Servant and Steward

We have arrived back in Honolulu at 12:04 p.m. after a safe and uneventful flight.

I have now "abandoned" the pilgrims in the airport and am at my friend Ian's house, where I will stay until Thursday afternoon.

My stay in Hawaii is twofold: to rest and recover from three weeks of travelling and to reflect upon the experience of WYD 2008.

Personally, it has been a time of many graces and I know that through it the Lord is calling me to break away my outer shell, to become more "personable" and open. These past twenty-some days has been an opportunity to "return to the joy of my youth," as the Psalmist would say.

It is this youthful joy that the Lord is now calling me to give to the world, yet this is now easy task. In the words of Rich Mullins, "there's a lot of love locked up inside of me that I'm learning to give."

I hope to use these days in Paradise to pray about this and to ask the Lord for guidance, particularly from St. John Bosco and Blessed Damien of Molokai, whose grave I hope to visit.

Please continue to pray for the pilgrims. They should be flying out of Honolulu in about an hour and a half, to arrive in Chicago about 6:00 a.m. It is a flight that I physically could not make and I hope they can rest well on this flight.