Priesthood from the Inside Out

When it comes to long-distance travel, most people book airline flights or drive Interstates. Personally, I prefer blue highways, those two-lane roads printed in blue, squiggly lines on foldout maps.

Invocations from the Litany of Loreto play in my mind as I drive through Indiana and across Illinois: Morning Star, Ark of the Covenant, Gate of Heaven.

Monks are uniquely connected to the place where they live. What happens to our place happens to us all.

When I was a boy, I’d walk into the house with pockets bulging with stones and pebbles, precious gems to a boy growing up on a Midwest farm with dirt lanes, creek banks and a gravel barnyard. My mother would make me empty my pockets outside the kitchen door. When she wasn’t looking, I’d go back and choose one or two of the stones and add them to the collection accumulating atop my bedroom dresser. Eventually, I started collecting baseball cards.

The shower swept through around 2 AM. I woke and listened to the sound of wind and water buffeting my house. If it were daylight, I would imagine a gleeful child aiming a garden hose at the windows and siding.