I am sitting at home reflecting on these past 3 weeks on the road with my mission team. For months I have been working on coordinating logistics for a 3-week campus missions road trip. It is incredible to see how well it all played out. Our team of eight–two sisters, two priests, two women missionaries, and two young men–learned to work so well together throughout our time on the road.
One of the biggest joys for me during this time was getting to meet the campus ministers, the chaplains, the FOCUS missionaries, and the hosts that I had been contacting leading up to the campus missions. I felt welcomed so warmly by people that I never met. I loved getting to put faces to the names that I had seen in my inbox for months. The generosity of hosts revealed the Providence of God and His abundant love for me, for the team, and for the people we were serving.
I was grateful that we were able to meet so many students and share the charisms of the Community of the Beatitudes. After spending time in Community houses in France and Denver it was important for me to have the rhythm of prayer stay consistent on the road. Our team prayer each day helped us to stay focused on the reason for our Midwest adventures–to witness to God’s love and to invite young people to go deeper!
Each weekend we were blessed to welcome both former pilgrims and new students on retreat with us. We shared Shabbat, Byzantine Vespers, and Israeli dances. The road trip helped me realize how this weekend routine that I have been living out for months has impacted me. I discovered just how needed true rest is and how God indeed invites us into this rest.
The last talk of the road trip that Fr. Anthony gave about the Jewish roots of the Catholic Faith. He touched on many things I had been hearing throughout my time with the community. He invited me up to give a witness about my experience of Shabbat. As I prepared to share, I saw in a new way what a gift it has been for me to share in Shabbat with the brothers and sisters of the community. I am someone who loves to be productive and be busy. In college I was involved in probably too many extracurricular activities that did not give me the freedom to truly rest. The Community helped me discover this gift. I have received from God the Father the call to rest, I have allowed myself to “enter into His rest.”
Before coming on the road trip, Sr. Sarah asked me during a Shabbat in Denver what this prayer meal meant to me. At the time I said I loved being more familiar with the prayers and being able to rest. Now I can look back and see how God has given me the grace of rest in the midst of busyness. During the road trip I felt immediately at home and at peace on the first Friday of our trip when I allowed myself to slow down and take a break from logistics. I was really able to sit and pray and be still.
No matter what is going on during a week or what stressors may be present in my life, when I am in community for the Shabbat prayers, I have been able to let go of those concerns and let God be God. I hope to keep this habit going, and I wish it for you! Thank you, Lord, for the gift of true rest. Thank you, Lord, for the joy of mission. Thank you for the ways you surprised me during these three weeks.
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. -Mt 11:28