Back from Texas

After a week and a half of travel, I'm back in the great state of Iowa. Sorry that my postings were so infrequent in the past couple of weeks. I didn't have regular internet access and, when I did, I had to respond to parish emails and the like. I found my time in Texas, at points, to be a time of intense prayer and reflection. Generally, I would awake a couple of hours before I needed to be somewhere and pray and say mass privately. I was going to go to St. Mary's parish on the campus of the University of Texas A&M for daily mass but I decided that I needed a little time away from people. Those mornings would prompt a lot of prayer, especially these past few days for Pope John Paul. The tough thing about being a priest on vacation is that you are constantly worried about how things are going back in your parish. I imagine some business owners go through a similar situation but I'd prefer to think of it like a parent who leaves adult children. I kept wondering who died in my parishes and if someone answered the letters I sent out before leaving asking people to consider vocations to priesthood and religious life and what meetings I missed. I'm getting caught up on all that and, as usual, everything was handled well when I wasn't here. Now I just have to clear off my desk of tasks before I go to a meeting tonight. I taped the state of the union and hope to watch it before supper. So many tasks, so little time.