I woke up bright and early at 4:30am to catch a 6:55am flight to Fort Wayne, Indiana for a meeting with Our Sunday Visitor, a nationwide Catholic company that provides multiple services to parishes and dioceses.<\/p>\n
While standing at a bagel shop in the Savannah terminal, I ran into a young couple whose wedding I officiated a few months ago.\u00a0 She grew up at my parish, but moved to Atlanta when she was a teenager.\u00a0 She and her husband now reside in New York City and had returned to Savannah for a family reunion.\u00a0 He started a job there immediately after the wedding, and after some ups and downs, have found their way in the big city.<\/p>\n
While eating my bacon and egg bagel, I saw a parishioner who is active at the parish.\u00a0 He was on his way to Chicago, we chatted about the very cold weather we would soon experience.\u00a0 Just yesterday after morning Mass, I saw him, his wife and son make an advent wreath for their home.<\/p>\n
After eating the bagel, I walked to my gate and while I stood there waiting, I thought I recognized the gate agent.\u00a0 I approached to get a better look, including her name tag and remembered her right away.\u00a0 Her husband died after a long battle with cancer and I was called by the funeral home to officiate a bilingual funeral service.\u00a0 The chapel was packed. \u00a0It was good to speak with her.<\/p>\n
This is a brief example of the life of a parish priest \u2013 running into your people outside the walls of the church.\u00a0 It is appropriate that since the airport is within my parish territory, I would see parishioners there!<\/p>\n
My mother always tells me that wherever I go, I always run into people.\u00a0 I suppose it\u2019s an occupational hazard when you are a priest, and one I enjoy very much!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I woke up bright and early at 4:30am to catch a 6:55am flight to Fort Wayne, Indiana for a meeting with Our Sunday Visitor, a nationwide Catholic company that provides multiple services to parishes and dioceses. While standing at a bagel shop in the Savannah terminal, I ran into a young couple whose wedding I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2533,"featured_media":1801,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[205],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"yoast_head":"\n