At day's end...

At day's end these are my thoughts and prayers...

It was a good day, a very hot day - it was the day the Lord made!

A team of workmen covered our parish center (home of our offices) buzzing the building with hand held machines to scrape and prepare it for a fresh coat of paint. The buzzing was so loud it made a sound like hundreds of thousands of bees swarming around us. Someone else on the staff thought it sounded like a dentist's drill! In my air conditioned world I thought about folks who work in the heat all summer with no choice about it. A few of the days the Lord makes are better for some than for others...

A meeting I thought would be difficult was not as difficult as I anticipated: another's graciousness can make even rough patches smooth... Every day from the Lord comes with surprises and this one was a blessing...

Lunch with a family who moved from our parish several years ago to Philadelphia. Great to see them: Brendan and Elizabeth have grown up so much! Since leaving Concord, Gregory has come into full communion with the Catholic Church - welcome! And Angela's smile is as warm and genuine as ever. They have found a wonderful parish and I'm happy for them. I would love for them to return to Concord but that's probably a day the Lord doesn't plan to make...

Parish leadership meeting tonight in a very warm parish hall! At least we had food: pizza and nice sandwiches left over from yesterday's Wedding Anniversary reception after the 11:30 Mass. We're looking ahead to 2018 and doing our best to take informed, wise sensitive steps at planning for the future and setting our course in the right direction. The Lord may send all kinds of days over the next decade and we want to be ready for all of them... We're new at this and we need to be patient. What a wonderful cross section of parishioners and what great people to work with! I need to find a way to share with the whole parish that 32 people loved them enough tonight to spend three hours in a warm hall working on the future of their parish...

Then stopping by a favorite place for a drink with a friend, unwinding and relaxing at this day's end... Certainly limoncello is a proof for the existence of God!

Phone messages, text messages and emails carried good news, hard news, joys and sorrows, pain and healing all through this day... The Lord's day, the one he made, filters through our own households, workplaces, relationships, minds and hearts... Some were burdened by this day's heat while others basked in it as summer's beginning - all one day, the day the Lord made...

One day, one Lord, many experiences, many hopes, many needs, many prayers...

Most of today's "business" went unfinished: lots of loose ends, unresolved issues, unsolved problems, open-ended complexities everywhere!

A day at a time... A day at a time... A day at a time...

May the Lord of our days make this a night of peaceful rest for all...


-ConcordPastor