Sometimes our best laid plans fall apart—and sometimes they’re replaced with something simpler and quieter, but no less blessed. What can we do when our expectations are dashed and we are faced with unexpected quiet time? The answer my husband and I found recently was to go with God’s plan and receive the graces available right in our own backyard.
Last month we were scheduled to make a pilgrimage to St. Anne de Beaupre in Quebec, Canada. I was born on the feast of St. Ann and have had a lifelong devotion to her. This past feast I turned 60, and my husband, a great curator of vacations and trips, thought it would be the perfect time to make a pilgrimage to the shrine. We left for Canada only to have a brake system failure about an hour from home. Thanks be to God and His mercy we didn’t get in an accident. But our planned pilgrimage was over before it had begun.
While we were disappointed about the turn of events, we trusted that God was giving us a special grace and perhaps protecting us from something worse than a car malfunction. Deep in my heart, past the disappointment, a peaceful thought came to me. I believe that when we get to heaven and see fully what happened that day, my husband and I are going to be very thankful. For all I know, this “disappointment” may have been one of the great graces of our marriage. As gratitude took over, I opened up to God’s plan for our week. It wouldn’t be a pilgrimage, but perhaps we could live it as a retreat.
Go with it: If you can’t do A, try B
I had many prayer requests from friends and family that I planned to take to the Shrine. Though I couldn’t offer them there, my husband and I could (and did) take these requests with us to daily Mass. There was no procession or special songs in honor of St. Ann, but I trust that grace was given just the same.
Gratitude for the Everyday Blessings
Gratitude was the word God placed on my heart during this at-home pilgrimage-turned-retreat. This week became the perfect opportunity to renew a commitment to live gratefully for what we are blessed with 365 days a year, while we had the chance to slow down and enjoy it. A safe home in a quiet neighborhood with plenty to eat is the stuff of dreams for much of the world’s population. Time at home enjoying our everyday gifts and giving thanks to God for them will deepen our gratitude and give perspective to our ongoing life struggles, and even our concerns about world affairs.
There is a lot to be said for simply staying home for a week during the summer. Do you have any time off available? Consider taking a Gratitude Retreat right at home. Go to daily Mass, pray a rosary in your favorite chair. Sit outside to listen to the birds call and the breeze flow through the trees. Let God minister to your heart through the rhythm of the seasons and the sights, sounds, scents and warmth of these last days of summer.
Once our car was repaired, we made a few trips to nearby parks and beaches. I tried a few recipes I had long wanted to. We read. We napped. We really rested. Summer is hurrying along, but we were able to take this time to do more than just notice it; we reveled in it. It was not exciting, and perhaps that was part of God’s point. We need relaxation in our lives. The world is exciting enough these days!
The last little thing that I was able to check off an impromptu list I made at the beginning of our “retreat” was planting a packet of flower seeds I received as a shower favor. If you’re anything like me, you take these lovely favors home with the best of intentions, only to come across them when cleaning out drawers two years down the road. This time I planted those seeds. Throughout the rest of the summer, I will peek at them and watch what comes up. Similarly, I will be peeking at my efforts at gratitude and watching over the prayer intentions that were sown during our week at home. It seemed a fitting final small project for a week of big blessings found in overlooked places.
Life is not a series of problems to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.
This quote, a slight adaptation of one attributed to Søren Kierkegaard, is used frequently in the homilies of one of our parish priests. It never fails to hit me between the eyes. When I let go of the need to solve every problem and “fix things,” I am free to live the life God gave, allowing Him to reveal the mystery in His perfect timing.
During this pilgrimage-turned-retreat there was ample time for prayer, ample time to “live the mystery.” During one of those times, I thought back to what I believe was a signal grace from Our Blessed Mother. Before Mass the morning we left for Canada, as I prayed by a statue of Our Lady, I smelled the overwhelming and unmistakable scent of incense. There had been no funeral Mass, nor any other use of incense in the small chapel. At the time I thought it was a lovely signal grace that our pilgrimage had begun. In retrospect I believe it was an assurance that all the prayers I carried with me, for my family, friends, and loved ones, had already been received, risen like incense to the Lord.
As I slowed down to pray at God’s pace, He was able to reveal to my heart that everything I need for a life lived deeply in Him is right here. Yes, pilgrimages are a wonderful and holy thing. But they are not always possible, and perhaps they are not always what we need. What we do need are gratitude and prayer, and those can be found when we make a retreat with whatever time we can offer to God, in the place where He gives our 365-days-a-year-gifts, our home.
In the traditional Litany of St. Ann, one of the titles given to her is, “Guide of Pilgrims.” Thank you, St. Ann, for guiding us on our brief pilgrimage-that-wasn’t, during our retreat at home, and all along this pilgrimage of life. Good St. Ann, pray for us!
Photo by Peter Amende on Unsplash
