Last week was just one of those weeks…the one week a month when all of the field staff gets together in Tallahassee to talk about all things FRATERNUS.  I feel like every time FRATERNUS comes together I write a blog about it…I guess because I think it’s important.  No matter how many times it happens, I still fall into the same pattern.  Work by myself, get tired, forget that there are others doing the same thing I am.  And then, get together, feel renewed, talk to friends, get excited.

Repeat.

I know I can’t live off the periodic Tallahassee energy any more than I can live spiritutally from retreat high to retreat high, but man is it good to get together.

I think it’s just the part of me (perhaps the biggest part of me) that longs for communion.  I feel that longing with my wonderful wife, I feel it with my friends, and I feel it with my co-workers in FRATERNUS.  I’m not sure who said it (maybe Christopher West echoing JPII, or maybe it was John Eldredge), but deep down, we all have a longing for communion, and we’re bent on trying to satisfy that longing any way we can.  Some fill it with temporary things that bring them momentary bliss only to find the void still there when the moment fades.  Our goal, which is first and foremost directed at ourselves, is to direct that longing for communion to the only one who can really fill the void — the Father.  It is only in allowing the Father to fulfill that desire for communion in our own hearts that we will be able to direct others to drink from that same life-giving water.

I think that’s what our meetings do more than anything else…the meeting is really secondary, because after all, we could probably solve the same problems over a conferene call that wouldn’t require me to drive three hours.  But coming together in the same room allows all of us to focus on more than what’s on the meeting agenda for the day.  It helps us unite our gaze on the only one that can fill us.  So that we can then go and show others.

~Rush