The Deacon’s Wife and I will be heading out the door later today, bound for JFK Airport to begin our journey to Rome for the Jubilee for Deacons.
Blogging may be light; we’ll see how the wi-fi is.
I’ll be in Rome all week, giving a talk Friday afternoon at a quaint little parish church calledSanta Maria sopra Minerva.
My topic: “The Deacon as Image of Mercy in the Workplace.”
If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and say hello!
Along the way, we’ll be celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary, catching up with priests and seminarians from Brooklyn, visiting a few sites, breaking bread with some deacon friends, stopping by a basilica or two, and joining the Holy Father for Mass in St. Peter’s Square next Sunday morning.
But above all, for me this is a journey of thanksgiving, a chance to reflect with wonder and joy at the last nine years of ministry and the many people who have touched my life, and changed my life, since the moment I rose from my knees at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and faced the world as an ordained servant of God and his Church.
The last time I passed through the Holy Door at St. Peter’s, in the summer of 2000, I prayed in a special way for my mother and father, who had both died several years earlier. I wanted somehow to say “thank you” to them. I can’t help but think my vocation was the result of that—their gift to me.
This week, passing again through the Holy Door, I will be praying my thank yous for the people in my parish—the brick and mortar one in Queens and the virtual one here. I still can’t believe I’m able to do what I do week after week, year after year. I’ve been blessed beyond measure.
Now, I’ve got to finish packing …
See you in Rome!
And today we celebrate...