A Pope, A President, and Where Our Loyalties Lie...
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Well, it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody
–Bob Dylan, Gotta Serve Somebody, 1979
An innocuous message popped up in our men’s group chat: a beloved former parish priest, now a pastor in Winnie, Texas, wanted to start a men’s ministry in his new parish. Would anyone be interested in traveling there to help lead a retreat and get things started?
Almost immediately, several guys responded that they were in. I, however, was a little slower on the draw. We had a lot going on: unexpected expenses, my son preparing to leave for college, a pilgrimage to Spain, and an upcoming wedding in Argentina. Did I really want to leave home for a weekend, give another talk, wake up early, go to sleep late, and inevitably overeat?
I looked up Winnie, Texas. It’s about an hour east of Houston, plus another 30 minutes to the retreat house in Beaumont. I asked my wife, the family’s resident travel agent, to check flights, and she quickly found a good deal. Did I expect anything less?
For a few days, I wavered. I had already missed our parish’s last men’s retreat for fathers’ weekend at my younger daughter’s university and would miss the upcoming one because of the wedding. This was my only chance to serve alongside the men from our parish at a retreat this year. It meant taking time off work, but I could leave Thursday afternoon and only miss a day and a half. Eventually, I committed and shared my flight information in the chat.
Soon, several friends booked the same flight. Weekly prep meetings followed, and the weeks flew by. Before we knew it, the team was on pilgrimage. Some men drove from Miami to Winnie, stopping at parishes along the way to pray, while the rest of us flew in. In total, we had 25 men, plus two local participants who had attended one of our South Florida retreats and were doing the heavy lifting in Texas.
It did not disappoint. The retreat house was the best we had ever used. The team, mostly retreat veterans, was completely in sync. And the food? We always pride ourselves on our cooking team, but in Texas we had a Catholic deacon, a former military chef with experience working at an upscale hotel in Beaumont, running the kitchen. I will not say it was better than our guys’, but let’s just say it was amazing.
Still, I kept wondering: why did I leave the comforts of home to be there? Was it to hang out with the guys? Maybe, but we do that all the time. Was it to experience a new place? Honestly, aside from attending Mass at St. Anthony’s Basilica Cathedral in Beaumont, grabbing lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant, and another Mass at St. Louis Catholic Church in Winnie, all we really saw were miles of ranch land, cows, oil fields, and pickup trucks through the shuttle windows, and, of course, the retreat house.
A friend made a poignant observation: “Give me a scotch and a cigar and I’m in. I can do that any day. But traveling 1,100 miles to possibly the hottest, most humid place outside of Miami, with no sports, drinks, or cigars, to spend a weekend with strangers, for what?”
I found myself wrestling with the same question.
The answer came Sunday morning at breakfast. God always seems to choose the perfect moment to reveal Himself, and mine came through a familiar verse and a child’s drawing placed on the table: “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.” As I read it, my eyes filled with tears.
That was the reason I came.
The reason we all left our homes, sacrificed time with our families, absorbed the expense, and, at least in my case, missed watching our favorite sports team, was service. Service to the priest who asked for help. Service to the men I have walked alongside since 2006. Service to the retreatants from Southeast Texas. Above all, service to the One who came not to be served, but to serve, and who stirred our hearts to respond.
As Bob Dylan once sang, you are going to serve somebody. It may be the Devil, ourselves, our self interests, our own comforts, or it may be the Lord.
That weekend, by God’s grace, we chose the latter.
Carlos Espinosa is a longtime journalist and editorial manager with three decades in television news and storytelling. Since 2010, he has written Living the Faith on a High Wire, a blog reflecting on the challenges of living the Catholic faith in today’s culture. With honesty and occasional humor, he writes about his experiences as a husband, father, and Catholic layman, exploring the tension between faith and modern society.
Carlos is active in parish life in Miami, serving in the Men’s Emmaus Group and Marriage Covenant Ministry. He serves as a guest speaker in OCIA and lector. He is also a member of the Regnum Christi apostolic movement.
Married since 1998, he is a father of three (ages 24, 21, and 18) and is passionate about his faith, his family, and Mets baseball.
To read more of his work, chek out Living the Faith on a High Wire.
