May 29, 2019
By Mary Regina Morrell
When our family was growing up, we took a road trip from New Jersey to Montana with our best friends and their children. We called it “15 for Road.” Eleven children and four adults began a more than 2200-mile trip in a nine-passenger station wagon and a beat-up van named Bessie. Bessie had 200,000 miles on her when we started, but our life-long friends were not the kind of worrying about such things.
There were no cell phones at the time, so we invested in the next best thing – walky-talkies. We would be following each other across the country, without GPS, so we thought they would help us keep in contact.
Our adventure included dazed wait staff in an Indiana restaurant, outrunning tornados in Kansas, a Bessie breakdown in South Dakota, and a hail storm that destroyed our campsite in Montana. One of our most memorable experiences was the day our friends missed the turn for the next leg of our journey.
We didn’t know what to do. We took it as slow as possible hoping our friends would turn around and catch-up, but we didn’t know if they even realized they had missed the turn. We had no idea where we were, except as a dot on the map. Then, one of my sons asked if we could stop at a restroom. That would mean getting off the highway. That could mean losing our friends completely.
I suggested to my husband that I get out of the car at the next exit, with the walkie-talkies, and try to contact our friends. That would mean standing alone on the side of a highway in a place I didn’t know and hoping the state troopers didn’t pick me up before our friends came along.
That’s when I turned to St. Joseph – the patron saint of families. As mine drove away and left me there with cars whizzing by, I kept asking the humble saint to keep our families together. When I wasn’t doing that, I was repeatedly speaking into the walkie-talkie: “Hello, this is Aunt Mary. I’m standing on the side of the highway watching for you.”
A short time later, I got a reply – the sound of chaos and children screaming on the other end: “It’s Aunt Mary! There she is! There she is!”
It must have been a funny sight to see me standing there, pacing back and forth with my huge walkie-talkie, but a welcomed sight as well. It meant our families would continue the journey together. It was the journey of a lifetime, one that bonded us together in a way nothing else could have. We still journey through life together today, though our clan now includes 18 grandchildren in total.
Let’s not forget Saint Joseph. He remains a part of our family and travels with us on every vacation. A small statue of him and Mary get tucked in my suitcase as a reminder of the importance of praying for our family.
In our faith journey as Catholics, the saints are more than just interesting historical figures. They are part of our broader family, the Communion of Saints. They are friends in difficult times. Their prayers give us strength and hope. They stand as examples of how ordinary people can live extraordinary lives of holiness by putting God first.
As you head out on summer travels, take the saints with you. They are wonderful traveling companions.
Mary Regina Morrell is a Catholic journalist, author, and syndicated columnist who has served the dioceses of Metuchen and Trenton, New Jersey, and RENEW International in the areas of catechesis and communication.