The clinic will be with limited operating hours and services next week, starting 6/4-6/11 and possibly a couple extra days after as my son and I set off on a father son pilgrimage. 

I had jokingly commented on it to a patient realizing that this will likely be the most profound pilgrimage of my life up to this point.  This was before I knew the name of the destination. Now knowing the destination, which drew me to silence and awestruck wonder, I am quite certain it will be the most profound pilgrimage of my eldest son’s life.

Today, I went to Immaculate Conception Church in Reno to fill a couple holy water bottles and the Catholic stuff store was open.  This is somewhat random. I had felt compelled to stop at the Diocese Cathedrals and fill bottles of Holy Water at each of them, for purposes I cannot yet begin to fathom. So I stopped in, asked about them and the ones on display were the simple plastic ones. They’re too big for what I felt was the task.  He said he has smaller glass ones. I told him, yes. He went back and grabbed the box. He showed me what they looked like and the icon image of Mary on the bottle. I said, can I buy the box? Sure. I went out to my truck, grabbed my wallet, and came back in. He had a box of entirely different images on them.  The images are the Immaculate Conception Mary. I immediately said yes, those.  Bought all 12. I also grabbed seven new Saint medals I didn’t have. I knew this pilgrimage was gonna get my type of fun.  I had told the patient of the profound pilgrimage on the way to Immaculate Conception.

He thinks we are going to Chicago to look at his housing situation for this fall when he departs for medical school. We are. I knew it would be fantastic time together. I told him before I set out to plan the trip that there were a couple other places I wanted to go and we would go into Jackson afterward as its only another 3 hours each way from Chicago.  Washington DC is 8 hours from Jackson. While I’m that close, we might as well travel around and visit a few more Cathedrals. The farther I moved across the country writing down all the possible stops at as many Diocese Cathedrals along I-80 as I could, the more the planning took on a life of its own.

Then God also said to look up the parish of where I was in Nyack New York and even looking at the map and thinking about going back to that battlefield got my heart racing.  Saint Francis of Assisi Church in West Nyack and I have a divine appointment. Clearly, this place needs to occur.  God also brought to mind Hartford CT Archdiocese and the Parish where I interviewed for residency while watching the narrative of Mrs Davis’ requesting to be married to Jesus as a nun and the story of her being called to Him. It’s the place I was on my knees giving my life to Christ. I can only recall the situation. I don’t even remember the town I was such an emotional mess. I would like to go back to the place while having an emotional reserve and see what God does.

I knew I wanted to go back to this place. I have felt the call to go back to what I had referred to as the National Cathedral in Washington DC. I found myself there once before while in DC “sight-seeing” a few years back. I don’t even know why I would have picked that location, yet there I was.  Now I understand. God can write a narrative so much larger than we can even begin to fathom.

I’ll share the narrative of the pilgrimage that right now contains 37 possible Cathedrals and Archdiocese Cathedral/Basilicas while enroute to this destination of a pilgrimage I could never have conceived in my own silly brain.  I see no further requirement to bother planning the route home. It’d be getting ahead of myself by adding anything more to what He has already revealed thus far. God be with us.

Stay tuned. I wouldn’t even know what to expect from this.

What’s even more bizarre is that I read the title of my most recent blog post. It took my breath away.  Healing from our past often requires a pilgrimage to the places where the wounds were incurred and the battles survived…