The Avenue Moment

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The Sisters of Providence call it the “Avenue Moment”. It’s that indescribable feeling that you can only recognize by experience. They’re referring to the overwhelming sense of peace and calm that floods your entire being when you pass through the gates onto the main road of the Motherhouse grounds. It looks just like the ordinary trees, pavement, sky, and squirrels that are common to everyday experience, yet you know within your core being, you’re somewhere special, somewhere holy.

The Avenue at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods
The Avenue at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods

That juxtaposition is really the reason for me to do this. I’ve experienced many Avenue Moments over the years. I can describe some in detail like they happened yesterday: a retreat at Gethsemani Abbey of Kentucky with the silent Trappist monks; standing next to a waterfall with my newlywed bride the day after we married; reaching through the incubator in the NICU to touch my daughter’s foot the day she dramatically entered the world; even a simple rainy day in a fast food parking lot when I needed an extra reassurance of life’s path. Other moments I know have come and gone and my memory of them is only foggy at best, but the effects are lasting. That’s why. The effects are lasting. And life-changing. And contagious.

The Avenue Moments happen when we’re open to them, when we’re aware of ourselves and how the Spirit moves in our lives and how we are marvelously and miraculously cared for in spite of ourselves. This openness and awareness can, if we allow it, move us toward where we’re meant to be – not on autopilot, but like the Avenue in reality leading to Providence Center and all connected thereto, we see more clearly the destination unfolding ahead. That nudge and waxing vision – we call that Providence.

You don’t have to be a philosopher to have heard life described as a journey; you may have made the reference yourself. The starting point and the end point are obvious markers of significance, but so are the many landmarks along the way, the pit stops and side trips, the sights, and the path itself. We don’t get wrapped up in every detail, but we acknowledge the whole package for what it is.

We codify the important points in our journey with photographs, certificates, and souvenirs of various kinds. Birthdays, anniversaries, new homes, new jobs, religious events, even special gatherings of friends or a common cup of coffee made special can be marked with a diary entry or receipt to help us remember and set aside that moment in time, consecrating it in a sense for our own happiness, so that we can gather again and say, “Do you remember…?”

I’ve had the honor of officiating half a dozen weddings or so over the years, and one thing I usually tell the couple is that the marriage ceremony itself is just a marker – it signifies a commitment they’ve already made and a love they already share. In many ways, we’re just making a public declaration of something they’ve already been living inside themselves, and those few things that may change afterward are just details.

Becoming a Providence Associate for me is a marker; it’s a public recognition and declaration of a spirituality I already live and embrace.

Funeral Reading for Grandfathers

When my grandfather passed away in April 2017, I came across a reading that I thought captured our sentiments in a poetic and succinct way better than I ever could have, proving once again the great treasure we have in sacred scripture. This reading is in the optional readings of the Roman Missal for funerals and is taken from Sirach 44*:


Now will I praise those godly men, our ancestors, each in his own time: These were godly men whose virtues have not been forgotten; their wealth remains in their families, their heritage with their descendants; through God’s covenant with them their family endures, their posterity for their sake.


And for all time their progeny will endure, their glory will never be blotted out; their bodies are peacefully laid away, but their name lives on and on. At gatherings their wisdom is retold, and the assembly proclaims their praise.


Sirach is a book of Hebrew Scripture found in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles but commonly omitted elsewhere. This difference in scripture canon is the result of various texts being considered authoritative by the leading Jewish scholars at different points in history; thus, many Bibles have 66 books, Catholic Bibles have 73, and the Orthodox recognize 80 (or 81, in some cases).