Learning to Rest

We're in the air right now. Tomorrow morning, our family boards a Disney cruise for a week at sea.

This will be the first vacation I can remember where I'm not bringing a laptop.

That sentence surprised me when I wrote it. Suzanne and I even discussed it. I've always brought the laptop. There's always been something to check, something to finish, something that couldn't wait, something "just in case". But this time I'm leaving it behind. Phone for photos, Kindle for reading, my physical notebook for journaling & notes, and nothing else.

I don't know yet what that will feel like. I suspect I'll reach for the bag where the laptop usually is. I suspect I'll feel the absence like a phantom limb. But I also suspect that's exactly why I need to do it.

The last month has been full. Adobe ended. Matthew graduated. Andrew graduated. Domus is building. Two Lamps is publishing. The encyclical dropped. I preached two Sundays.

Now: Rest. Real rest. The kind where you can't really check the inbox because the inbox isn't there (at least it isn't there as well on the phone).

Pray for me. I'll pray for you - probably from a deck chair, watching the water - or running a 5K before relaxing on the beach at Castaway Cay.

Pentecost Happened

I preached at three Masses this Pentecost weekend, and something happened that doesn't always happen: people talked back.

The thread I pulled was this: the Spirit that descended at Pentecost came from somewhere. The Church Fathers taught that the Church was born from the pierced side of Christ. The Heart is the furnace. The Spirit is the fire that comes forth.

At the Saturday evening Mass, I introduced a prayer to the Sacred Heart - one that Matthew learned as a little boy and taught to our family. And when I said that, I broke down. Couldn't speak.

The congregation saw me struggling. And then they started praying the prayer out loud, using the cards I had placed in the pews. Their voices carried me back to solid ground.

After one of the Sunday Masses, a retired priest - the first priest I ever served Mass for as an altar server - asked me what one word I could have used to tie it all together.

I guessed heart. I guessed love.

He said: "You used Augustine. What would Augustine say?"

The word was grace.

Read the full reflection: Pentecost Happened

What Are We Building?

Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical dropped on Sunday - Magnifica Humanitas, on human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence.

As a deacon who spent 18 years in tech, this document speaks to both halves of my life. The Pope asks a builder's question: What are we building? Babel or Jerusalem?

He sets two images side by side. The Tower of Babel - a project conceived without reference to God. And Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem - families assigned sections of the wall, each contributing what only they can.

And I realize: I have been given my own section of the wall. Domus. Ad Alta. The parish work. The homilies. This is what I've been asked to tend.

Read my reflection: What Are We Building?

This Week in Lux Perpetua

The Living Thread (Mondays): Chapter 11 is live. Joshua is beginning to understand what his grandfather was protecting - and why.

The Lost Crown (Thursdays): Chapter 7 drops tomorrow. The documents are pointing somewhere Joshua hasn't been willing to look.

LuxPerpetua.net - The light that was never put out.

Two Lamps

Last Friday: Issue 03 - "The Express to Euston"

Saint Vincent of Lérins and Saint John Henry Newman, in a first-class compartment on the London and North Western Railway, autumn 1888.

Newman is eighty-seven years old, holding a book he wrote forty-three years earlier. Vincent has come to ask what Newman meant by "development of doctrine" - and whether it contradicts what Vincent himself wrote about tradition.

If you haven't read it yet: TwoLamps.org

What I'm Praying This Week

For rest - real rest, the kind that restores.

For our family on the water.

For all of you building your own sections of the wall.

For the grace to receive what the Sacred Heart wants to pour out.

Domus Formation

WeAreDomus.com - Start a free trial. Hearth & Altar for families. Eventide & Altar for the second half of life. Iron & Altar for men. Vessel & Altar for women.

WeAreDomus.com/Daily - The free daily email. Catholic news for families.

Final Word

"Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest."

- Matthew 11:28

See you on the other side of the water.

Michael