Go Away, Go Within

Thanks to a reader for directing me to this column from "Busted Halo" which offers vacation advice from Pope Benedict XVI.

Our dean in the seminary would tell us a line that had to predate him, as hackneyed as it sounded: "Gentlemen, there is no vacation from your vocation."  We knew that he was right (Papa Kelly always was!), but it took me a fair amount of living to fully appreciate it.

We don't seem to get a pass from anything that truly pertains to our vocation and to its resultant changes in our identity.  I am always configured to the person of Christ, the Head and Spouse of the Church.  Husbands and wives are always identified in relation to one another.  Our actions have to reflect that all the time.

This is particularly true with parents.  When you have a child, yes, you can send entrust him or her to grandparents or other babysitters for a time, but little Oscar or Matilda doesn't cease for that time to be your own.  Responsibility for the child's welfare does not cease, even though you may be bold enough to share it with your trusted caretakers.  I have great reverence for parents on this account.

The time we spend either away from our workplaces or with a significantly lighter workload doesn't exempt us from performing certain tasks that are constitutive of being husband/father, wife/mother, consecrated religious, deacon, or priest.  It certainly doesn't allow us to do things that we'd otherwise be ashamed to do or to be caught doing.

May God be our witness--everywhere!