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September 8, 2023I will fly to Colorado today (Sunday) leaving Savannah at 7:00 a.m. I will be giving a retreat this week to the priests of Denver, and they have a long-established tradition of beginning their priest retreats at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. This is unfortunate for me. Given the change of time zones, I will not be able to celebrate the two Sunday masses here and still be able to arrive on time. I know that you will give a warm St. Michael’s, Tybee Island welcome to Fr. Gregory Viskas, O.S.B. Fr. Viskas is a newly ordained Benedictine monk who is stationed at B.C. in Savannah, and a very fine priest. I will be back in the parish, as God wills, on Friday night.
I am so grateful to God that Hurricane Idalia was gentle with us. I was pastor of Blessed Sacrament in Savannah for six years, when we were building a new school, and we were hit (not gently) by two hurricanes in two successive years. One of the hurricanes actually bent a huge iron I-beam in two! Nature reminds us of the power of our God! I was not here on the island during Idalia. I was in New York and got stranded one extra day because of the hurricane winds. I hope and pray that this is the first of many hurricanes I will miss. And the first of many hurricanes which will miss us.
I love the “bookmark prayer” of St. Teresa of Avila, the great Carmelite mystic and doctor of the Church. They found this prayer scribbled in her own hand, on the bookmark which was in the book she was using for spiritual reading when she died. I hope it will be as helpful to you as it has been to me.Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing dismay you.
All things pass.
God never changes.
Patience attains all it strives for.
He who has God finds that he lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.
