"Come away..."

As anticipated, life has gotten quite busy as Lent comes to a head and the holy days of Christ's Passion, death, and Resurrection come fast upon us.

As if (and surely it is) by God's good Providence, I happen to have scheduled my annual retreat at the precise moment when all the busyness and noise of life was seeming to crescendo to an unappeasable pitch. So, I now turn off the radio of life for a time, and turn to answer the Lord's call given to his disciples in the sixth chapter of Mark's Gospel:

³⁰ The apostles returned to Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. ³¹ And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. ³² And they went away in the boat to a lonely place by themselves.

Please pray for me as I now enter into retreat, and be assured of my prayers for all of you.