys, my brothers and I would swim and play baseball during the summer, but the other 8-9 months of the year it was football, football, football…with us pretending to be our favorite Pittsburgh Steelers. 


These days I often watch TV or DVDs while working out. Most recently I took in The Complete History of the Steelers (great watch), from when Art Rooney bought the team to when they won their 6th Super Bowl. Dan Rooney makes the observation that Pittsburgh was the City of Champions during the decline of the steel industry, and that the Pirates and Steelers gave people hope, something to really be excited about.

Too young to worry about the steel industry’s impact on the local economy, I fondly remember the hope, happiness, and excitement we had in Pittsburgh in the 1970s. What great times, whether you were at a game, watching on TV, or playing outside with family and friends. Being young, not having a care in the world. Seeing the good in people, the good in things. Having role models truly worth looking up to. An amazing time to be a young Pittsburgh sports fan. 

Still today my favorite sport is football and favorite time of year the fall. The turning leaves, temps in the 50s and 60s, the smell of autumn. What are your memories? How do you relate them to your life today? Times with your friends and family. Maybe related to particular events, sports or otherwise, or a favorite food. Maybe a holiday picnic, i.e., 4th of July. 

This might seem like a stretch but this time of year, around the time of the birth of our country, I’m incredibly grateful that I live in the USA. Although there are other places of the developed world where I’m sure I would have had a great childhood, I sincerely doubt that anyplace could have delivered like America. 

Whether Pittsburgh or Portland (no Steelers there). California or Colorado. Sioux Falls or Sarasota. We’re blessed to be in the United States. I know we have challenges, some very big ones right now, but think about it. What country would you rather be in? If like me…none. Our country has so much to offer. All the freedoms. All the opportunities. The resources, the niceties. 

That hope that existed in the 70s in Pittsburgh. That’s the hope I wish for today. For our kids and grandkids. For our country. And for the world. 

You’ve seen me write about an attitude of gratitude. With this being the day after July 4th, I thank God for our country and all those who have fought for it. I thank God for my journey and all the good memories (including those Steeler Super Bowls). He has us where we are because that’s where we’re supposed to be…with all our experiences (and memories). The question now for all of us is…what’s next? What’s God calling us to do with the experiences, memories, and yes…blessings we’ve enjoyed? 

As always, please email me at [email protected] with questions, concerns, comments, or prayer requests. 

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Remember…God made you for Greatness!!!

Mark Joseph

Categories
Weekly Blog

The Journey Isn’t Easy

Have you ever been in a rut, maybe for an extended period of time? I feel like that’s me. As I’ve expressed previously, it’s been a tough couple years professionally while our conference ministry is still recovering from COVID, especially the last 12 months. Recently I’ve been reminded of some lessons, principally the importance of:

  • Humility
  • Gratitude
  • Love 

Humility

Pride is considered one of the gravest of sins. And it’s certainly the root of most evil. Pride impacts our thoughts, decisions, responses (reactions), and actions. It’s not something we necessarily express or experience intentionally but develops in us over time. Pride creates in us this feeling that we’re always right…and when not agreed with, believing we’re under attack. 

Humility is the opposite of pride. In short, it’s understanding that there’s only one God and we’re not Him. To me, it’s internalizing that it’s not us in doing the things we do, but God working through us. Our gifts and talents are given to us by Him. He calls us to live out a specific purpose on this earth. We need to rely on Him, His Will for what that is and what we do. All of this is related to humility. 

These concepts don’t easily play themselves out in the moment, during the occasional tough conversations we have. I know that’s true for me. Btw, my biggest sin of my past was pride. I’m finding I’m still pretty good at it today…something I’m not proud of (no pun intended). Prayer is so important, as is study of our faith, and interacting with others on this journey. 

Gratitude

We’ve discussed it before…it’s so important to have an attitude of gratitude. It helps us with humility and fighting against pride. Before I go to bed, I’ve reestablished the habit of thinking through my day and being grateful for all the things that occurred…taking them to prayer.   

As related to potential pride and lessons learned, what is God trying to teach me (you) through challenging times? This has been something I’ve been struggling with. Pride can lead to self-pity…not a good characteristic. In faith, we need to understand that all things contribute to who God is making us to be, who He’s calling us to be. 

There are a couple expressions my wife and I really love: 

  • “You are where you are because that’s where you’re supposed to be”
  • “No matter where you go, there you are”

It’s every single experience or occurrence in our lives that makes us who we are today. Although it would be nice to be able to do so, you can’t carve out one here or there and still be you. Be grateful…I’m trying to do so daily. 

Love

I like to say that it’s in understanding and internalizing the unconditional love of Christ, that the unimaginable is achievable, we can live heaven here on earth, and there’s a path to peace, joy, and fulfillment. I still believe this to my core, but it’s not one and done. Ongoing conversion is a real thing, a needed thing. 

Born out of God’s love for us, we need to love Him and love others. Matthew Kelly talks about the concept of “holy moments”, which are all the ways to love others. I just watched a video by Fr. Mike Schmitz where he said, “we never need permission to do good”. He followed that up with, “be a person of hope”. Love, love, love them. 

It’s a Journey

Like you, I’m engaged in our faith. I’ve made progress on this journey, all by God’s grace. Yet I’ve still been struggling. As I just said above, it’s not one and done. For us to have a joy independent of substance or circumstance, we need to cling to the Cross. For me, I’ve had to double down on the faith related things I’ve been doing, including surrounding myself by the right type of people, brothers in Christ who speak truth into my life. 

We all fall down…and Jesus is always there to pick us up. We just need to “ask”. 

As always, please email me at [email protected] with questions, concerns, comments, or prayer requests. 

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Remember…God made you for Greatness!!!

Mark Joseph