Finding God in the Busyness

What a week!  I’ve been busy going here and there.  It’s the last week of school so I’ve been at the school a lot.  There was the final visits of the year to the classrooms on Monday.  (Pre-K celebrations were last week)  On Tuesday morning there was the Kindergarten celebration.  Yesterday (Thursday) was the final School Mass of the year with graduate recognition in the morning with an awards ceremony in the afternoon.  Our Principal (Diana Oravec) is leaving the school so there was an Ice Cream Social/Farewell for her on Tuesday evening.

Of course, things also continue in the parish.  We had a staff picnic for both the parish and school staff on Monday.  Monday afternoon was a meeting with a parishioner.  Tuesday included an unexpected trip to the hospital to see parishioners and a home visit.  Thursday afternoon brought another unexpected trip to the hospital.  This included two wonderful visits each lasting around half an hour because they were good visits.

There’s always administrative things to do as Pastor and time coordinating things with staff.  Today (Friday) brings an open day on the calendar without meetings but that doesn’t mean I’m not busy.  Of course, there is always the chance that something unexpected could come up but even without the unexpected, I have plenty I can work on today.  With everything on my schedule, I haven’t worked on the ‘piles’ on my desk this week.

I am not complaining and I am not boasting of how much I do.  As I see it, everything I have done this week is part of being a Pastor.  Certainly the hospital and home visits are.  I also feel it is important to be at all the school celebrations to show support and commitment for our school and the wonderful students.  Even the administrative work is part of being a Pastor.

I do not do all this to boast.  In fact, I know the only reason I can do all of this is because God makes it possible.  One of the ways that I see God’s involvement is the peace I have had throughout the week.  Left to do all this on my own, I would be worried about all the things that I haven’t gotten done.  When I get too busy, I don’t pray often enough and lose track of God.  With God, I have a sense of peace knowing that while I’m not getting done everything I would like to, God is taking care of it.  I don’t need to worry.

How busy do you feel in your life?  Do you set your own priorities for what gets done first or do you let God set the priorities?  When you get too busy, are you aware of God?

The Gospel for Mass on Thursday was Jesus teaching his disciples the Lord’s Prayer.  In that prayer we pray “thy will be done.”  Is it God’s Will we seek to do?

Peace,

Fr. Jeff