Something is different

When you work for "the Church", well at least with what I do, Lent is all about "retreats", reflection. Unfortunately as too often is the case, this does not include me. Oh my plans are grand, and I look toward Lent when I'm in the December break and think that I will go on a silent retreat and I will go to daily Mass, weekly Stations and get to confession early, and a host of other things,while helping everyone else, but I just don't seem able to make most not surprisingly or sometimes any of those things a reality shockingly.

I know it's my fault. And I pave the way with good intentions - but when choices come, I do the things I "have to get done", then I do for my own spiritual good - some role model! We have 1,700 families - let's face it I'm doomed with that attitude. I could never "be done" with what "needs" to be done.

So tonight, once again I stood staring down the barrel at my Holy Week duties, knowing that I didn't "retreat", but tonight, I stopped doing and was quiet.

And in that quiet, the memories and feelings of retreats of the past flooded my mind. I could see priests, a host of smiles, Adoration, a rambling beach house with quiet nooks for prayer, a forest view from the window of a rustic chapel, a heart-felt letter from my dearest friend. I felt a shift.

It doesn't make up for what I chose to miss, and I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I stopped and it tells me something is definitely different.