RBWords - Volume 22 - Number 5: May 2009
Something to Think About
The one thing that I have had foremost in my mind for the last couple of weeks is my move from St. Catharine, KY, to Austin, TX! I will be going through quite a transition. There will be geographic change, ministerial change, community change, personal space change, economic change, etc.
Austin, TX, is a large city. The past four years I’ve lived out in the middle of a rural Kentucky countryside! My work in Kentucky was primarily of a chaplaincy type at a Dominican sisters’ motherhouse, infirmary and college. My work in Texas will be itinerant ministry – going from parish to parish for “parish missions” and to retreat centers to preach retreats. Thus, I’ll be on the road a lot. I will go from living “by myself” in a small house on the motherhouse property to living with three other Dominicans in a nice blue-collar neighborhood on the southeast side of Austin. From having an entire house to myself, I will now have to cram a lot into my one room and community space here. From what was equivalent to a pastor’s salary at St. Catharine’s, I will now be dependent on whatever “gigs” I can get.
I’ve been doing parish missions and retreats on the side for years but now I will be doing them full time. I enjoy this kind of work (just as I have enjoyed campus ministry over the years). The rigors of travel are part of the asceticism of the job, to be sure. Different beds, different food, different water, different parishes/retreat centers…….these are realities that many of my brethren would not want to live with. My many years in campus ministry have given me a wonderful network of friendship across the country which my preaching ministry will allow me greater opportunity to enjoy because of the itinerancy. Your prayers are important to this ministry! Please keep me in your hearts and prayers that my transition will be smooth and my ministry effective. Your prayers and friendship make you my “partners in preaching” and I am so grateful to you all!
It Has Been Said
If I have faith, it is because I have met faith, I have seen it in action. And this faith is never a vague, pie-in-the-sky kind of thing. Heaven is not good because life is bad; the quality of our lives while we live them is preparation for heaven.
From AND IT WAS GOOD: REFLECTIONS ON BEGINNINGS by Madeleine L’Engle.
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