Want to include Jesus in your vacation?
Lots of people enjoy vacations and may even include daily prayer during such refreshing times. Many experience glimpses of God’s love through visiting new places, relaxing, or enjoying family and friends. But how many of us have planned a combination vacation and pilgrimage? How many have chosen to add a holy place as a meaningful stop along the way? We have successfully done so many times. Our experiences have added a depth to family vacations. with just a few simple additions, whole journeys have often become like retreat on the move.
We learned that all the parts of any trip –preparing, traveling, meals, the beauty of nature –can take on a sacred dimension. The first step in doing so involves a shift in our goals. We choose to move from gobbling up experiences to keeping an eye out for new spiritual insights, evangelizing moments and renewed faith. embracing a deeper awareness of life as a gift, instead of mere pleasure seeking. Our goal becomes embracing a deeper quality of life, something above mere pleasure seeking. Here are some suggestions for you and your traveling companions:
- Add a prayer of thanksgiving at the start of each day. Thank God for the places and people you will encounter. While traveling to a conference in Detroit, we added a stop at the Shrine of Blessed Solanus Casey. The cab driver asked us where we were headed. Then he shared that he had carried a Solanus prayer card in his wallet for years, but had lost it… When returning from the Shrine to our hotel, we asked for this same driver by name and gave him a new prayer card.
- Chose a holy place near your destination or along the route. We added a visit to St. Elizabeth Seton Shrine, when visiting Gettysburg, PA. To our surprise, John was healed of a serious throat infection as we prayed.
- Consider a family spiritual heritage stop. Include a visit and shared prayer at a church (call ahead) where family baptisms, Fist Communions, or marriages took place. Consider a visit to a cemetery where a loved one is buried. (Some burial records are available at www.findagrave.com)
- Recreate a moment in a Saint’s life near where she or he lived. For us, a vacation in upstate New York included time in the village where Saint Kateri Tekakwitha lived. At one point, Therese knelt down to scoop up cool water from the same spring where Kateri drank more than three hundred years earlier. As family members used the water to bless each other, the sun shining through the leaves above us highlighted God’s presence with our family.
PS. After eight years and over 100 posts on this website, we will be taking an extended vacation, with pilgrimage sites along the way. Then in Mid-November, we will make a new decision about any further posts and/or the publication of the most popular posts.