Celebrating the 4th

     Since the title of the blog is "Journey Thoughts", I would like to briefly share my journey for the day.  There is no need to worry, though.  You will not be overcome with excitement.  But it was a good day.

     I began as always with Mass - very impressed with the translations for the Independence Day liturgy.  Spoke to a parishioner who just returned last Sunday from Rome and other European locations.  Had a quick bite to eat, did the earlier post, then went home to visit my sister, Janie, at the family home in Uniontown.

      I was able to watch the beautiful Fortnight For Freedom Closing Mass from Washington with Cardinal Wuerl and hear Archbishop Chaput's homily.  I found his homily very insightful, but his delivery was very low keyed.

     Then Janie and I traveled about twenty minutes to a local State Park - Ohiopyle, which is in a beautiful mountain setting with falls, a set of rapids, and whitewater rafting (which obviously we did not participate in).  It was relaxing and beautiful.  I saw a family from this parish at the Park - and we are an hour and a half away.  Small world.  I've enclosed a picture of the stream.  We stopped for dinner at the Stone House on US 40, an historic old stagecoach inn of days gone by.  We visited the graves of Mom and Dad and shared our prayers and love, then visited our only surviving aunt, Margaret Venick, who was taken to the hospital an hour before we arrived.  She is eighty-eight, in a care facility and in very poor health.  Please remember her in your prayers.  I anointed her at the hospital before we left.

     Then I returned to North Huntingdon, skirting a storm system almost all the way, stopped for a sandwich and then watched the local fireworks sponsored by a neighboring housing plan association - Penn's Woods.  They were great.  I had a group of kids next to me that commented on the fireworks, guessing the next colors, commenting on what they looked like [the Death Star of Star Wars ... the Rings of Saturn ... a star ... etc].  It was fun listening in on their excitement.  And here I am now, sharing these thoughts at the end of a good day.  I hope your day was as relaxing as mine.