Vacation

As I write this, I am preparing to go on vacation. I sometimes feel guilty about taking vacations because there is always so much to do around here, but was told by a wise old priest that you have to take care of yourself so that you can take care of the people of God.

Vacations are nice to have because it is a time to get away and do something different and recharge. If you are like me though, I think that most of us feel that we need a vacation after we get back from vacation, because we are so tired from everything that we did while we are gone, and then dreading the piles of mail and emails that you have to go through when you get back, just to catch up.

 This trip is one that I am going on with a priest friend from Illinois and for a change we have a few things planned. We are planning on going to a few different Holy Sites including some churches, the tomb of St Patrick, the city of Armah where St. Malachy was bishop, Knock where there was an apparition of Mary and a few other places. It should be a wonderful trip. The funny thing is that when I usually travel, we have no real plan of where we will end up each day, we go toward a destination and then decide where we are going to stop the morning we are leaving.

The trip of our spiritual life is kind of the same. We know where our final destination is – Home or Heaven, but we do not always know the path that we are going to take to get there. Sometimes in our faith journey we have the straight and easy roads, sometimes we have a few twists and bumps, and sometimes we run into roadblocks and we have to turn around, but the good thing is that we are not alone, we have help. The journey can be confusing, it can be difficult, it can be exciting, and we sometimes even get a little lost because our GPS loses its signal, but we need to keep going towards that destination. One of the great blessings is that we have roadmaps (the Church, prayer, Holy Scripture, spiritual books, etc.) but most importantly we have been given a guide. God the Father did not want us to get lost. He sent His Son to be that guide for us, we simply need to follow. The journey of our physical life and that of spiritual life go together, one feeds off of the other. When we feed ourselves spiritually, it helps us physically and it gives us the energy we need to continue down the path of our lives, and when we feed ourselves physically it gives us the strength to keep moving. So… as I prepare myself to take some time to spend with a friend traveling, keep me in your prayers and know that I will keep you in mine.

God bless,
Fr. Ken