We started off the day with a beautiful service at St. Michael's, which is a small church right next to the Diocesan Center. In addition to our group, there was another group from a Lutheran church in Minnesota. As a result, we more than doubled their numbers for a typical service, and the tiny church was packed. The atmosphere was one of welcome and thanks. The Peace was joyous as we all hugged and passed God's blessings.
During St. Michael's announcements, as they mentioned a couple of outreach efforts that they've recently undertaken, I realized how similar we all really were. Each of us, in our own way, is reaching out to spread Jesus' teachings and the Word of God. Today's Gospel was very timely and spoke to each of us as a call to serve as disciples of Jesus. Words from today's Offertory anthem said it best, "Here I am Lord. Send me. Send me."
After church and coffee hour, we went out to lunch in Cuernavaca at a place that Martha found called Tia Licha. Lunch was the beginning of our journey for the day as we all blindly ordered off the menu not knowing what in the world we'd be eating but trusting that it would be good. Indeed it was - however, some of us still didn't know what we were eating??? Either way, lunch provided the much needed sustenance to help us through the "Trek through Cuernavaca"...
It started off innocently enough, a nice walk to the center of the city to visit the Zocolo and participate in the afternoon's festivities. However, we naively thought the walk was about 1 mile or so. As we continued walking and walking (keep in mind Cuernavaca is hilly, hot, humid AND much higher in elevation than Milwaukee), we realized that our estimation of distance was WAY OFF! As we arrived in the center of town, we also realized that there were no more sidewalks and absolutely NO rules for traffic. (And, we still didn't know exactly how far or in what direction the Zocolo was.) As we sliced through the traffic with our machetes (kind of like a concrete jungle metaphor), we finally made it to our destination with a lot of red faces, dirty feet and tremendous sighs of relief! The kids estimate that we probably walked 6 miles or so - all up hill, of course (I would say in a blinding snow storm but you wouldn't believe me). Thankfully, we all had faith, and when we finally made it to the Zocolo, it was packed with people and families enjoying a beautiful day - enjoying community - celebrating life.
After much people watching and a little shopping, we returned to the Diocesan Center (in a taxi this time!). After a little rest and some dinner, we had time for reflection and prayer. We're all looking forward to working tomorrow and serving in our own little way. Here I am Lord. Send me. Send me.
God bless and Happy Father's Day.
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