When I share with people that I traveled for an entire semester, their first question I always get is where was your favorite place that you traveled to? It is a tough questions, I went so many places, and loved all of them. I loved going to Assisi and seeing Francis home, beautiful Split, Croatia, or even going to the Guinness factory in Ireland, but without a doubt if I could go to one place and just spend all day there would be St. Peters Basilica.
Now I know that seems like a very Catholic thing to say, you get to see the tombs of the Pope's, The Sistine Chapel, or St. Peters square, but the one place I could sit at for hours is at the back of St.Peters Basilica is a statue of a woman, holding a man in her arms. The, woman in that statue is Mary, and the man is Jesus, and the name of the statue is the "Pieta." The Pieta is a gorgeous statue, and the word Pieta is translated in English means "faithfulness."
I have been a youth minister for a few years now, and I always thought being a youth minister faithfulness would be easy. This was not the case for many of us. Sometimes God places you somewhere in life that is not easy to be. Like right now for me, it is not easy for me to wait for the birth of our first child. All the questions that go through my head each second of everyday. Will I be a good dad? Will my child like me? Will my child think Im as funny as I know I am? Hopefully my child will answer yes to them all!
Still, through all this, God reminds me to be faithful. To be like our Mother Mary, who was faithful from the very beginning to very end. I remember standing in front of the pieta statue years ago and asking for the grace to have faith like Our Blessed Virgin Mary showed throughout her life. I realize now, that I will always pray for the "faithfulness" to live my life for Christ and His Church! I pray for you, and for us all that we can be faithful to whatever God may call us to in life!
