Author Archives: Mark Kowalski

So today in formation, we started talking about the Sacraments and as you may imagine, we started with Baptism.  In discussing, we began to talk about how when Baptism happens, we are baptized as priest, prophet, and king.  Now I have never understood this and to be quite honest, every time I have heard this I just kind of let it go right over my head.  But this time it really stuck with me, and I think I finally get what it means.  When we are baptized, we become part of the family of God -

I was so blessed the other day to have a conversation with a good friend and brother who is visiting this week with some teens from Nashville.  He said something that really stuck with me, and it really got me thinking.  He said, speaking of the teens, “We want to teach them to fish.”  My mind immediately ran to Scripture: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” ~Luke 5: 10 My first thought was that the Lord is calling me everyday to be a fisher of men, and that is so true!

On Sunday, we finished up an awesome men’s retreat for high school guys from St. Monica’s near Atlanta.  The theme of the retreat was “Men of the Beatitudes.”  I was so blessed to hang out with 30 guys and grow closer to the Lord with them.  We pushed them all weekend, and they pushed us as well.  Sunday night, I was in bed by 9:00! So what does it mean to be a man of God, to be a man of the Beatitudes?  That’s a great question!  God revealed so much to me this past weekend and really showed

Here is a letter I recently sent out to all of my mission partners.  I wanted all of you to be able to read it. Peace be with you! God is love.  God is good.  God continues to move in such beautiful and amazing ways in my life each and every day here at Covecrest.  He continues to show me the Sacred Heart of His Son Jesus, and He continues to form my heart into a heart like the Sacred Heart.  Praise God! It’s now been five months since seven missionaries moved to Covecrest to begin this

“Every athlete exercises discipline in every way.  They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.  Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing.  No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.” ~1 Corinthians 9: 25-27 This morning in prayer, the word “discipline” came up as we read through our Rule of Life.  That word slapped me upside the head when I heard it..or the other analogy

One of the many blessings of being a LifeTeen missionary this year is the eight-day silent retreat we just completed on January 16th.  God blessed us so much during this time of complete solitude with Him. The Father completely transformed my heart during this time.  My life has been forever changed in a blessed way.  On the second day of the retreat, I began to see a red glow coming from the Host with about ten minutes left in Adoration.  Not sure if it was the light or not, I kept leaning

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” These words from Christ really struck me yesterday in formation. “Follow me.”  In reflecting on this mission year so far, I began thinking about the initial time when Christ called me to serve Him in this way.  A simple, come and follow me, from the Lord sparked me to drop what I had been doing and see where He wanted me to go.  Praise the Lord for this because my life before this call was all about my

Mexico was such an amazing trip!  The Lord truly used that time to really work in my heart.  Through God’s grace, we were able to do so much for the people there, and we were able to constantly receive blessings from the Lord.  This trip was so much more than doing work projects in a foreign land.  It was an opportunity to seek the face of Christ in each person we encountered, to love on them, and to let them love us.  The work projects we did were a great blessing to us.  We were able to build

Happy Advent!!  My heart is full of joy as we begin this great season.  I am so thankful right now for the many blessings God continues to shower down upon me.  I know that Thanksgiving was a week ago, but my heart is overwhelmed with how blessed I am. I want to take this opportunity to share about my parents, and how blessed I am to have them.  They have been married for 31 years now, and are both incredibly full of faith.  Last year, my Mom was diagnosed with Lupus, an auto-immune disease

We were asked this question the other day in formation.  God loves me more than I can possibly imagine.  I am His beloved son on whom His favor rests! So how did I respond to this question?  How can I respond to God’s love? First of all, I need to do a much better job of actually receiving His love.  It is so easy for me to put some sort of wall up that prevents me from receiving God’s love.  For some reason, I continue to fall into the lie that God is angry with me because of my failures