Pedaling for vocations

I went on an unusual prayer retreat recently. I wore a helmet and cleats. It also involved two wheels and a strong headwind amid the rolling hills of southern Maryland.

It was billed as the 11th Annual Ride for Vocations, sponsored by the Office of Priest Vocations for the Archdiocese of Washington. But in many ways, it was a pilgrimage into our country’s Catholic past while praying for its future.

The whirring of the wheels on the pavement provided the soundtrack, occasionally interrupted by the crow of a rooster and the whinnying of horses. While cars and pickup trucks and an occasional horse-drawn wagon were on the roads with me for much of the journey, it was an opportunity to savor the region’s panorama of forests and farms, but also the Catholic history of southern Maryland.

The ride wasn’t a competition. It didn’t rank riders or award prizes for sterling efforts. It did offer a variety of routes — 21 miles, 50 miles, 70 miles or a century (100 miles), all following ribbons of pavement through a lush countryside barely touched by autumn.

An estimated 125 riders took part: men, women and children. Some bicyclists rode in small groups, but many of us found our own steady pace in the rhythms of the road, all the while praying for an increase in vocations.

The joy of bicycling is its rhythm, which is conducive to contemplation. It’s hard work, but at a certain point, the bicycle does begin to feel like an extension of the body. Grunting up hills and swooshing down them may sound like an unusual venue for a retreat, but it worked for me.

Organizers describe the ride as a pilgrimage, and it’s a fitting description. After all, southern Maryland is where Catholicism first came to the original colonies. Sailing from England on two boats, the Ark and the Dove, the first Catholics set ashore on March 25, 1634. At least for a while, Maryland was a rare safe haven for Catholics in the Protestant-dominated English colonies.

Our vocations ride began with Mass. Under forbidding skies, with a Nor’easter offshore stirring up the wind and occasional rain, we set out on our chosen distances. Spaced every 10-15 miles apart were rest stops located at historic Catholic churches.

Fueling long bike rides requires salty snacks, energy bars, fruit and drinks. All were provided in abundance by supportive parishioners. Each parish also provided an opportunity to say a quick prayer or a decade of the rosary before getting back on the road.

My first stop was Immaculate Conception Parish in Mechanicsville, Maryland, which was celebrating its 150th anniversary. Next came St. John Francis Regis Parish in Hollywood, Maryland, which celebrated over 300 years.

And tucked away down a country road, surrounded by soybean fields and forests, was St. Mary’s Parish in Charlotte Hall, Maryland. Founded 352 years ago by two Franciscan priests, it is still serving the area’s rural population. Its proud claim to fame is that it is “the third-oldest, continuously-opened parish in the colonial United States.”

Catholics have been talking about the vocations’ shortage for a long time. What I saw in southern Maryland that weekend was lots of ordinary Catholics taking responsibility for doing something. It may have been pedaling and praying. It may have been supporting and hosting.
But how appropriate that it was in this region.

Here is where those first Catholics resisted persecution. Here is where generations of farmers and townspeople scraped together the resources to build and maintain beautiful outposts of faith. Here is where those of us who have benefited from their witness long ago came together one weekend to pray and sacrifice that priests would be provided for the Catholics who follow us.

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