We talked about how he learned about Ukon Takayama, a Catholic samurai who is up for canonization. During his time teaching art the university, my friend strove to dive deep into learning more about Takayama by visiting the places around Osaka associated with him since Takayama is from the Osaka area.

Later that year, he painted a large painting depicting Takayama. Long story short, later that year he submitted it to the Vatican, and the Vatican Museum is currently hanging onto it! My friend made smaller copies of this large painting to give to various locations around Osaka, to which he’d be returning in another trip to Japan.

I helped my friend by paying for his material costs for four copies of the painting. He eventually delivered these copies on his next trip to Japan in early 2018. I got to see these paintings in Texas before he brought them over to Japan! Before his trip, I signed the back of them all, and also submitted prayer intentions given to me by others in my parish young adult group.

Unfortunately, my business trips to Japan ceased in 2017, and I haven’t been able to visit Osaka. However, recently (July-August 2019), I was able to tag along for a business trip, and I decided to go seek out these paintings during my one free weekend.

I figured that a day trip pilgrimage would be appropriate to find these paintings.

Planning

Before leaving for my business trip, I asked my friend to recall where the copies of the painting were. One is in Osaka’s cathedral, another one in a parish church outside of Osaka, and two are at a distillery in Kyoto.

Fortunately, since I was on a business trip, my company paid for me getting to/from Japan from Texas. And my work location is in central Japan so getting over to Osaka and Kyoto for a day trip was pretty easy.

The only planning I needed to do was timing of visiting the places given that it may be a struggle finding the paintings once at a location. For costs, I only anticipated transportation costs using the bullet train and local trains to get around. Food-wise, perhaps just lunch and convenient stores for drinks. 

So on Saturday morning, I escorted some of my first-time-to-Japan coworkers to Kyoto, and continued my way on to Osaka.

Pilgrimage Details:

Location: Osaka, Japan and surrounding area

Time Required: 1 Day

Cost: $$

Transportation: Bullet train, local train/subway, walking

Accommodation: None

Essentials: Water, prayer intentions, camera on smartphone

This pilgrimage was completed on August 3, 2019.

Itinerary:

• 0700 Big breakfast at hotel (free due to hotel loyalty status)
• 0832 Depart to Osaka on bullet train/shinkansen
• 0920 Arrive Shin-Osaka Station
• 0945-1130 Visit the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception for Takayama painting
• 1230-1630 Lunch/shelter from heat
• 1700-1745 Visit Our Lady of Guadalupe, Hirakata
• 1930 Depart Osaka on bullet train/shinkansen
• 2015 Return to Nagoya

*Sorry for the military time, just subtract 12 if time is greater than noon

Map

Points of Interest

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception – Osaka, Japan

This cathedral is located just south of Osaka Castle. It was previously named after St. Agnes, but it got destroyed in an earthquake decades ago. The church was renamed to honor the Virgin Mary after being rebuilt.

It has a small chapel to the left side of the church dedicated to St. Francis Xavier, the first missionary to Japan, and to St. Agnes, the original namesake of the church. 

The church also has a relic of Ukon Takayama, and due to renovations in the main part of the church, it is currently kept at the side chapel. The relic is a piece of cloth from Takayama’s tunic.

Most striking feature of the cathedral is the giant mural of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the back wall depicting her holding the child Jesus, both dressed in Japanese traditional wear.  I would show a picture, but taking pictures inside is prohibited. :-/

The painting I was looking for is located in a side room off of the narthex of the cathedral. The room remains locked when not in use.

Our Lady of Guadalupe – Hirakata, Japan

Our Lady of Guadalupe is a neat little church located on a hill in Hirakata. You can easily see it from the nearby train station. 

It is small inside, but it has a large painting/poster of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the right, front side of the church. That’s pretty wild because Our Lady of Guadalupe is a Mexican icon. But this is in the middle of Japan in the suburbs. Crazy!

The painting is located in the main hallway of the adjacent parish hall.

Stats and Achievements

• Pokemon Go players encountered: 20+
• Steps walked: 16,400+
• Miles walked: 6+ miles
• Total Cost = ~$135 USD
  • Transportation = $118 USD
  • Lodging = $0 USD
  • Food = $10 USD
  • Other = $7 USD

Response

Honestly, my only goal for this pilgrimage was to see these paintings where they’re currently hanging. I haven’t seen these paintings since my friend completed them 2 years ago back home in Texas. It was really cool to see them at both the cathedral and the other church. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and energy to be able to go seek it out the paintings located at the distillery in Kyoto.

Central Japan gets very hot and humid in July and August, and it was pretty miserable being out and about walking around. With a pilgrim’s attitude, I know that such weather conditions brings about suffering and discomfort, and that is totally okay! #Penance

Despite the simplicity in motivation and the challenge of hot weather, I still have a few takeaways from this pilgrimage. 

Ask and You Shall Receive

While at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, I had a bit of an awkward time. I didn’t really find anyone around the cathedral when I first stepped inside. I figured that I ought to stop and pray a bit while waiting so I did. However, I could only do so briefly because they were not running the air conditioner, and it was pretty warm inside.

When I walked up to the cathedral, I noticed that there was a Pauline bookstore and gift shop caddy corner to the cathedral. After sweating in church for a few minutes, I decided to go check it out and hopefully find a religious sister who could possibly help me out.

I went into the bookstore, and I was immediately greeted by a sweet, Japanese religious sister. She spoke limited English, but I was able to communicate that I was looking for my friend’s painting. It helped that I showed a photo of the painting to her. She didn’t know where it was so she directed me to the parish office.

I went to the parish office, but again, I didn’t immediately see anyone. It had a little waiting area, but this being Japan, it was one of those waiting areas that I had to remove my shoes. I stood around for a while in my socks, but realized I heard some voices coming from the offices. I waited some 20 minutes before I encountered another religious sister. I had the same conversation with her about the painting, and it seemed like she knew where it was, but didn’t know how to tell me that in English for me to understand. She led me outside, but instead of leading me to the church, she led me to another religious sister!

This third religious sister, thankfully, spoke better English and even some Tagalog (Filipino). We were able to communicate. She apparently knew where the painting was, and led me back to the narthex of the cathedral where she unlocked a side room door. This door led to a side meeting room, and lo and behold–there it was!

Finally! Giving it some thought, I found the whole ordeal to be amusing that it took me three religious sisters to get to it, but at least I know where the painting hangs at Osaka cathedral!

I could have easily given up, and the heat made everything miserable…but…I asked–no, kept asking–and I received! Isn’t that how it typically works with God? He’ll answer your prayers, but maybe not in the timeframe you’re looking for.

Praying for Us

The second painting I found at Our Lady of Guadalupe was pretty easy. It’s hanging in their parish hall. Again, when I arrived, no one was around.

Since the painting was hanging at arm’s length, I was able to lift it off the wall a little bit to check its backside. This was important for me to do because my signature is on the back of each of these copies of the painting, and prayer intentions from my young adult group are also written. And when I lifted this copy, I could verify my signature and our prayer intentions are still with the painting. Amazing. I’m hoping that people in Japan are still praying for us as I’m praying for them.

A Samurai’s Story

Ukon Takayama’s story still serves an inspiration for me. The current culture seems rather hostile towards the faith, and we’re not supposed to give into the culture or renounce our faith even if the authorities impose and oppress. Takayama did not give in despite losing everything. And that’s inspiring to me. Here’s a little more info on him. 

Concluding Thoughts

I’m really glad I was able to have another business trip to Japan. It’s been a few years. And I’m really grateful that I had the opportunity to go find copies of these Ukon Takayama paintings that my friend painted. It’s really cool to think that I can share in the joys and prayers of the Japanese Catholic Church, particularly in Osaka, as they await the canonization of one of their own.

This pilgrimage was short and sweet. I would’ve been a little more touristy visiting other popular areas of Osaka, and I probably would have made it over to the Kyoto distillery to seek out the third copy, but again, the heat made it pretty miserable. Even then, I think it goes to show that it’s possible to go on short, day-trip pilgrimages.

Want to see more pilgrimage reports? Here are some previous ones:

• Treasures of the Church 2019
• St. John Vianney Relic Tour, Atlanta, GA 2018
• The Catholic Man Show Campout 2018
• Into the Desert, Phoenix, AZ 2018

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post Pilgrimage Report: Seeking Samurai 2019 appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

A week prior, I was at work just sitting at my desk when I received an interesting email from a coworker. Lots of people that I know from my parish were copied on it. The email contained information about a traveling relic tour of over 160 relics! 

I made a note to look into the details of the event.

Conveniently, the church where the event would be held is near where I live and work! 

The relic tour is hosted by a ministry called Treasures of the Church. It is run by two priests that bring a Vatican collection of relics around the world at the invitation of parishes. They have relics from over 160 saints, and all of them except 6 are first-class relics.

I wrote a blog post on relics, so be sure to check that out.

Some of the most amazing relics are from Jesus’ Passion including a thorn from His crown of thorns, and some of the largest available pieces of His cross that He was crucified on. Other really cool ones include a piece of the Virgin Mary’s veil, a piece of St. Joseph’s cloak, and bone fragments of the OG apostles (minus Judas).

You can check out more info at their website right here.

Pilgrimage Details:

Location: St. Peter the Apostle, White Settlement, TX

Time Required: 3 hours

Cost: $0 (except gas used)

Transportation: Car

Accommodation: None

Essentials: Prayer intentions notebook

Itinerary:

• 1800 Leave home
• 1830 Arrive at St. Peter’s
• 1900 Event starts with a talk
• 1945 Talk ends, relic veneration
• 2130 Finished up, didn’t stay to visit every relic

Map

Points of Interest

Talk

Fr. Carlos was the priest who gave the presentation. He gave an excellent talk on the Church’s view on relics. I took some notes down, and I’ll likely update my own relic post with some of the new information that I learned from him! Having the background on relics was important because it gave context and a really good explanation of why we even have them in the first place.

He also focused on how to respond to encountering these relics, and how to allow God’s grace to work through His saints, who are definitely with Him. He also shared a handful of stories of miracles related to the relics just by him giving these relic talks and expositions of the relics. Really crazy.

One main theme Fr. Carlos focused on was forgiveness. He went into the full detail of St. Maria Goretti’s story. You can read up on her here. I’ll share more about it below.

All in all, the talk was helpful in preparing all of us in attendance to encounter these relics.

Veneration of the relics

Since I happened to sit on the side of the church closest to the table of relics with the apostles’ bone fragments, Our Lady’s veil, and St. Joseph’s cloak, I got in line for that one. Wow, I just remember being in awe because that’s a pretty insane set of relics to encounter.

After venerating those relics, I went over to the gym of the adjacent Catholic school where they had set up rows and rows of tables for the remainder of the relics.

Each table had 6 or so relics of many different famous saints. Most relics were bone fragments. It was difficult maneuvering around in the gym because most everyone were in a constantly moving line from table to table in order to venerate the relics. I remember just being constantly wow’d because I’d see one of my favorite saints represented.

After the gym, I thought about getting in line to venerate relics from Jesus’ Passion, but it was already too late at that point, and I had to work the next day so I decided to leave.

Stats and Achievements

• Shortest pilgrimage reported so far (as of 7/5/2019): 3 hours
• Venerated relics: ~55

Response

Despite this being a short pilgrimage, I still had a few takeaways:

We’re not alone

Encountering these relics helped me remember that there are most excellent examples of people who have come before that lived the way, the truth, and the life even if imperfectly. They’re an inspiration and witness for me! Since these people are canonized saints, the Church can say that we’re 99.99999% sure these people are in heaven, and they’re even more alive with God praying for us. It was overwhelming to see that many relics in one place, not gonna lie, but these relics serve as a tangible reminder of the fact that we have Christian brothers and sisters who can be such great examples of living out the Gospel for us.

Forgiveness is key

The last major point that Fr. Carlos had for us was forgiveness. Refusing to forgive is the hardest roadblock we tend to have in order to have a fruitful encounter with God. And with these relics. 

I was immediately put to the test! Again, I left the church rather quickly knowing that I have work the next day. When I drove home, I stopped to get gas, and there I noticed that a corner of my front bumper had been scratched up rather badly. I think someone in the church parking lot took a shallow corner into their parking spot next to mine. Honestly, I was really frustrated because I had just replaced two tires and wasn’t looking to spend more money to repair my car.

But! Because of the talk and encountering the relics…I decided to forgive whoever it was, even if they won’t hear it from me personally. I know I can’t get too caught up in this incident because it ultimately doesn’t matter–what matters is my interior disposition towards the person and how I’m responding to this incident.

Besides…on the optimistic side…because I’m an engineer and striving to be frugal…maybe I can learn how to do the repair myself! (or find a good deal paying someone else to fix it, lol).

All the saints, holy men and women–pray for us!

Want to read more pilgrimage reports?

Here are a few of my recent ones!

• St. John Vianney Relic Tour in Atlanta, GA
• The Catholic Man Show Podcast Camp Out 2018 at Clear Creek Abbey
• Into the Desert! Phoenix, AZ 2018

Featured Photo by Michal Mrozek on Unsplash

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post Pilgrimage Report: Treasures of the Church 2019 appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

Just to give you a brief background, I’ve known of Jason since high school, but we’ve only ever really became friends after college when both of us became both involved in youth ministry. Honestly, I can credit Jason with introducing me to pilgrimages when I helped with chaperoning youth to pilgrimages he led, including pilgrimages to the annual March for Life in Washington, DC and the international World Youth Days that occur every few years.

We met up earlier in 2018 to catch up, as it had been a long while, and to talk about pilgrimages for youth and young adult ministry when we realized that we both have pilgrimage projects. His, a YouTube channel, and mine, a blog. With our powers combined…

…we decided to collaborate on some pilgrimages going forward!

Looking at different weekends, we settled on a handful of possible dates for the remainder of 2018 and into 2019. He had several ideas on what pilgrimages to do, and I had a few as well. Long story short, it just so happened that the relic of St. John Vianney, a famous parish priest and canonized saint, would be touring the United States in the winter of 2018 sponsored by the Knights of Columbus.

The closest the relic would be to Texas, where Jason and I hail from, and the weekend that worked best meant that we could go see it in Atlanta, GA at the beginning of December. We corresponded via texts and calls to line out preliminary plans and decided a few things like renting a car, using some hotel points I have, and leveraging staying at monasteries for reduced lodging costs. We’d also share costs and driving time in order to pull this off. Actually, we originally thought of flying to Atlanta but after running some numbers, we opted to just rent a car to save a few hundred dollars.

Regarding more info about the relic—it’s St. John Vianney’s heart! Amazingly, despite St. John Vianney living over 150 years ago, his heart has not reached a level of decay that you’d expect for someone who’s been physically dead for that long! We say his heart is “incorrupt”. I explain what relics are, why they’re important to pilgrimages, and provide some crazy examples in this blog post.

Read on to catch the details of our pilgrimage to see St. John Vianney’s heart!

Pilgrimage Details

Location: Atlanta, GA / Hanceville, AL
Time Required: Weekend (Fri-Sun)
Cost: $$
Transportation: Car
Accommodation: Hampton Inn / St. Bernard’s Abbey/monastery
Essentials: Prayer intentions, rental car, camera equipment (for YouTube), money for food, clothes for cold/rain

Itinerary (estimated)

Friday:

• 0700 Meet up
• 0800 Grab rental car
• 0830 Leave Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
• 1230 Lunch at Raising Cane’s in Ruston, LA
• 1930 Dinner at Arby’s in Irondale, AL
• 2230 Check in at Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta Buckhead Place
• 0000 Go to bed

Saturday:

• 0700 Wake
• 0730 Check out and drive
• 0800 Arrive at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in northern Atlanta
• 0830 Mass
• 0900 Venerate St. John Vianney’s heart
• 1000 Confession
• 1030 Drive to Atlanta’s cathedral
• 1100 Attempt to visit Basilica
• 1230 Lunch at original Chik-fil-a in Hapeville, GA
• 1330 Leave and drive
• 1600 Arrive at St. Bernard’s Abbey in Cullman, AL
• 1600-1730 Wander, check-in, gift shop
• 1730 Pray Vespers with the monks
• 1800-2000 Dinner at Moe’s BBQ in downtown Cullman, AL
• 2030 Retire to rooms

Sunday:

• 0615 Check out and leave
• 0630 Arrive at Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, AL
• 0700 Mass
• 0800-1000 Visit Mother Angelica’s grave, walk around the grounds, take pictures/video
• 1030 Leave and drive
• 1230 Drive-thru lunch at Jimmy John’s in Meridian, MS
• 1730 Take out Whataburger in Marshall, TX
• 2000 Arrive back in Dallas/Fort Worth
• 2030 Home

Map

Points of Interest

Friday

Nothing too exciting to explain here. Jason and I met up early in the morning in order to go grab the rental car. The challenging part of driving this day was the fact that in rained or drizzled heavily the. entire. time. Despite driving across 3-4 states, we couldn’t escape the rain. Thankfully, along the way, we had great conversations regarding pilgrimages and ministry. We also recorded video for Light & Heavy.

For food, we stopped at Raising Cane’s in Louisiana for lunch. Jason had never been before! And for dinner, we stopped at an Arby’s in Alabama.

We arrived in Atlanta kind of late in the evening. It was funny and awkward because I didn’t realize the Hampton Inn I had booked was literally one or two blocks away from another Hampton Inn, and we went to the wrong one first! The front desk couldn’t find my reservation, and I freaked out a bit. Thankfully, we were able to sort it out and go to the right one.

Saturday

We woke up early in the morning in order to catch Mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in northern Atlanta. Driving to the church, we passed by a large neighborhood full of multi-million dollar mansions. How do I know they cost that much? I checked.

Holy Spirit Catholic Church was where the relic would be in Atlanta, and this morning would be the last chance to see it in Atlanta before it went on to its next portion of the tour.

Holy Spirit Catholic Church

Arriving at the church, it was cold, dreary, and somewhat wet. It’s a huge church where the main part of it has really tall ceilings. Parts of the walls share the same aesthetic as the pews, which is a dark wood. Really nice looking.

Since we arrived a little early before Mass, we had some time to pray, record video, and take pictures. As Mass was about to start, the church filled with people. Now, I wasn’t sure if most people were there solely because of the relic, but since it was the feast of the Immaculate Conception, it’s a safe bet that most people were also there to fulfill their holy day of obligation to go to Mass due to the feast.

The Mass was great. The priest was quite memorable because he had a heavy-enough Irish accent with a personality of an enthusiastic yet senile, old man.

After Mass, two lines formed around the perimeter of the nave of the church for the St. John Vianney Relic Tour in order to venerate his heart. Thankfully, the line moved along decently. Jason caught this cool photo of me venerating the relic and praying for the prayer intentions I carried with me:

One crazy thing about visiting the relic was seeing a friend of mine. So, I support only one missionary, and he’s a missionary for the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (or FOCUS). FOCUS missionaries get assigned to different universities in order to form disciples for Christ. During Mass, I realized that the guy sitting a few pews in front of me was, in fact, the one missionary I support. After Mass and venerating the relic, of course I had to catch up with him (briefly)! Turns out, and I missed this point previously, he’s a missionary at a Georgia college two hours away. He took his discipleship group of young men to come venerate the relic. Therefore, it is entirely crazy to me but not surprising at all for me to run into him!

When we finished venerating the relic, both Jason and I hit up Confession. The Irish priest from Mass was hearing confessions. Obviously, I don’t divulge what we talked about, but I could tell that Father struggles with memory because he called me “Jason” at least once (Jason went right before me), and asked me where I was from a few times. Memorable, indeed!

Atlanta In General

After visiting Holy Spirit Catholic Church, we drove a little in order to get to the cathedral, Cathedral of Christ the King. Jason and I agree that visiting the cathedral of major cities is a cool thang to do. And he wanted to show it to me because I had never been.

We took some pictures and recorded some B-roll video at the cathedral, and we also took a little bit of time to pray.

Feeling hungry, we headed off to go visit the original Chik-Fil-A. I know Chik-Fil-A is wildly popular, but I don’t think most of us waffle fry devourers appreciate the fact that it originated in Atlanta. The original standalone Chik-Fil-A is in Hapeville, GA, right by Atlanta’s airport. Inside is a diner-style cafe as well as a typical fast food-style Chik-Fil-A. The cafe side has an expanded menu! We attempted at waiting for a table or counter, but decided that it would take too long. We opted to do the fast food side instead. And I’m totally cool with that because you can’t go wrong with Chik-Fil-A, no matter how fast or slow it is!

With delicious chicken sandwiches, waffle fries, and chocolate chunk cookies satiating our hunger, we set off to visit the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus near downtown. Unfortunately, the basilica wasn’t open so we awkwardly look like we were trying to break in as we tried most of its doors. Unsuccessful, we hopped back into the car to drive back to Alabama.

St. Bernard’s Abbey

We drove the 3 or 4 hours to get back to the Birmingham area. As part of the pilgrimage planning, Jason saw that we could stay at St. Bernard’s Abbey in Cullman, AL since it’s near the Most Blessed Sacrament Shrine, our goal for Sunday Mass. We arrived a little later in the afternoon and spent a good while trying to figure out where on the grounds of the monastery was our rooms. It’s confusing because they have a retreat center, and they also have accommodations available inside of the monastery itself.

To get more info and to kill some time, we stopped by the gift shop. Did some light shopping. And Jason asked the cashier about where our rooms were at. We were able to get it all sorted out and find our rooms inside of the abbey. Similar to my experience at Clear Creek Abbey, the room was simple with a sink, twin bed, desk, chair, and wardrobe.

We settled into our rooms briefly, but then headed into the church to catch Vespers with the monks. Prior to this, I’d never been to a Benedictine monastery where they pray in English so it was a treat to be able to understand what monks were chanting!

After Vespers, we got into the car again to grab dinner at Moe’s BBQ downtown. The food was delicious, the beer was cold, and Jason and I had great conversations regarding ministry. After dinner, we headed back.

I tried staying up, but I felt really tired. I ended up going to bed at 8:45PM!

Sunday

Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament

Knowing that Mass was at 7AM, we left St. Bernard’s pretty early. Thankfully, it’s just down the highway (country road?) from the shrine so we were able to get there early enough before Mass.

It’s a little strange driving up to the shrine because it feels like you’re somewhat in the middle of nowhere in Alabama, but as you get closer and closer to it, the more and more it feels like you’re in Italy. In particular, Assisi. Crazy!

The Shrine is gorgeous, and Mass was really great. It’s weird because you hardly see the Carmelite nuns, but you can hear them singing beautifully.

After Mass, we went down to the crypt church to visit the tomb of Mother Angelica, foundress of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). In the American Catholic world, EWTN is a major media conglomerate comprising of radio, television, news, and social media platforms. Mother Angelica passed away in 2016 due to health reasons.

Emerging from the crypt, we headed outside. Jason wanted footage of the grounds so we headed back to the car to grab our cameras.

The major lesson we learned is that…you’re not allowed to fly drones unless you have prior permission. Whoops! Also, no photos or videos inside the shrine, but outside on the grounds is okay.

We spent a long while outside, and it wasn’t until late morning that we decided to get back into the car to start driving back home.

On Our Way Home

For lunch, we stopped by a Jimmy John’s. During the long drive back to Texas, we took turns listening to our different playlists, and pretty much just drove and refueled. Once in Texas, we hit up a Whataburger to go, and caught the Cowboys game on sports radio.

Amazingly, we arrived home a little earlier than originally planned! That was great because I had time to go to bed at a normal time in order to go to work the next day!

Pokémon Go

Turns out Jason is a big fan of Pokemon Go. He got me back into it. Needless to say, we played some over the weekend!

Stats and Achievements

• Total Cost: ~$500 (or $250 per person)
  • Rental Car: ~$150
  • Lodging: $25 car parking/33,000 points @ Hampton Inn, $40/person @ St. Bernard’s
  • Gas: $134 total
  • Food: ~$55 per person
• Total Time: ~85 hours (Friday morning to Sunday evening)
• Total Miles: ~1440 miles
• Times Scolded by Security Not to be Using Drone at the Shrine: 1
• Times Karaoke’d in the Car: 3
• Pokémon Caught in Pokémon Go: >50
• Pokémon Gyms Defended (JR): 1
• Times B-Roll Captured for YouTube (Jason): 10+

Response

Because this pilgrimage was to primarily to visit the heart of St. John Vianney, the major intention for the pilgrimage was for all parish priests. St. John Vianney is the patron saint of parish priests, and it’s fitting that his heart is incorrupt because it illustrates how much he had a heart for those he served. We’re still dealing with the “summer of scandal” of priests involved in sexual abuse, and it’s timely that St. John Vianney’s heart is traveling around. My own parish recently lost our pastor, and things seem kind of crazy right now. Therefore, it was great having this pilgrimage happen given the environment and times.

Executing this pilgrimage was also pretty great. It provides another example for me to show that you and I can pull off pilgrimages that are short and low-cost yet still spiritually fruitful with times for prayer and encountering God. If Jason and I split the total cost of the pilgrimage down the middle, it really only cost us ~$250 each, which is not too shabby given that we drove really far and saved costs on lodging. I appreciated saving money due to us not flying to Georgia and driving instead.

Speaking of flying… since I’m a frequent flyer, driving is really not my thing. Driving four states away proved to me that I can withstand really long drives. Developing this superpower will help open up more possibilities for road trip pilgrimages in the future!

Lastly, again, this was the first pilgrimage collaboration with Jason! And there will be more to come!

Jason has been chronicling our pilgrimage in video form. You can watch those videos and visually see the places we went to here:

Do you like these pilgrimage reports? Subscribe below to receive them in your inbox!

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post Pilgrimage Report: St. John Vianney Relic Tour in Atlanta, GA appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

Note: I’m writing this a month later, so I apologize if the details are a little hazy.

Back in 2017, I was assigned to work in Japan for six months. Because listening to Japanese radio is a struggle due to the lack of English, and Japanese DJ’s tend to have a habit of not letting songs finish before they start commentating, I decided to listen to podcasts. Conveniently, the topic of what podcasts were popular came up in a Facebook group that I am a part of, and that led me to listening to The Catholic Man Show (or TCMS). I started at the beginning, caught up to their latest episode, and have been a listener since.

Each year, The Catholic Man Show hosts a camp out, and this was the second year that it was to be at Clear Creek Monastery. I wasn’t able to make it back in 2017 because I was busy putting my life back together having just returned home from six months in Japan.

I thought it would be cool to attend this year, and my resolve was cemented when I met up with Adam, one of the hosts of the show, back in June to drop off some whiskey prior to spending a weekend at the same Clear Creek Monastery. You can check out that pilgrimage report here.

While the primary function of this trip was to attend the camp out, I decided to turn it into a sort of pilgrimage knowing that I’d have the monastery right there. Since there are multiple prayer times and Masses to attend, the opportunities couldn’t be wasted!

Pilgrimage Details:

Location: Clear Creek Abbey, OK (near Hulbert, OK)
Time Required: Friday-Sunday
Cost: $$
Transportation: Car
Accommodation: Tent in a field
Essentials: Camping supplies, journal, clothes for rain and cold

Itinerary

• October 19, Friday
  • 0500 Leave house
  • 0945 Arrive at Clear Creek Monastery
  • 1000 Terce prayer and Mass
  • Lunch
  • All afternoon: rain and card games, set up tent
  • 1500 Talk with Fr. Nesbit on St. Thomas Aquinas
  • Dinner
  • Irish Folk Songs and Drinks
  • Sleep
• October 20, Saturday
  • Wake
  • 0800 Mass at camp
  • Breakfast
  • Shower
  • Lunch with monks
  • Time alone in prayer
  • Got lost on property
  • 1600 Live recording of The Catholic Man Show podcast
  • Short hike
  • Dinner
  • Whiskey tasting
  • Irish Folk Songs and Drinks
• October 21, Sunday
  • Wake
  • Breakfast
  • 1000 High Mass at monastery
  • Pack and shop
  • 1230 Leave Clear Creek
  • 1730 Arrive home

Points of Interest

Friday

I left my house pretty early knowing that I wanted to arrive sometime mid- to late-morning at the monastery. The nice thing about leaving around 5AM is that traffic is pretty minimal. Sunrise didn’t break until I got into Oklahoma. During the drive, I decided to catch up on podcast episodes because my backlog had grown quite large.

A thought I had in mind on the drive was how was I going to fit in with the guys? The only person I knew was Adam, one of the hosts of TCMS. I mean, I’m not afraid of meeting new people, but I tend to be the quiet one…

Taking at least one or two breaks, I arrived at the monastery sometime between 9:45AM and 10:00AM. I decided not to head to the camp at first, but to chillax a bit at the monastery after a long drive. Fortunately, I arrived right before 10:00AM which meant that one of the monks’ prayer times was about to start, followed by Mass. When I went inside the church, I noticed that it was filled with guys who I assumed to be part of the camp out. After Mass, I introduced myself, and followed them back to the camp.

On the grounds of the monastery, there are many areas. I’m still discovering new ones despite having been to Clear Creek a few times! The camp out was located at Eagle’s Nest, a large open field about a 15-20 minute walk from the monastery itself. It’s named after the bald eagle’s nests that are in the nearby trees. Driving there was a great challenge because the recent rains had muddied the roads, and the front entrance to the field at Eagle’s Nest was a muddy mess. Honestly, looking back, I’m surprised my little Civic made it through.

Once at the camp, I met more guys. Much of the time was spent avoiding the rain, avoiding being cold, and playing card games. Someone had brought in Saint Cards, and The Catholic Card Game, which were both really fun!

Thankfully the rain let up a bit later in the afternoon. I set up my tent during a momentary pause of the rain.

We later gathered at the monastery to hear a talk by one of the monks on St. Thomas Aquinas. I had no idea that St. Thomas Aquinas had a little bit of time as a Benedictine before becoming Dominican! From the monk’s talk, we learned about St. Thomas Aquinas as a man of virtue and intellect, and how his example can inspire our own lives.

Dinner that night was fish tacos cooked on the campfire with a glorious jalapeno mix, topped with some sort of fruit that I can’t quite remember at this point.

After dinner, we were joined by a priest and another gentleman who were helping with the youth chant camp (yes, that’s a thing) at the monastery to sing Irish folk songs while we enjoyed drinks and the warmth of the campfire.

I think I went to bed a little earlier than most because I was tired waking up early, driving 5 hours, and being active all day.

Saturday

Thankfully, I didn’t wake up soaking wet. If anything, it was cold. My tent’s rain protector flap thingie was effective against whatever precipitation may have fallen during the night. I recall waking up around 4:00AM or 5:00AM and attempted trying to go back to sleep, kind of unsuccessfully.

We had daily Mass held at the camp, because of one of the attendees is a Catholic priest, although I didn’t know that until he celebrated the Mass. He didn’t have his collar on while wearing street clothes! Lol.

Bacon, eggs, and coffee were patiently anticipated and consumed for breakfast after Mass. At the same time, our camp cook was also preparing half of a whole pig to be cooked/smoked over the campfire all day. The half pig was 65 lbs!

Gloriously, the day was utterly beautiful and decently warm. I took the opportunity after Mass to go take a shower in one of the lodging buildings the monks have a ways from their monastery. I actually started to walk there, but another guy saw me attempting to cross muddy paths and offered me a ride in his pickup truck.

After showering, I headed back to camp to hang out for a while. They made a call for guys wanting to go eat lunch with the monks, and I was encouraged to go because I was from out of town. Honestly, since I’ve eaten with the monks several times in the past, I didn’t feel the need to go especially if there were other guys who have never experienced it before. But, I got to go. We decided to walk together.

Gosh, I don’t remember what exactly we ate. I think it was hardboiled eggs over veggie ratatouille with soup and bread. And some sort of raisin bread pudding. All very good, despite strange combinations and simplicity.

When lunch finished, I stuck around the monastery for most of the afternoon in order to spend time praying and journaling in the church.

I also hit up the monastery’s gift shop afterwards. I bought myself a copy of the Rule of St. Benedict, and a zippered/covered Bible (RSV-CE) that’s smaller in size knowing that it would be great to bring with me when traveling. Haha, I also listed books I saw in the gift shop that I eventually wanted to read.

Leaving the gift shop, I attempted at returning back to camp using the shortcut we had utilized prior to lunch, but I missed a turn somewhere, and I ended up in some far end of the monastery grounds with a lot of abandoned equipment and objects. Yikes! I was stressin’ out because I was kind of lost somewhere on monastery property, and I didn’t have much time to spare before the live podcast recording was supposed to happen.

After some futile attempts at trying to re-find the shortcut route, I made the decision to head back to the monastery and walk the long way back to camp.

Thankfully…when I arrived at the monastery, the hosts of TCMS had just pulled up into the parking lot to pick up Fr. Nesbit, the guest of the episode. I followed them back to the gift shop to pick them up, and hitched a ride with them. I couldn’t be late for the recording if I were with those who are supposed to be recording, right??? Haha.

I’m not gonna lie, it was kind of a surreal moment for me as a fan of the show because I was in a pickup truck with the hosts and with a monk!

We arrived back at the camp, they got set up, and we had ourselves a live recording of The Catholic Man Show. You can listen to it here or watch the YouTube here.

After the recording, we hung around for a long while waiting for the pig to be done and dinner to be served. Some guys wanted to climb the bluffs adjacent to Eagle’s Nest, and I joined in. It was a short hike across the creek (which really is clear!), and up the hill with no marked trails. The views were beautiful!

We could see our camp, nearby hills/bluffs, and the creek running across. Just before the sun set below the horizon, I left to go back to camp because I didn’t really want to navigate the way down when it got dark.

More waiting around, and dinner was ready! And it was absolutely delicious! The pig was perfection, the veggies were delicious, and the baked potatoes were great as well!

After dinner, we also had a whiskey tasting of a good handful of different whiskeys and scotches from Ireland, Scotland, and local. Good times! I think my mouth still burns with the peat-packed flavor of Laphroaig! Which is fine because we saved that one for last so as not to ruin our palates!

More Irish folk songs and singing. We also built up the camp fire to be more of a bonfire to burn our extra wood and trash. It got very hot at one point, but quite necessary because it had gotten quite cold.

I eventually retired to my tent, but at that point in the night, the cold was quite noticeable, and I knew from checking the weather the day before (when I had cell reception), that it would freeze overnight. Yikes.

Did I bring enough stuff to keep warm? I basically had two layers of clothes, and I brought in most of the blankets from my car to cover myself up or to stuff my sleeping bag with me in it.

Sunday

I woke up a few times early in the morning. Primarily because I really had to pee. I had to carefully discern whether I risked getting super cold and go outside to take care of business or suffer through a full bladder and stay in my sleeping bag. I decided to suck it up and go outside. It was so. freakin’. cold. Frost had settled on everything. My only consolation for going outside was, besides an empty bladder, was a clear sky with many stars visible. Way more than I can see at home in the city.

Sometime after the sun came out, I left my tent to go near the fire. Thankfully, other guys were out and about with some making coffee. I realized that in a camping context, there are a lot of options to make coffee! The camp fire had also mostly died down and so it took some effort to rekindle it with new wood.

Breakfast was chorizo and eggs with tortillas, and that was quite scrumptious!

After breakfast, I started packing a little, and undoing my tent enough to dry it out because things started melting once the sun came out.

We all got ready for High Mass at 10AM, and attended it. I felt a little awkward because I didn’t give myself good enough time to dress a little nicer for it. And I also felt like I smelled a bit too much like camp fire and chorizo. That’s why at Mass, I sat in the back…lol.

Returning back to camp after Mass, I pretty much packed my stuff, said my goodbyes, and headed out. I did stop by the gift shop one more time in order to purchase a sliced block of cheese from the monks because I’d heard good(a) things about it.

First thing in the early afternoon, I was on my way back home. More podcast episodes.

Stats and Achievements

• Total Cost = ~$200 (~$30 for food, ~$45 for gas, ~$100 for misc. costs)
• 1x monk gouda cheese bought
• 17x times Yeti Rambler 10 oz used for various drinks: cold, hot, dry, smooth
• 10x whiskeys sampled (in moderation)
• 0x times vehicle stuck in mud
• 2x yellow cards won in The Catholic Card Game
• 45 minutes wandering around lost
• 5x Irish folk songs joined in
• 1x meal with the monks
• 1x shower over 2.5 days
• 2x Liturgy of the Hours attended at the monastery
• 3x Masses attended (1 at camp, 2 at the monastery)

Response

My biggest takeaway from this camp out had little to do with the camp out. I’ve been dealing with several burdens for multiple months now, and because of grad school, I haven’t had too much of an opportunity to process or deal with those burdens. The road trips to and from the monastery were very awesome for me because I worked on my podcast episode backlog. But! I kid you not–it was the perfect combination of podcast episodes across different Catholic podcasts with just the right topics almost specifically dealing with my burdens! Praise be to God! Like, what are the odds??? Now that I’m writing this post a month after the fact, I definitely feel that I experienced some healing just from listening to those podcasts and encountering the Lord in prayer at the monastery. My goal is to remember the lessons I learned listening to those podcast episodes in case I start feeling burdened again.

The other major takeaway I had from this weekend was the importance of male fellowship. I made a handful of new friends, and it was very awesome to be surrounded by guys who take their faith seriously as we enjoyed each others company, great food, great drinks, fire, being with the monks, enduring rain and frost, Irish folk songs, and many other things too! Now that I’m Facebook friends with some of them, I hope to keep the conversation going or to at least maintain contact until next time we meet! I’m also re-inspired to create enough community to have a consistent young men’s group at my own parish.

So this camp out also happened while I was in grad school. I made sure to get ahead enough in my homework to be able to turn them in early so that I didn’t have to worry about turning them in at the camp out where cell phone reception and Internet connectivity is very spotty at best. But, in going to this camp out with grad school going on, I think I proved to myself that I can squeeze in a pilgrimage even if my life is already super busy with other things. I’ll have to keep that in mind for next time.

In case you missed the links earlier, listen or watch the podcast episode that we live recorded this weekend:

Listen here: The Catholic Man Show Episode 132

Watch here:

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JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post Pilgrimage Report: TCMS Camp Out 2018 at Clear Creek Abbey appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

Sometimes I don’t need a lot of motivation to go fly somewhere. Regardless of my initial motivations to fly, to me, any trip is worth having a pilgrimage portion to it. But in this recent Phoenix pilgrimage, I originally had fun intentions, but had to turn it into a more legit pilgrimage.

At the beginning of July, I searched Google Flights to see where I could fly for cheap. I had some dates in mind for the remainder of summer that would work with my schedule.

While searching Google Flights, I pretty much let prices determine where I would go. Essentially, whatever city I could fly to with the cheapest round-trip airfare using American Airlines, I would purchase it.

And drum roll…

Phoenix, Arizona, USA won! So now I had tickets for the end of August.

I figured that it would be a good, fun weekend to visit family friends and family of friends (#distinction) who live in Phoenix. I probably would have visited a church or two even if I would be just visiting friends.

However, recent revelations and release of information regarding clergy sex abuse and bishop cover-ups in the Church (in America) was cause for me to rethink how I approached this trip to Phoenix.

The week leading up to the trip, I decided to make it more of an intentional personal retreat and pilgrimage. In the spirit of fasting for reparation of sins committed, I decided to give up watching movies or TV on the flights or in my hotel room, keeping social media to a minimum, taking hot showers, and listening to music or podcasts in the car while driving around. Pretty difficult. I’ve also been wanting a retreat experience or something like a retreat for my own personal reasons. Because of these more intense intentions, I didn’t think visiting with friends and family friends would be fitting. Besides, I have to have a reason to go back, right? Haha.

Some initial research into Phoenix made me realize that Phoenix has some pretty cool churches and shrines to visit. I also consulted with a good friend of mine who is from Phoenix, and she gave me a little bit of guidance on things to check out. She also told me about a book she is currently reading with her ladies book club called Consoling the Heart of Jesus by Michael Gaitley. It’s a do-it-yourself weekend retreat in book form reflecting on being Jesus’ friend through consoling His suffering heart. I ended buying it, and that fulfilled the retreat function that I was seeking.

This pilgrimage/retreat/trip ended up being kind of fast and action-packed because my flight arrived in Phoenix on Friday, and I had the first flight out Sunday morning. I provide the close-to-actual play-by-play itinerary in the Itinerary section below.

I did do some research into the places that seemed intriguing, and I ended up going through one iteration or three of my itinerary. Unfortunately, my hotel reservation was for a hotel in far north Phoenix because I originally intended to go to Sedona, AZ to check out the Chapel of the Holy Cross, which is a famous and touristy chapel inset against a mountain. I ultimately decided to nix visiting the Chapel because Sedona is a two hour drive from Phoenix, but kept my original hotel. It ended up being a lot of driving across town.

Well, I think that’s good enough for background.

Come–let us go into the desert!

Check out the details below!

Pilgrimage Details:

Location: Phoenix, AZ and surrounding area
Time Required: Friday-Sunday
Cost: $$$
Transportation: Air (American Airlines), Rental Car (Hertz)
Accommodation: Hotel (Hilton Garden Inn)
Essentials: Journal, Prayer Requests, Consoling the Heart of Jesus by Michael Gaitley, DSLR camera

Itinerary:

• Friday 8/24/2018
  • 0710 Depart [DFW] AA#854
  • 0742 Arrive [Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, PHX]
  • 0800 Get car rental
  • 0830 Drive to [Our Lady of Solitude Monastery]
  • 0930-1130 Pray at [Our Lady of Solitude Monastery]
  • 1130-1400 Drive, stop for lunch at [QT], go to Mesa, AZ
  • 1400-1600 Pray at [St. Peregrine Shrine]
  • 1600-1630 Drive and check-in at [Hilton Garden Inn North Happy Valley]
  • 1630-1845 Read/nap/swim
  • 1845-1930 Drive to [Vietnamese Martyrs]
  • 1930-2015 Daily Mass at [Vietnamese Martyrs]
  • 2015-2045 Drive back to hotel
  • 2045 Get dinner at [Salad and Go]
  • 2130 Sleep
• Saturday 8/25/2018
  • 0230 Wake and find private place for video call
  • 0300 Men’s group coaching call
  • 0400-0600 Read and nap
  • 0600-0630 Swim
  • 0630-0700 Shower
  • 0700-0730 Breakfast in hotel
  • 0745 Leave for [Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral]
  • 0830 Daily Mass at [Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral]
  • 0900-1000 Read
  • 1000-1030 Check out gift shop
  • 1030-1100 Drive to [Desert Botanical Gardens]
  • 1100-1330 Check out [Desert Botanical Gardens]
  • 1330-1430 Lunch at [Whataburger]
  • 1430-1500 Go downtown / spend too much time finding parking
  • 1500-1530 Check out [St. Mary’s Basilica’s] gift shop
  • 1530-1700 Read
  • 1700-1800 Vigil Mass at [St. Mary’s Basilica]
  • 1800-1830 Drive to [Wal-Mart] near hotel
  • 1830-1900 Grab food from [Walmart]
  • 1900-1930 Snack time
  • 1930-0000 Attempt reading, take a nap, accidentally fall asleep
• Sunday 8/26/2018
  • 0000-0100 Pack
  • 0100-0200 Nap
  • 0200-0245 Pack and check out
  • 0245-0315 Drive and refuel rental car at [QT]
  • 0315-0345 Return rental car and arrive at [PHX]
  • 0520 Depart [PHX] AA#1153
  • 0944 Arrive [DFW]
  • 1030 Return home

Map

Points of Interest

Friday (August 24, 2018)

I had a relatively early flight out to Phoenix. No problem, because I’m an early riser anyway. I’ve been to Phoenix before for my good friend’s wedding, but I hadn’t really ever been to Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport. Cool airport, though! After landing, I made my way to the car rental center to pick up my car. I’m a Gold member with Hertz, and I always, always forget that at most Hertz airport rental locations you can pretty much skip the counter, if you prepay, and head straight to the Gold section and pick your own car. I slowly walked through the compact cars deliberating what I wanted to get. I didn’t want a Nissan Versa because I often end up with one. I went with a white Toyota Corolla (2017 or 2018).

After the airport, I pretty much hit the road towards Our Lady of Solitude.

Our Lady of Solitude

The Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration have a monastery an hour outside of Phoenix. I thought it would be cool to check it out and spend some time Adoring with them. What I didn’t realize is that they have like 10-12 miles of dirt roads from highway I-10 up to their monastery. Crap. I get nervous about these kind of things because last time I drove a rental car through desert dirt roads, I broke it (2014, Ford Mustang convertible…terrible…but I actually paid for the insurance and they didn’t care that I broke the bumper…).

It was kind of bizarre driving those dirt roads because I was literally the only car driving around out there. And the houses are few and spread out, and I only saw one house with people out and about. Or rather, just elderly folk were porch-sitting and conversing.

However, about 3/4ths of the way to the monastery, I did encounter another vehicular device kickin’ up dust on the dirt roads. They stopped so that I could pass by. When I gave a looksie, I realized that it was a Toyota 4Runner full of habited nuns, who I’m assuming came from the monastery. I was just so highly amused by this because I was driving 20 minutes on dirt roads encountering no one, and very casually, I run into an SUV full of nuns. Like, what???

I finally arrive at Our Lady of Solitude. It’s beautiful out there! They have their main chapel built up, their entire grounds fenced in, and they have some temporary structures built up while they’re in the process of raising money to build the rest of their grounds. When you’re driving up, you can see the monastery against a background of mountains surrounded by deserts.

The first thing I did was awkwardly walk toward the chapel, but I coincided with two of the nuns working. They kindly unlocked the door for me. However, one of those nuns was the mother of the community! She introduced herself and the sister helping her, and she gave me a heads up that the chapel would close at lunchtime, and that some priests were on site on a retreat. She also reminded me to keep the door shut and to lock it when I leave. They also invited me to partake in refreshments they’ve put out in their parlor in the chapel. How kind!

I spent about 1.5 hours praying, journaling, and reading through Consoling the Heart of Jesus. And I also couldn’t get over how nicely built of a monastery it is even though it’s in the middle of nowhere.

After that long while, I left to head towards the St. Peregrine Shrine. I decided to grab a convenient store lunch at QT to keep things cheap. Then I made the hour or so drive to Mesa, AZ for the Shrine.

St. Peregrine Shrine

When I learned about this shrine from my researching, I thought it would super cool to visit. St. Peregrine is the patron saint of those afflicted with cancer. He holds a special place in my pew of awesome saints because I know he’s been a powerful intercessor for family and friends who had cancer. I also mentioned in my petitioning for prayer requests for this pilgrimage for anyone wanting prayers for cancer knowing that I would be visiting this shrine, and I had some takers. I guess I wanted to go and pray there mostly out of thanksgiving and definitely for the prayer requests I received.

The St. Peregrine Shrine is actually part of Christ the King parish in Mesa, AZ, and it’s the only cancer-specific shrine in the southwest United States. They have a ministry that prays for people afflicted with cancer. When you first walk in, they have a wall full of cards with names of people that you are encouraged to take inside with you to pray for.

While at the Shrine, I continued my praying, journaling, and reading.

I guess I stayed there for 1.5 to 2 hours. Towards the end, I noticed a reliquary (a vessel that holds relics) that holds a first class relic of St. Peregrine off to the side behind glass–it’s a bone fragment of his! I only know that it’s a first class relic because of the website. So I went over there for a few minutes and asked St. Peregrine to intercede for all the prayer requests I carried, especially the cancer-related ones. Very cool.

After the Shrine, I decided to go make the long drive to my hotel to check-in and chill.

Hilton Garden Inn (North Happy Valley)

I mentioned above that I chose a hotel in far north Phoenix with the intent of visiting Sedona, which is 2 hours north. I ultimately didn’t go there. At the same time, the hotels up north had cheaper prices than those in the middle of Phoenix. The nice thing about the Hilton Garden Inn North Happy Valley is that it’s really close to one of the main north-south highways of Phoenix with easy access to the airport.

Unfortunately, getting there from Mesa was a chore because I left the Shrine at rush hour. I also decided to take the big loop around Phoenix so I didn’t have to go through the middle of the city, but even the loop had traffic.

Once I arrived, I checked in, and had some rest and relaxation from a long day of traveling. I ended up going for a swim and taking a nap.

A cool thing related to technology these days is being able to unlock your hotel room with your phone, but I feel like using a dedicated key card is faster because the app has a loading time, lol. This hotel stay was my second time ever using the digital key on my phone.

The hotel was also abuzz because of a conference they were hosting.

So, a last-minute decision I had was to squeeze in Daily Mass later in the evening than I intended. Using the Mass Times app, I saw that there was a 7:30PM Daily Mass at Vietnamese Martyrs just down the highway a ways from my hotel. So, I cleaned up, got in my Corolla, and headed that way.

Vietnamese Martyrs Church

From Googling this church, I saw that it has interesting architecture done in a very Asian way. It almost looks like a Chinese temple or something!

When I arrived, I actually walked the grounds a little bit to check out the outsides of the church. I then followed some other Daily Mass goers into their little chapel that they use for Daily Mass (I guess, because we didn’t use the main church).

Once inside the chapel, I could hear the drone of chanting in Vietnamese. It took me a minute, but I realized they were praying the Rosary. In chant. In Vietnamese. Maybe the last decade or two, I decided to discreetly whip out my phone and Google the Rosary prayers in Vietnamese so I could somehow follow along. Man, I realized I’m not used to making Vietnamese sounds, lol.

After the Rosary, we had Daily Mass. Obviously also in Vietnamese. I downloaded the readings in my iBreviary app in English so I had that at least. Yeah, I had no idea what the homily was about…

Haha, after Mass, one of the elderly Vietnamese men greeted me and asked me, “Are you…Vietnam”? Eh? I responded with “Uhhhhhh -flustered-, I’m American…but Filipino.” He just smiled and continued walking. Lol ok…

I headed back to my hotel, but grabbed some food at the salad drive-thru in front of my hotel. Salad and Go needs to come to Texas! It’s gourmet salad at reasonable prices–to go!

Saturday (August 25, 2018)

This was kind of a rough day because I got up at 2:30AM in order catch a coaching call for an online men’s group that I’m part of. I gave myself 30 minutes to wake up and attempt at finding a place I could have a video conference without disturbing other guests or being awkward in the lobby. I ultimately ended up in my rental Corolla because the WiFi was good enough even in the parking lot! Haha.

After an hour of that coaching call, I did some more reading and probably took a brief nap. At about 6AM, I decided to go for another swim since that’s when the pool opened. Then breakfast at 7AM. One thing I love about being a Hilton Honors elite member is getting more premium breakfasts included with my stay. And my pancakes and omelette were delicious!

The main thing this morning was to hit up Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral for Daily Mass.

Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral

The Cathedral is actually relatively close to Vietnamese Martyrs that I had gone to the night before. I arrived with about 30 minutes to spare so I spent that time continuing to read Consoling the Heart of Jesus.

I was a little impressed at how many showed up for Daily Mass on an early Saturday morning, but it turned out most of the Mass attendees were primarily there for Confession afterwards, haha. That’s cool though.

The one thing that stood out to me from this Mass was the homily. The priest gave an impassioned homily tying the Gospel of the day to the sex abuse scandals but less from the evil of sex abuse perspective, and more on the damning aspect of teaching falsehood because that tied in with the Gospel more closely. Either way, his homily was fire, and I could tell that he’s just as angry and frustrated and sad about the current mess our Church is in.

After Mass, I stayed in my pew continuing to read for almost another hour. I felt awkward because I was in the center part of the church with confession lines on either side of the church from me, and it felt like people were watching! Maybe I was being paranoid, but whatever.

The Cathedral also has a gift shop that I lightly browsed through on my way out. While it was tempting to buy stuff, I knew I wouldn’t really have the room to carry it back with me because all I took was a backpack.

From the Cathedral, I headed out west again to Tempe, AZ to visit the Desert Botanical Gardens.

Desert Botanical Gardens

So, up until this point, I had done a lot of driving across Phoenix. I feel like an essential aspect to a pilgrimage experience is to do a lot of walking, often in uncomfortable situations.

I like plants, and desert vegetation is intriguing to look at because they seem otherworldly to the typical trees, shrubs, and flowers we have in north, central Texas. Therefore, the Desert Botanical Gardens seemed to make the most sense to go out for a long walk in the heat and to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation as expressed through prickly and succulenty things.

For a single adult, it costs $24.95 to get in.

I also brought my DSLR with me to Phoenix because I’m a hobbyist photographer. You can check out highlights on my personal Instagram account.

Walking around the Desert Botanical Gardens was really cool because they have several trails highlighting different plants. Unfortunately, as time went on, walking around became increasingly more difficult due to the rising temperatures. I had to stop for a water break a few times and to seek shade.

On one of the trails, I accidentally dropped my smartphone tripod and realized it once I had left the trail. The trail is a half-mile loop, and I had no good sense of where I might’ve dropped it. I did backtrack and was able to find it, untouched! Awesome! I found it AND I got more steps in, haha. St. Anthony of Padua, patron saint of lost things, is my homeboy.

In the butterfly garden area towards the entrance of the Gardens, I encountered a man with a ginormous telephoto lens on his camera and his wife with binoculars. I guess they were trying to photograph some of the hummingbirds and butterflies buzzing around. I encountered them on another trail later, and I guess they had seen me snapping shots with my DSLR and therefore called me over, but to do so quietly. And I did. The man pointed up, and up in the tree was an owl!

I thought that was pretty cool, but I thought it was a little weird to me because it was in the middle of the day knowing that owls are nocturnal. I also wasn’t TOO impressed at the sight of an owl because I’ve had my fill of hanging out with owls while out in Japan two years ago at an owl cafe.

After getting tired of walking around and being out in the sun, I decided to head out and perhaps find some lunch. I originally intended on hitting up Hole-In-The-Rock, which is right next to the Gardens. It’s a touristy trail with an iconic hole in the rock. But it was too dang hot by the time I ended my time at the Gardens, and I wasn’t equipped or energetic enough to withstand more time being out in the blazing sun.

My next goal was to visit St. Mary’s Basilica downtown for the 5PM Vigil Mass. I was indecisive about where to eat, but ultimately ended choosing Whataburger. The novelty of enjoying a Texas burger chain in Arizona seemed like a cool idea at the time. So off I went and enjoyed that to enjoy the taste of home, haha.

St. Mary’s Basilica

I finished up with lunch a little early and drove downtown. I had a rough time finding parking because I tried shopping around for cheap parking prices. Looking back now, I probably should’ve done metered parking versus using a garage. Garage prices were a little higher this day due to a sporting event. Of course, the Basilica has its own parking garage, but it is well-marked that it’s only for basilica employees so I had to seek other parking options.

The convention center had available parking across the street from the basilica, and I ended up parking there. It felt shady because there weren’t a whole lot of other cars. I didn’t want to get mugged! Thankfully that didn’t happen.

Since I arrived super early for Mass, I decided to go check out the basilica’s gift shop. Same story as with the cathedral–cool stuff, no room to bring any of it home. And then, I needed to use the restroom, but it wasn’t immediately obvious to me if the basilica had public ones available. I opted to go hit up a nearby Hyatt hotel a few blocks away, haha. The air conditioning was glorious inside of the hotel, so I actually sat in the lobby there for a little bit. Then I walked back to the basilica.

St. Mary’s Basilica is the oldest church in Phoenix. It has a cool mix of southwestern architecture mixed with European, and inside it’s beautiful too. It’s run by Franciscans.

I went inside to look around for a bit, then I chose a pew to continue praying and reading until Mass. Some others were inside for Confession before Mass, and other people were walking around checking out the basilica taking pictures.

Then we had Mass!

Also, I should mention that you can receive a plenary indulgence for making a pilgrimage to this basilica. You can do the things below in addition to the usual requirements for a plenary indulgence of going to Confession, praying for the Pope’s intentions, and receiving the Eucharist.

With St. Mary’s Basilica, that pretty much ended my pilgrimage in terms of places to go visit. On my way out, I realized that most everyone used the basilica parking garage so I guess I could have also. Whoops…

I debated internally whether I should find food downtown, but since I felt tired and still full from Whataburger, I didn’t want to stick around, especially when there were sports fans around. I didn’t feel like dealing with all that. On top of that, I didn’t want to go down into the parking garage later in the evening. I decided to just go hit up with Wal-Mart near my hotel and maybe grab some things to go*.

Once back at my hotel, I attempted at reading some more but ended up accidentally falling asleep for a few hours.

*Side note: I’m loosely following a lower carb diet that lets me have one cheat day a week, which is Saturday for me. The cheat part is that I can have anything and as much as I want. Still feeling full from Whataburger and a big breakfast earlier in the day, I just wanted more of a sweet snack and a drink. So at Wal-Mart, the only food I bought was a $3 cake and a $4 small carton of boxed red wine. Wow, the wine knocked me out ultimately, but it was quite delicious and paired nicely with the red velvet cake I bought, haha. I definitely saved money going to Wal-Mart versus spending time at a bar downtown.

Sunday (August 26, 2018)

After falling asleep with all the lights on, my book and journal still open, I finally woke up around midnight. Well crap. My intention was to get through or finish the book and to pack. I packed, and then went back to bed.

For like an hour.

I had to wake up at 2AM to shower and check out. Why? Because I needed to give myself time to refuel my rental car, go to the airport, return my rental car, bus over back to the airport, check in, and go to my gate.

Getting gas that morning was super, super shady. I chose a QT about 8 miles away from the airport, but I didn’t realize it’s in a shady-looking part of town. First of all, some of the Hispanic food places had full parking lots with music and people walking around near the gas station. Tight-shorted women were trying to talk to people at the gas station. It didn’t feel safe, and I got out there as soon as I could.

I returned my Corolla, checked-in, got to the gate and chilled. All this early morning stuff was to make sure I arrived at my gate before the 5:20AM departure. I ended up with about 45 minutes to spare.

Then it came time board the plane. Flew for a few hours, and I was able to sneak in an hour nap. Arrived back home in Texas. And that was that!

Stats and Achievements

Flights

• DFW to PHX: upgraded to First Class
• PHX to DFW: upgraded to First Class
• +1736 miles flown, roundtrip
• Status+1736 EQMs (Elite Qualifying Miles)
  • +2 EQSs (Elite Qualifying Segments)
  • +152 EQDs (Elite Qualifying Dollars)
  • +1872 award miles (redeemable award miles)

Because of my Executive Platinum status with American Airlines, I get complimentary upgrade requests on domestic flights. And it so happened that those upgrades got confirmed a few days before I left. Having the bigger/nicer seats helps, but I find the most benefit in being served a light meal. This helped cut food costs because food was included in my being in first class.

Status-wise, I’m trying to hit Gold, which is the lowest-tier for AAdvantage. I don’t have business trips to amplify my elite status-earning potential. Therefore, I’m #GoingForGold2018. My next international trip should definitely help me meet Gold’s requirements. I just need ~600 more EQDs!

Car

• 295 miles driven

Like I said, I was driving across town a lot. Half the battle in designing my itinerary was trying to figure out how to minimize driving back and forth.

Self

• ~25000 steps / ~10 miles walked
• 80% complete of Consoling the Heart of Jesus
• 2x swims with drills
• 150+ pictures taken (a lot aren’t worth posting…)
• Fasted from:
  • Watching movies on plane, TV/movies in hotel, and Netflix on devices
  • Taking hot showers
  • Listening to music/podcasts in car and on plane
• Prayed for:
  • 51 people by name
  • 11 specific prayer intentions

TOTAL COST: $437.53 / 17,000 Hilton Honors points

• Travel
  • Airfare: $190.40 for Economy Class
  • Rental Car: $89.08
  • Parking: $12.00
  • Gas: $21.13
• Lodging
  • Hotel: $78.88 / 17,000 Hilton Honors points
• Food and Other
  • Restaurants/Fast Food: $21.09
  • Entertainment: $24.95

I was really happy to find sub-$200 roundtrip tickets because those don’t happen often when flying American Airlines. I saved money also on the car rental by using AAA since I’m a member. The parking could have been $0 had I realized that I could have parked at the basilica’s garage. Hilton has a flexible pay option where you can use almost any combination of cash and/or points. I opted to do mid-way for both cash and points so as not to burn through either.

Food was pretty minimal in cost, I think, and then the entrance to the Desert Botanical Gardens wasn’t as cheap as I would have liked. I could have avoided the Gardens altogether and opted to go on some of the actual hiking trails around the Gardens since those trails are free, but oh well.

TOTAL TIME: ~55 hours

• Left for airport 5AM Friday
• Arrived home 10:30AM Sunday

Very full weekend. Thankfully, I get every other Friday off so pulling off a weekend pilgrimage somewhere far while still having time on Sunday to take care of things at home was a major plus. I actually attempted at taking a later flight on Sunday using same-day standby (free for Executive Platinum members) so I didn’t have to wake up so, so early on Sunday. And in trying to pursue that, I learned that same-day standby isn’t granted for flights that have confirmed upgrades, which happened to me. Otherwise, I’d have to call the service desk for them to back out my upgrade, and then apply same-day standby to another flight. I decided not to mess with it. Challenge accepted with a super early Sunday morning start.

Response

Considering that I’m writing this a week after the fact, I’ve had some time to reflect on how I should respond to the fruits and consolations/desolations of this pilgrimage.

First of all, I think the biggest thing for me spiritually was going through Consoling the Heart of Jesus. The main point of the book is to console Jesus’ heart, which suffers from His Passion and us not being a real friend to Him being with Him in his suffering. Fr. Gaitley puts all this in a new perspective for me on how to be in relationship with Christ as His friend. I also realized that in this difficult time for the Church, consoling His heart just absolutely needs to happen so me reading this book now is so timely.

Since I’m not done reading the book, my response is definitely to finish it. My struggle will be committing time to do so on my own without giving myself a retreat or pilgrimage context to do it in.

I don’t know that this pilgrimage and retreat helped resolve the personal things I wanted to pray about, but I guess time will tell. Certainly, spending time with Jesus is refreshing and a good thing when confronting my own struggles.

One thing about asking for prayer requests for the pilgrimages I go on is that I don’t do a good job about following up with special intentions. Occasionally people let me know how things ended up, but most times they do not. I’m happy to say that my visit to the St. Peregrine Shrine was helpful and hopeful for one prayer request I received! Praise God!

From a practical perspective, being able to pull a weekend trip with flights, car rental, and hotel for less than $500 is pretty good. I could have eliminated more costs if I leveraged staying with people I know who live in Phoenix or if I didn’t visit the Desert Botanical Gardens. Also, I probably could have saved some on the cost of airfare if I leveraged using my dad’s flight benefits. I’m glad I was able to do this pilgrimage/retreat/trip to Phoenix now that I’m tracking time and costs for this blog as it gives me a good baseline for comparison for future weekend excursions.

When I arrived home, I knew I wanted to return to Phoenix sometime soon in order to visit friends and check out some of the other churches. Who knows–maybe I’ll be back sooner than I expect!

Thanks for reading this pilgrimage report! Check out my previous ones:

• Pray for Vocations – June 2018
• Clear Creek Abbey – June 2018
• St. Patrick’s Day – March 2018

For you–I highly recommend reading Consoling the Heart of Jesus. Grab yourself a copy right now and take it with you for your next pilgrimage or free weekend!

Resources:

• Desert Nuns/Our Lady of Solitude Monastery
• St. Peregrine Cancer Shrine
• Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral
• Vietnamese Martyrs
• St. Mary’s Basilica
• Desert Botanical Gardens

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post Pilgrimage Report: Into the Desert! Phoenix, AZ – August 2018 appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

I had just returned from a weekend in middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma spending time with monks (you can read about that here), when it dawned on me that the following weekend would also be a full weekend as well! With a wedding on Saturday and a freshly ordained priest’s first Mass on Sunday, I couldn’t help but think about vocations. Therefore, I thought I’d go on a “Pray for Vocations” pilgrimage as I locally attended the wedding, and drove 2.5 hours for the priest’s first Mass. Rather impromptu without a whole lot of planning. Sometimes being a pilgrim for less not only involves less time and less money, but also less preparation as well!

Basically, I decided to make this a pilgrimage a few days before the wedding. This is not a problem because I am still going on a type of journey towards encountering God in the Mass and in those I encountered over the weekend.

For some background, the bride in Saturday’s wedding used to be one of my former students when I first started out as a high school youth ministry volunteer and catechist. She recently graduated from Texas A&M (my university! (WHOOP!)) and her husband went to A&M as well. She’s also a subscriber of Pilgrim for Less!

The priest whose first Mass I attended the day after wedding is an acquaintance from college, but I reconnected with him when I went to Mother Teresa’s canonization since he was studying at the North American College at the time. He showed me around the NAC while I was there. While I wasn’t able to attend his ordination due to the wedding, and I can’t bi-locate, I opted to just attend his first Mass. His name is Fr. Paul-Michael, and I encourage you to follow him at his Facebook page so that you can see highlights of his ordination and first Mass as well as his journey through his vocation. As of the time of this writing, he’s preparing for his own personal retreat up at Clear Creek Abbey.

Pilgrimage Details

Location: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (Keller, TX), Good Shepherd Catholic Community (Colleyville, TX), St. Mary’s Catholic Center (College Station, TX)
Time Required: Saturday, Sunday
Cost: $
Transportation: Car
Accommodation: None
Essentials: Car, Tissues (or really…I should have packed some…)

Itinerary

• Saturday
  • 1200 Leave
  • 1300 Wedding Mass
  • 1400-1800 Wedding Reception
• Sunday
  • 0500 Leave and drive
  • 0630 Breakfast at Cracker Barrel
  • 1930 Drive
  • 0900 Arrive at St. Mary’s Catholic Center
  • 1000 Mass
  • 1130-1330 Reception
  • ~1700 Arrive home

Map

Points of Interest

Saturday – Wedding

For Saturday morning, I went about my normal day. I got up really early morning to hit up the gym to lift some heavy things and to flail around in the swimming pool a bit. Morning Prayer then breakfast. Chores around the house. I might’ve worked on Pilgrim for Less a bit. Paid some bills. You know, the usual.

I left my house at about noon to get to Mass at least 30 minutes before the wedding started so that I could grab a favorable seat and maybe socialize with others. It was super hot because it was June in north Texas. I kind of questioned my choice of wearing a suit, but decided to suffer through the day wearing one. When I got in my car, I cranked up the A/C and prayed a Rosary for the spouses-to-be and their marriage.

After arriving at the church, I ran into many parish friends, including some I hadn’t seen in a while. Being the social person that I am, I hung around the narthex of the parish briefly catching up with my favorite seminarians, fellow catechists, and other parish members of whom I’m well acquainted. I took my seat in the pew on the bride’s side of the church and sat quietly while awkwardly looking around every so often to see who’s who in attendance for this wedding.

Minutes before the starting of Mass, while thinking about how old I feel because the bride was a former youth/student of mine from when I first started volunteering, I kept repeating in my head “don’t cry; don’t cry; don’t cry; don’t cry…” And I wept. Slightly. And manly-ly. Then the procession started and in walks the groom. And I distinctly remember, even writing about this a few weeks after the fact, the huge smirk of joy and happiness on the groom’s face as he led the procession of the wedding party, parents and grandparents, and liturgical entourage down the center aisle. Seeing that, I was like, “wow that’s cool”. Of course, when the bride walked in, I had to repeat my mental litany of “don’t cry” as she walked down the aisle.

I also remember looking up during the Mass and seeing all the familiar faces, especially on the bride’s side since she basically grew up with a bunch of us. And I thought how incredibly cool it is that a good solid handful of our parish is here on this day to celebrate this joyous moment. Like, I knew probably 90% of the people on the bride’s side of the church. Incredible. I can’t think of a time where that has happened for a wedding NOT involving my own family member.

It was a beautiful Mass and ceremony. Of course, due to my pursuit of the faith and applying my engineering mindset to understand what the heaven goes on at Mass and the rite of marriage, the entire thing felt very legit, joyful, and beautiful.

The Gospel reading they chose for the Mass was the wedding at Cana, where Jesus and His mother were partying at a wedding and they ran out of wine. The servants freaked out, Mary interceded and told them to do whatever her Son tells them. He told them to go fetch huge jugs of water that He turned into wine. And the part that stood out for me from the homily is how the servants comment about this wine. The water-turned-into-wine, according to the servants and attendees, is way better than the stuff they consumed prior. And that’s why they say “you have saved the good wine until now” when most people would have served the good wine first. The priest related this to marriage and how this time in their lives is the good wine saved until now. Whoa. Mind blown.

WHICH IS SO FITTING BECAUSE!!!
…without knowing what the reading was and what the homily was about, several weeks prior to the wedding I had purchased a wine opener off their Amazon registry. Wine. Opener. Gospel about wine. Homily on the wine. WHAT. So crazy. Well played, Holy Spirit. Well played.

After the Mass, I socialized some more.

So, to be honest, I forgot to bring a card so I made a run to Walmart on my way to the reception. Being that it was hot and being in a hurry, I didn’t have much time to peruse the available cards. But then I saw it–a card featuring two wine glasses dressed as a bride and groom and a non-cheesy message inside. Perfect! In my message, I added a few bits tying to the homily and my usual “I hope/pray your marriage is a visible sign of love that is free, full, faithful, and fruitful” because I’m St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body like that. And these are the same signs of love they publicly announce in the marriage rite anyway.

Wedding Reception

The wedding reception was fairly standard but awesome. The catering was done by one of my fav local restaurants, and the DJ was playin’ classics. I got to catch up with the young man of whom I’m the Confirmation sponsor for, which was really nice since it’s been a long while since I’ve talked to him.

But then…the groom. That smile. That joyful smile. The entire time. He basically wore that smile the entire reception. I don’t know why that particularly stood out to me, but it did.

Due to the A/C of the reception hall not quite catching up with having many people in attendance and it being hot outside, it was rather warm the entire time. I pretty much called it quits for dancing after doing the Cupid Shuffle and decided to socialize instead. Though I ended up nearly losing my voice because I was having to nearly yell to talk to people because of how loud it was, but it was totally worth it.

At the end, we gave a tassel-ly farewell to the bride and groom. Prior to this point, in all my socializing, I heard multiple times that the best man and brother of the groom had literally just come from Japan, and someone introduced me to him. We talked Japan for a good while including nerdy Catholic things about where to find Mass and Japan’s Christian history.

Then I went home to my own bed! I was exhausted, and I knew I would have another big day ahead of me in a few hours.

Sunday – First Mass

This day started pretty early. I woke up at about 5AM to pack for my day trip/road trip down to my college, and I was out the door just before 6AM. Then I went and gas and proceeded on my way. I debated how spiritual of a road trip I wanted to have, but in the pursuit of trying to stay awake, I opted NOT to drive in silence. Instead, I decided to catch up on my queue of Catholic podcasts that I subscribe to. It worked out quite nicely because I was listening to Jennifer Fulwiler’s show’s podcast, and she had some hilarious takes on decapitated rattlesnake bites and how spiders are not your friends, even if Peppa Pig says its okay (episode is here).

One of my traditional stops driving down to my university is the Cracker Barrel north of Waco, TX. It’s about here where I have to switch highways. Normally I use the Cracker Barrel as a restroom stop, but I decided to grab some breakfast here and chillax a little bit and let some caffeine kick in.

So I don’t get to return to my college too often (in our lingo, that would be considered “bad bull”). In fact, last time I went was at the beginning of 2017 when I was a speaker for a graduating college senior retreat hosted by my college parish (coincidentally attended by the bride in yesterday’s wedding!). Texas A&M and College Station have done a lot of renovations and construction of new buildings, and the entire North Gate district looks so much different than what it looked like when I was in college. Therefore, driving down University Dr. towards St. Mary’s, I nearly missed the turn towards the church because of construction, and my usual visual markers for the street I’m supposed to turn on weren’t really there! No worries, because there was hardly any traffic on a mid-Sunday morning in the summer so I had room for error and hesitant turning of the steering wheel.

I arrived at St. Mary’s at about 9AM, but the Mass started at 10AM. I decided to hang around the student center for a little while. I was tired due to the wedding the day before and getting up early to drive. About 30 minutes before Mass started, I decided to head on in to the church to claim a spot in a pew. Like at the wedding, I did a lot of awkward looking around to see who all was attending this first Mass. Thankfully, I was able to recognize a small handful of familiar faces. In fact, a St. Mary’s staple, a few years older than I am who I only met after college, ended up sitting next to me with his girlfriend.

The entire time we were waiting for Mass to start, my priest friend was rehearsing the logistics of celebrating Mass with a healthy handful of his brother priests, and seminarians.

Up on the altar were reliquaries containing relics of St. John the Baptist, whose feast day was that Sunday, and of the True Cross. Um, wow. That’s super intense! Why? Because these relics are rather uncommon or rare. So what a blessing it was for all, especially for Fr. Paul-Michael, to have those relics present.

Much like the wedding, I found myself also repeating “don’t cry” during the procession because I think it’s just awesomely cool that I have another friend who got ordained and is now celebrating his honeymoon Mass. He did very well as he didn’t mess up. The homily, which is traditionally given by a good priest friend at a newly ordained’s first Mass, was quite excellent.

My other “don’t cry” litany for this day was the part where Fr. Paul-Michael gave traditional gifts to his loved ones. I nearly cried at my other priest friend’s first Mass when he gave the cloth to his mother, and likewise for this one. What made it also pretty emotional is that Fr. Paul-Michael lost his father last year and couldn’t present the purple stole to him, so he gave it to his homilist, who was integral in his vocation as a spiritual father.

First Mass Reception

I probably can’t iterate how much I was being social this particular weekend. Because being social and catching up with old friends at receptions and such were very much the thing for me to do. This reception was no different. But it felt a little more awkward because the people I talked to aren’t people who I don’t normally run into on a frequent basis unlike my parish peeps at the wedding the day before. But no matter. It was still a good time.

What was really cool is that Fr. Paul-Michael had a lot of representation from his family. Big Filipino family. I can relate, haha.

Towards the end of the reception, I was able to briefly catch up with Fr. Paul-Michael and receive his blessing. And that was awesome!

After bidding several farewells, I started my journey back towards home.

The drive home was more of a “whew, time to just exist and be”, and I didn’t really focus on making it penitential and spiritual. I was already on a sort of spiritual high experiencing the joy and awesomeness of the wedding and first Mass. I stopped by multiple gas stations for restroom and snack breaks since I was getting sleepy and needed snackage and caffeine. Also, I stopped by West, TX, which is most frequently known for their Czech bakeries right off the highway. Naturally, I stopped at one of them in order to bring home some fruit kolaches for my parents and brother. These baked goodies are in addition to multiple take-out boxes of fried chicken strips that I really like that are found in my college town. My car smelled like some weird combination of fried goodness and fruity something. Not even mad.

Stats and Achievements

• Total Distance Drove: 28 miles / 358 miles (386 miles)
• Total Cost: $53 ($18.35 gas; $34 food, includes buying food to bring back home to parents/brother)
• Total Time: Saturday and Sunday
• Times Nearly Crying: 9+
• Cupid Shuffle’d: 1
• Fresh Priestly Blessing: +1

Response

Being Catholic, I know the importance of vocations or living out your life of holiness in particular and called ways. The vocation of marriage is so important because it images God’s love of his people and how society flourishes. The vocation of priesthood is so important because it images God’s love of His Church and how the Christian life flourishes. Since I was able to attend both a wedding and a fresh priest’s first Mass in the same weekend, it seemed very obvious to me that this was a great opportunity to pray for vocations. So where I could and remembered to do so, I prayed for vocations.

Overall, I think the resounding theme for the weekend was joy. Even now, a few weeks later, that is the word I immediately think of when I think back to this weekend. Joy.

How joyful it is for us in the Church to have awesome witnesses to the sacraments of holy orders and marriage. How joyful the spouses are and how joyful the priest is in serving Lord in their particular ways!

And so as I go about my own daily walk with Lord, I must remember to have joy–especially when trusting in His will for my life and how He calls me to be holy.

Let’s continue to pray for good and holy vocations and for us to discern God’s will in our lives so that we can be who we are created to be and set the world on fire!

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JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post Pilgrimage Report: Pray For Vocations Pilgrimage – June 2018 appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

Clear Creek Abbey is a gem of a place to visit. Hidden in the hills of the top-right corner of Oklahoma between Tulsa and Fayetteville, Arkansas, the Abbey is a fortress of solace, prayer, and hard work. It has an interesting history, but for the purposes of this pilgrimage report, just know that it’s a huge monastery on huge grounds with over 40 Benedictine monks in the middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma.

This is actually my third time to visit Clear Creek Abbey. The first two times were with older gentlemen of my parish for the inaugural-now-annual “Cross Walk Pilgrimage” where we literally take turns carrying a large wooden cross across 20 miles leading up to the monastery. A monk on this particular trip affectionately referred to us as the “cross walkers”, and I laughed. Because true.

Besides those two previous trips with my fellow “cross walkers”, I’ve never visited the Abbey on my own!

Since I’m not currently in a grad school class, and I had a free weekend, I decided to seize the opportunity to go visit Clear Creek for a weekend of being disconnected from the Internet and focusing more on my relationship with God. Yes, the lack of WiFi was penitential.

My intent and goal for this pilgrimage was to have a prayerful retreat from the hustle and bustle of my daily life. In the midst of all the praying, I also wanted to make progress on some of the books I’m reading including Waiting for Eli: A Father’s Journey from Fear to Faith by Chad Judice, The Catholic Hipster Handbook: Rediscovering Cool Saints, Forgotten Prayers, and Other Weird but Sacred Stuff by Tommy Tighe, and everyone’s favorite classic: the New Testament by the Holy Spirit-divinely-inspiring-some-guys. Between reading those books and praying with the monks, I also wanted to make sure I kept working on content for Pilgrim for Less. The fact that I’m writing this blog post while on a pilgrimage for Pilgrim for Less is gloriously meta!

Before continuing on, it’s important to know two things because these Benedictine monks of Clear Creek are very much about these two things:

• Liturgy of the Hours – it’s the official prayer of the Church as a response to Christ’s command for us to pray unceasingly. You can learn more about that here at the USCCB.
• Extraordinary Form of the Mass / Latin Mass – the Mass as it was celebrated before 1962 and the implementation of the “Novus Ordo” that we’re familiar with today. Find out more at Catholic Answers.

Pilgrimage Details

Location: Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey
Time Required: 3 Days
Cost: $$
Transportation: Car
Essentials: Journal, Prayer Requests, Books, Laptop

Note: A lot of this itinerary wasn’t pre-planned as I gave higher priority to attending the different hours of prayer and working on whatever seemed appropriate during non-prayer and non-meal times. I was winging it every hour, but I have represented below what I actually did as much as possible.

Itinerary

• Friday
  • 0400 Wake and Lauds
  • 0445-1000 Breakfast and drive to Broken Arrow, OK
  • 1000-1100 Meet with The Catholic Man Show
  • 1100-1230 Drive to Wagoner, OK/Lunch at Morgan’s Corner
  • 1230-1300 Drive to Clear Creek Abbey
  • 1300-1345 Check In and Wait
  • 1400-1435 Settle In
  • 1435 None
  • 1500-1630 Explore and Nap
  • 1630-1800 Work
  • 1800 Vespers
  • 1930 Dinner
  • 2035 Compline
  • 2100-2230 Work
  • 2230 Bed
• Saturday
  • 0430 Wake then Snooze
  • 0500 Upper Church for prayer before Matins and Lauds
  • 0515 Matins and Lauds
  • 0700 Low Mass in the Upper Church
  • 0800-0830 Prime
  • 0830-0900 Breakfast
  • 0900-1000 Work
  • 1000-1100 Terce and High Mass
  • 1100-1250 Work
  • 1250-1330 Sext then Lunch
  • 1330-1415 Socialize
  • 1415-1435 Work
  • 1435 None
  • 1500-1800 Work
  • 1800 Vespers
  • 1830-1930 Work
  • 1930-2000 Dinner
  • 2000-2035 Hang Out
  • 2035-2100 Compline
  • 2100-2200 Work and Pack
  • 2200 Bed
• Sunday
  • 0530 Wake
  • 0530-0600 Shower and Pack
  • 0600-0700 Lauds
  • 0700-0740 Low Mass (4th Sunday after Pentecost (Extraordinary Form follows older liturgical schedule))
  • 0800 Leave Clear Creek
  • 0900-1400 Drive
  • 1400 Arrive Home

All over the monastery, the monks kindly provide their daily schedule:

Map

Points of Interest

Friday

I woke up at 4AM to get my day started with the usual praying of Morning Prayer (Lauds) from the Liturgy of the Hours at home. After praising the Lord in psalms, I showered and then finished packing. By 5AM, I was out the door and proceeded to stop by a nearby gas station for coffee, and I stopped by a further away gas station for kolaches, because Texas. I know of a German bakery/gas station, called Rumpy’s, near the Texas-Oklahoma border off I-35 and had frequented it several years ago. The nostalgia was strong like the deliciousness of their blueberry and coconut fruit kolaches I had.

Then I drove for what felt like many, many hours in order to get myself over to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. You see, I’m a fan of The Catholic Man Show podcast (shout out!) where they do three things each episode: 1) open, enjoy, and review an alcoholic beverage, 2) recommend a man gear, and 3) discuss a manly topic. The hosts are based out of Broken Arrow. Since Broken Arrow is about an hour away from the monastery, I figured I could stop by and give the intrepid hosts a bottle of TX Whiskey, which is a hometown favorite. So I met up with one of the hosts, Adam, for coffee where we hung out and got to know each other a bit while talking about manly things. Because of course.

After coffee, I went on my way to Wagoner, which is a small town southwest of the monastery. The two times I did the “cross walk pilgrimage”, we started in Wagoner. I ate lunch at Morgan’s gas station because that is a traditional stop for us cross-carrying men, and therefore I knew it would be a good breather and break before the final stretch of a drive up to the monastery.

Much of my driving time was spent catching up on the handful of Catholic podcasts that I subscribe to. I’ve been slacking lately so my podcast backlog was getting a little ridiculous. I was able to get mostly caught up!

Just past 1:00PM, I arrived at the monastery. I didn’t see anyone, and their gatehouse was locked. I rang the daytime doorbell and was convinced no one would show up until a man dressed in white robes answered the door after a few minutes. Thankfully, he was a monk. Apparently they were having their lunch, and I had awkwardly interrupted. Despite this, I was still warmly greeted, and the characteristic Benedictine hospitality was shining through my white-robed host. He gave me the option to join them for the rest of lunch or to chillax (my word, not his, haha) in one of the parlors and read. I opted for the latter.

I attempted at not sobbing reading through Waiting for Eli while waiting the thirty minutes for the Guestmaster (yes, actual title) to show up. He finally does, and he briefly catches up with me as he (somehow!) remembers me from my last few visits, which were back in 2014 and 2016. He shows me my room in the guest area inside their monastery.

The rest of the time until dinner was a mixture of me napping, me joining along for the monks’ prayer times in the crypt church (or lower level sanctuary), me reading, and me working on Pilgrim for Less. It was hot and humid outside so I wasn’t too keen on being out and about on the grounds.

Since I’m a man, I can take my meals with the monks in their refectory. It’s always a treat because the food is usually simple and delicious (albeit sometimes creative), no one really talks to each other, and there’s a monk in a corner chant-reading aloud from a book. It was here at dinner time that I finally saw how many other guys are staying as guests with the monks. There were about 7-8 other guys ranging from just out of high school to middle-aged. Dinner was bread, milk, spaghetti with red sauce and peas. Dessert was some sort of sticky rice pudding with dried apricot on the side.

After dinner, we guestly guys hung out in the guest courtyard. I got to meet most of them while hanging out. The Guestmaster and his Associate Guestmaster joined us as well. Apparently it was a big deal to the monks in our little circle of fellowship that I was wearing an Apple Watch. The Guestmaster had never seen one and was asking how it worked, and I found myself somewhat explaining Bluetooth. He then proceeded to continuously tap on my Apple Watch in jest and activating a timer or three. Haha.

Hanging around being social for about an hour, I got to learn where some of the guys were from and why they were visiting the monastery. There was also a lot of airplane talk because of me since I’m an #avgeek. Turns out a few of them are doing grand tours of monasteries around the US, and a few others are actively discerning the Benedictine life with these particular monks. Cool stuff!

We closed the night by heading back to the crypt church for Night Prayer with the monks before retiring to our rooms.

Saturday

I’d wager that most people don’t get up early enough to START praying at 5AM. But the monks do. And thankfully, I do as well as part of my daily prayer. They prayed Matins at 5:15AM, and I joined them. What I didn’t know was that Matins goes on seemingly forever! Or maybe I was still groggy and sleepy and every chanted psalm felt like forever. Immediately after Matins, they prayed Lauds, which is the usual Morning Prayer that I devotedly pray every morning on my own. Mostly. Matins and Lauds took about 2 hours.

Immediately after Lauds came the 7:00AM Low Mass. I unwittingly stepped away for a bathroom break and missed the start of Mass. Because it was a Low Mass in the Extraordinary Form, there is no singing/chanting or call and response. And I forgot to grab a Missal so I couldn’t attempt at following along with the priest that I couldn’t even hear. While Mass was being said, I was distracted at seeing the three different Masses going on with three different priests at three different altars in the same general space in the upper church.

No, Mass didn’t count for thrice with the three Masses going on. Before the liturgy of the Eucharist for the Mass happening on my side of the upper church, the altar server looked back at me and non-verbally asked me from afar if I were receiving Communion. I gave a slight nod. To receive Communion, you have to be kneeling and receive on the tongue. Way more hipster. Myself and the veiled ladies, who I’m non-Marianly assuming are members of the local community just outside of the monastery, on my side of the church filed into the first pew as a makeshift Communion rail.

After Low Mass, I had about 30 minutes to properly get ready for the day as I was still pretty much wearing yesterday’s clothes and felt gross because of the humidity and heat. Perhaps that’s why no on really sat near me for the prayer times and Mass…haha. I took a shower, and I returned to the upper church once again for Prime prayer. Immediately after Prime was breakfast in the refectory where we enjoyed bread, PB&J, cereal, and coffee. It was more come-and-go versus the formal affair that was dinner last night. Oh man, I really needed that coffee because otherwise it would have been penitential for everyone else.

I moseyed back to my room after breakfast and was able to finish reading the Gospel of John.

Approaching 10:00AM, I headed down to the crypt church for Terce prayer and Mass. This time I made sure to grab a Missal and booklet for the Order of the Mass so I could mostly follow along with the liturgy. Thankfully, I didn’t get lost so much. Since it was a High Mass, incense was used and parts of it were sung/chanted aloud.

When Mass finished, I returned to my room and finished reading Waiting for Eli. After finishing the book and nearly weeping another five times, I worked on some content for Pilgrim for Less.

Sext prayer was at 12:50 PM followed by lunch. The monastery gained a few visitors, and some of those guys (mix of older gentlemen and kids) joined us for lunch. Lunch was soup, bread, omelet with sour cream sauce, beans, with a simple leaf salad and dressing. Dessert was Hershey Kisses still in Easter livery. I think they served house wine?! One of the drinks looked like iced tea, but it tasted slightly fruity, alcoholic, and fizzy. And where the kids were sitting, there were no bottles of it. Hmm. Either way, it was good.

After lunch, I got to hang out with the other guys again as we all loitered in the courtyard. The Associate Guestmaster was talking to the new guests while I chatted it up with one of the guys I met last night.

We prayed None at 2:35PM, and then we had the typical three-hour gap before Vespers. I spent this time working, napping, and reading. At about 5:00PM, I decided to walk around the grounds a little bit. After doing so, I decided to do some journaling under a huge, shady tree where some benches are set up. Conveniently, the door to the crypt church was a stone throw away making it easy to go to Vespers. After journaling, I headed back inside to pray Vespers.

During the gap between Vespers and dinner, I attempted at leveling up my Catholic hipsterness by reading The Catholic Hipster Handbook. It’s rather ironic/coincidental since I read the next few entries in the book, and they had to do with praying the Liturgy of the Hours and attending the Extraordinary Form of the Mass because these are very hipster Catholic things to do. Check and check. These Benedictine monks at Clear Creek are so hipster!

Dinner was a little weird for me because the “soup” wasn’t hot. It seemed a lot like cold fruit juice although, it still tasted good soaked in the baked bread that they serve every meal. The main entree was bok choy with some sort of thick sauce over it. It didn’t seem too appealing in looks, but it was passable in taste. Dessert was bread pudding with raisins with a side of preserved raspberries. That was delicious.

Post-dinner socializing involved lots of talk regarding manure. Apparently some of the other guys had helped dig trenches and plant trees during the 3:00PM-6:00PM work period, and one guy seemed to be knowledgeable about #farmlife or something. Our exceedingly engaging conversation on how horse manure is the best manure was rudely interrupted by the appearance of a huge, tarantula-like spider crawling towards us in the courtyard. One of the other guys promptly kicked it away from us and then back toward us. I felt like a sissy for jumping back. Eventually, some of the nearby garden bed rocks were used to smash it. Good thing we were at a Benedictine monastery because if we were at at Franciscan one, I’m pretty sure it would have been disappointing for St. Francis (ya know, coz he likes animals). More manure talk, then we were off to Night Prayer to pray before going to bed. Thankfully, I didn’t have any nightmares of huge spiders crawling on me.

Sunday

Upon waking at 5:00AM, I doubly-checked to make sure there were no tarantulas crawling around. Because safety.

I elected not to attend Matins at 4:50AM because I wanted to sleep in a little so that I wouldn’t be too tired while driving home. After finishing up packing and showering, I awkwardly slipped into the upper church for the end of Matins and the start of Lauds. I made another mistake for Lauds by grabbing the wrong book. I had grabbed the Missal and not the book which contains all the Hours prayers. Because of this mistake, I mostly sat through Lauds without following along. Fortunately by this point, I actually somewhat recognized some of the Psalms the monks prayed because of my own devotion to Lauds and me picking up on some Latin this weekend.

Low Mass started right after Lauds, and I was grateful to be less lost in following along with the Missal. The Missal is nice because it gives both the Latin and English words of the Mass and basically like stage directions of what the priest is doing. I mean, it’s a lot like Mass at home, but again, I can’t hear the priest because he’s talking only loud enough for himself and the altar server although he is celebrating it for us who are actively participating with him.

Mass finished up, I headed back up to my room, grabbed my stuff, made it rain with cash as my donation for my stay, said goodbye to one of the other guys, and then headed out the door to get in my car to start driving home.

My way home was pretty easy. I did stop to get gas, breakfast and coffee, and some snacks for future consumption. Since I didn’t have to drive across Oklahoma like on my way in, the road trip was shorter.

Stats and Achievements

• Total Cost: $138 ($27 gas; $21 food; $90 lodging which included meals)
• Total Miles Driven: ~650 miles
• Total Distance Walked: ~6 miles / 16,000 steps
• Liturgy of the Hours Attended: 12
• Masses attended: 3
• Times Seeing Nuns Get Into A Ford F-150: 1
• Tarantulas Ran Away From: 1
• Books finished: 2
• Monks Talked To: 3

Response

I think first and foremost, this pilgrimage was rather refreshing because I was disconnected from the Internets for a majority of my weekend. I was able to spend more time focusing on other things versus focusing on refreshing a news feed, timeline, or past Netflix’s “Are you still watching?” button. Since I’m a creature of habit, it’ll be difficult struggling with Internet distractions again, but going forward I tangibly know what it feels like to disconnect, even if for a little bit. Hopefully I can check my phone a little bit less.

As a fruit of having a lot of time to read, I was able to finish two books! I’m on a quest to read all of the New Testament as part of a New Year’s goal, and I’ve been doing a crappy job of making good progress. Thankfully, I was able to finish the Gospel of John this weekend. This Gospel ends with John supposing that the world couldn’t contain all the books written of the works of Jesus. This made for an interesting point of reflection because the Bible only records the essential stuff. I mean, I know Jesus is super extra, but it’d be fun to know what else He did. But maybe that’s where I should pivot and think about how Jesus works in my own life. Whoa.

The other book I finished was Waiting for Eli. I will properly post a review of it sometime. The quick background is that the author and father of Eli, Chad Judice, came to my parish to share Eli’s story. I bought the two books, but I have done an exceedingly terrible job of reading them as I’ve been hanging on to them for multiple years now. Either way, I was able to finish Waiting for Eli during this pilgrimage. It’s such an amazing story of the power of prayer and miracles for a family that had to endure the trials and sufferings of a debilitating pre-natal diagnosis for their son, Eli. He was diagnosed with spina bifida. The parts of the book that really got to me was the supernatural trust and surrender that Chad and his wife had, or rather, the supernatural trust they gained while enduring the entire ordeal. Reading the story of them waiting for Eli to be born really made me wonder if I have such a radical trust in God.

Since this was my third visit to Clear Creek Abbey, I’m still just amazed that the monks incorporate a life of work and prayer. “Ora et labora” (pray and work), their axiom goes. It reminds me of a quote that I heard somewhere that goes something like “our days shouldn’t be interrupted by prayer, but rather our prayer should be interrupted by our day” as a way to make the point that we should be praying unceasingly. I already pray Lauds on my own, but I think it would be good to incorporate another Hour for prayer like Compline. I will need to be intentional with that and perhaps even schedule reminders.

Also, I feel like I leveled up a few times in Latin! Every Mass and every Hour of prayer is in Latin. Since I followed along with the books and booklets that the monastery provides with both Latin and English, I was able to see Latin in action. After this weekend, I really want to pick up an Order of the Mass or the Liturgy of the Hours in Latin (with English) for fun!

And of course, as I always try to make sure I am praying for other people and their prayer requests and intentions when on pilgrimages, I was able to do so at every Hour and Mass carrying my little notebook where I’ve written/copied those requests.

All in all, this was an excellent pilgrimage and personal retreat. I only wished I had stayed longer on Sunday, but I needed to return home to celebrate Father’s Day with my parents. I forgot to pick up some of the monks’ cheese so obviously that’s Reason #3295726 to return.

Question for you—have you ever been to a Latin Mass or the Extraordinary Form of the Mass? What did you think about it? Comment below!

Resources:

• Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey website
• USCCB – Liturgy of the Hours
• Catholic Answers – Extraordinary Form of the Mass

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post Pilgrimage Report: Clear Creek Abbey – June 2018 appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

For this pilgrimage, I decided to fast from listening to music or podcasts while driving anywhere and then not use my phone while hiking. I wanted to do a better job of entering into a quiet and peaceful place interiorly from distractions. It’s hard to do that when Taylor Swift or Bruno Mars is blasting on my radio, and I’m singing along like no one is listening. And then, I’ve also recognized that I look at my iPhone way too much on a day-to-day basis. I don’t really give myself a chance to really disconnect so that’s why I decided to give it up while hiking.

In terms of planning, putting it all together didn’t take very long. Here are the details:

Pilgrimage Details:

Itinerary:

• 0600 Morning Prayer @ Home
• 0630 Breakfast @ Home
• 0800 Depart for Marion Samson Park
• 0830-1030 Marion Samson Park
• 1130 Confession @ St. Patrick’s Cathedral
• 1205 Daily Mass @ St. Patrick’s Cathedral
• 1300 Lunch @ downtown or nearby

Points of Interest

Marion Samson Park

This park is kind of a hidden gem because I feel like no one really talks about it, and no one really says they go there. It has some cool features like many mountain biking and some hiking trails. Great views of Lake Worth. Short water falls. Varied vegetation.

I took my DSLR camera with me and took shots here and there. Almost got ran over by mountain bikers a few times.

I also spent some time to journal at the waterfalls. The glorious thing was that I pretty much had the area to myself for about twenty minutes. It was wonderful spending some time with God in nature like that with the splashes of the waterfall going and the ink from my pen purposefully and intentionally leaving personal marks. Then some college guys came in and were being loud, which was fine because I had wrapped up my journaling anyway by the time they arrived.

I kind of got lost trying to get out…I had to use my iPhone briefly in order to check Google Maps in order to make sure that I was heading the right direction to my car in order to get to Mass. On my personal exodus from the park, I had to part from the trail multiple times as multiple groups of mountain bikers intersected my path. Reaching my car unscathed, I headed towards the cathedral.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral

I arrived early enough to catch Confession. I ended being the second guy in line, but it was still super awkward sliding into the pew and judging how close I should sit to the guy already in line. While waiting, I made progress reading the current Catholic book I’m reading, The Catholic Hipster’s Handbook by Tommy Tighe. Because I’m not enough of a Catholic hipster.

Got to have fresh Confesh, and then daily Mass. I also prayed for the prayer intentions that I carried with me.

Since I’m writing this a month after the fact, I don’t quite remember what the homily was about. However, it certainly was nice to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by going to Mass and not partying foolishly at noon on the streets of downtown yelling “woooo!” at complete strangers while holding a warm beer. After daily Mass, I got back into my car to head over to a different district of downtown.

Downtown, kind of

I heard about a relatively new ramen shop that opened up nearby, so I decided to check it out. Why? Because no one thinks to go to a ramen shop on St. Patrick’s Day. And my assumption was rather correct because I went in, and only a handful of other people were in there lunching and slurping away at their ramen. Meanwhile, restaurants nearby were already packed with St. Patrick’s Day party people. They got nothing on me because the green onions floating about my ramen noodles was deliciously more festive!

After the ramen shop, I decided to go around the block to a popular ice cream place. They bake their own cookies and thus are known for their ice cream sandwiches. Because St. Patrick’s Day is a day to celebrate, even during Lent, I decided to splurge and enjoy an ice cream sandwich. White macadamia nut cookies spooning with cookies and cream ice cream in-between.

Stats and Achievements

• Total Cost: $20.32 (food)
• Total Distance Walked: 4.8 miles / ~10,800 steps
• 4x Nearly Getting Run Over By Mountain Bikers

Response

I’ve kind of been experiencing some spiritual dryness. I think it largely came from not being intentional with all my typical spiritual practices. I was totally the deer that yearns for flowing streams. Going out to take a hike and disconnecting for a while helped me be less distracted and focus more on where I’m at with God. Of course, going to Confession helped as well as experiencing God in His Word and Eucharist at Mass. All of this was quite refreshing, moreso than a bottle of an ice-cold, condensing Coca-Cola on a drippingly humid,  summer day.

This St. Patrick’s Day pilgrimage was a good time to refocus on what’s most important this Lent. Going forward, I should give myself opportunities to disconnect and not be afraid to do simple short pilgrimages like this one. After all, I need to be more of a pilgrim for less.

I know it was a few months ago, but did you do anything for St. Patrick’s Day?

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post Pilgrimage Report: St. Patrick’s Day Pilgrimage 2018 appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.