Camping Complaints

(photo-the bluffs at Devil's Lake State Park, Wisconsin)

The beauty belies the chill in the air, as frigid bodies curl close for warmth, and tents set up in the dark on top of tree roots make for sleepless nights.

The joys of camping-marshmallows roasting on the fire, hiking in the bluffs, fresh, clean air
in our lungs, family time spent close together without electronic interruptions-are overshadowed
by the cold of early autumn.

A friend once asked me if I wouldn't like to live outdoors in the beauty of nature. As my family and I hiked in the wooded bluffs around the lake I pondered that question and I almost thought I would answer yes to that lovely thought as a pristine day spent in nature with the glory of God filling my heart easily pushes away any negative thinking.

But sleepless nights in a flimsy tent during 40 degree weather take all reminders of the glories of nature away and I am quick to complain about how cold and tired I am and I wonder out loud why my family considers camping to be a vacation.

Later, I regret my whining words and I wish that I had offered all that suffering up for a higher cause. I thought of a book I recently read, "Merry in God" about the life of Fr. William Doyle, SJ, an Irish priest who served as a military chaplain during World War I. His letters and journals spoke of nights trying to catch a few minutes of sleep in a wet, muddy trench with giant rats all around and the sounds of bombs whistling through the air. During his years of service, he rarely complained about the weather, his sleeping conditions, or his lack of food, but instead focused on his need to minister to his fellow soldiers and bring God to their weary hearts. He offered Mass in the most difficult circumstances. He listened to endless confessions and offered general absolution before many major battles. But during all of the stress and difficulty of the horrors of war, he was forever smiling and loving to everyone, offering all of his hardship to God for the good of his comrades and the sake of their souls. And it was that spiritual service joyfully offered in time of war that finally took his life during a horrific battle.

Shame fills my heart when I realize how far away I am from that ideal attitude that makes saints out of men. These words of prayer from that very holy man are worth remembering when I am tempted to complain of little sufferings and inconveniences:

"O Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Who would not love You, who would not give their heart's blood for You, if only once they realized the depth and the breadth and the realness of Your burning love? Why not then make every human heart a burning furnace of love for You, so that sin would become an impossibility, sacrifice a pleasure and a joy, virtue the longing of every soul, so that we should live for love, dream of love, breathe Your love, and at last die of a broken heart of love, pierced through and through with the shaft of love, the sweetest gift of God to man."

"I must eagerly welcome every little pain, suffering, small sickness, trouble, cross of any kind, as coming straight to me from the Sacred Heart. Am I not your loving victim, my Jesus?"

Prayer for Priests by Fr Doyle

O my God, pour out in abundance Thy spirit of sacrifice upon Thy priests. It is both their glory and their duty to become victims, to be burnt up for souls, to live without ordinary joys, to be often the objects of distrust, injustice, and persecution.

The words they say every day at the altar, "This is my Body, this is my Blood," grant them to apply to themselves: "I am no longer myself, I am Jesus, Jesus crucified. I am, like the bread and wine, a substance no longer itself, but by consecration another."

O my God, I burn with desire for the sanctification of Thy priests. I wish all the priestly hands which touch Thee were hands whose touch is gentle and pleasing to Thee, that all the mouths uttering such sublime words at the altar should never descend to speaking trivialities.

Let priests in all their person stay at the level of their lofty functions, let every man find them simple and great, like the Holy Eucharist, accessible to all yet above the rest of men. O my God, grant them to carry with them from the Mass of today, a thirst for the Mass of tomorrow, and grant them, ladened with gifts, to share these abundantly with their fellow men. Amen.

Fr. William Doyle, SJ

To learn more about Fr. William Doyle, visit Remembering Fr. William Doyle, SJ