at the end of the day

Las Vegas Cathedral

At our parish’s Confirmation Mass tonight, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley challenged the Confirmation Candidates in the pews—and all of us by extension—to live out the Catholic faith in all and every aspect of daily life.

Quoting the now familiar saying by St. Francis ofAssisi, “preach the Gospel, and if necessary, use words,” the Archbishop added, 

“You can’t compartmentalize faith. Live it out at school, at work, with your friends and family, on Facebook and other social media, in everything you do!”

Mary on the hood of a car

Playa del Carmen, Mexico

In her dignity and faithfulness, Mother Mary embodies the heart of this true discipleship. I find great comfort in knowing that Mary understood mystery in her life, the same mystery that as Christians we live out daily, hoping to understand God’s vision and desire for our life.

We know she said ‘yes’ in complete freedom at the Annunciation. She also said ‘yes’ to raising a child who was the Son of God. She said ‘yes’ every time she accompanied him during his ministry. She said ‘yes’ when she saw him suffer and die at the cross. And she said ‘yes’ when the Holy Spirit came to her and the apostles at Pentecost.

She was a woman, like us, who said ‘yes’ daily. And in so doing, she chose to truly LIVE everything, and she chose to live everything with God.   

On the wall of a chapel at Notre Dame University

viva el Papa Francisco!

Papa Francisco I

first Pope from the Americas, ergo

first Latino Pope

first Jesuit

first to call on and take the name of Francis of Assisi,

the great reformer of the Church!

+     +     +     +     +

"And now let us begin this journey, the Bishop and people, this journey of the Church of Rome which presides in charity over all the Churches, a journey of brotherhood in love, of mutual trust. Let us always pray for one another. Let us pray for the whole world that there might be a great sense of brotherhood ." 

~Pope Francisco's first words, 13 March 2013,  full text here

Not everyday can be a 23 mile day

"Time is the measure of actual sound as well as of the opposite, its omission." 

~Franco of Cologne

When my friend Pat and I walked the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage across northern Spain, we learned to live out a rhythm that blended each person's needs, our joint goals, and, always, the unforeseen, unexpected changes and challenges in weather and landscape.

One fabulous June day, everything was in perfect sync. The weather was cool, sunny, full of shade through glorious 1,000-year-old forests. We were high on walking, singing, skipping, imagining St. Francis of Assisi walking through the woods and talking to the huge trees that longed to embrace us. There was a moment when we stopped to decide whether to stop for the day, but we felt so good, so excited, so full of energy, that we whole-heartedly agreed to just keep going. We walked and sang our way through 23 miles that day, arriving at Portomarín, a stunning town surrounded by water, high on a hill, with a Romanesque church in the middle of the square named after St. Nicolás that looked like both a church and a castle. Even after 8 p.m. Mass that evening, we sat up and laughed over a bottle of local wine, too wired to sleep.

The next day, however, was a different story. Walking 23 miles in one day is not an unthinkable task, but it can be an extremely difficult challenge when one has to get up the next morning at 5:30 a.m. and do it all over again! As we left our fairytale town on a hill, it was obvious from the get go that we were exhausted in body, mind, and spirit, too tired to even talk to each other.

I don't remember exactly how many miles we managed to walk that next day, but I do remember vividly how out of harmony we felt with ourselves and with each other.

Yesterday, as I slowly canvassed the sand on North Padre Island for shells, I was reminded of that amazing 23-mile perfect day. Michael and I are on the coast this week, both feeling the urgent need to just be, sit, listen to the waves--and not accomplish anything in particular. 

by "coincidence," I found an extensive collection of 

scallop shells, the symbol of the Camino!

As I wrote recently, we've had an unusual, amazing, beautiful, one-of-a-kind high number of blessed events in our family in the past half a year. Like that glorious day in the woods, I have sung, danced, celebrated, cried with joy, and thanked God profusely for these new blessings in our lives.

In musical terms, a "rest" is an interval of silence in a piece of music that usually highlights the notes, the moment in time, that comes before, or after it. A rest is marked by a symbol that gives it a particular note value, indicating the length of the pause.


What I realized yesterday as I sat on the edge of the ocean listening to the vastness before me, is that I'm in a long rest, a four-measure rest--a silence four-times the duration of a whole rest.

I'm experiencing that next day, the day after the 23 miles, when Pat and I were keenly reminded by our bodies, minds, and hearts, that in the Camino, as in life, we can't experience a full symphony every day.