GET BACK TO CHURCH, SUNDAY, OR GET BACK TO THE POOL, RETREAT

The view from my motel room door, exactly!

I'm in Jacksonville for our annual priests' retreat for the Diocese of Savannah. I could not get into the retreat house at Marywood, for the first time ever, and so I'm staying at the Ramada Inn about 20 minutes away. Sad. But I procrastinated calling the diocese to register, so there you have it. But someone, several someones, had to go elsewhere, why not me?

The retreat master is a Benedictine from St. Meinrad, Indiana, Fr. Eugene Hensell, OSB. When I was vocation director, I placed a few of our seminarians in their college seminary. I enjoyed visiting there and they offered a vocation director workshop each year in February.

Since I'm in a traditional motel room, with the door opening directly to the outside and to a lovely pool and that traditional motel smell, that is turning my stomach, I also have a TV with cable.

One of the Jacksonville stations had an advertisement by a Protestant minister advertising "Get Back to Church Sunday, September 16th." I don't know if this is just a Jacksonville thing or has a broader inspiration. The minister promoted his own church but then listed the names of other churches people could get back to. These were all Protestant, not a Catholic name in any of them.

I wonder how well these advertisements work. I know we Catholics had many ads for our Catholics Come Home in the Diocese of Savannah and of course we didn't advertise Protestant Churches. We did see a goodly number of people returning to the Church, but I wonder how many stayed. But if one person only returned permanently to the Church I suspect it was worth it.

So on this retreat, with a lovely pool right outside my door, do I pray or swim? What a conundrum!