Padre Peregrino – Month-Long Retreat Offline.

The short version of this article is that I am taking this next month offline, unless we (God-forbid) have another 9/11 or something. I am not only going to try to avoid posting and scrolling on FB, IG, X, and TG. I’m even going to do my best to refrain from writing articles or making videos and podcasts from 19 Sept 2026 to 19 Oct 2026. This includes Substack.Even though this media blackout will not involve me being more secluded than my current life, I am still going to call this “a retreat” so I can go deeper into prayer. As I say to friends frequently, “This whole hermit thing is not a farce or a lurk.” (A lurk is a an Australian term meaning “a dishonest hideout” that a friend once labeled my vocation.) The reason I say the hermit-thing is not a farce is because I really do try to pray and or read 4-5 hours a day. And I have ever-growing prayer lists with how many requests I am happy to receive on a daily basis.But over-production online has become impossible recently with how much correspondence I get. It’s also hard to be contemplative while playing “patch priest” where I patch-in for missions that other priests won’t take. I am not complaining. I love the support and I love to help sacramentally where I can. But the great book that was the bed-side reading of Pope St. Pius X called Soul of the Apostolate by Dom Chautard (which was the spiritual reading of Pope St. Pius X) repeatedly asserts that the external apostolate is directly proportionate to the interior life. And my interior life has been suffering due to over-extension. I’m really burned out.


Originally published in Padre Peregrino. Read original article