By Katie Mahon, Communications Manager
This week’s “Embracing Faith” article will focus on Embracing Faith through Reflection.
“The heart of a person plans their way, but God establishes their steps.”
-Proverbs 16:9
Anyone who knows Sr. Terry Rickard, OP, knows that she is a very active woman.
Between her congregation, the Sisters of Saint Dominic of Blauvelt, New York, her previous ministry at RENEW International, serving on the Dominican Sisters Conference Executive Committee, and her love of exercise and golf, she is someone who is usually always on the go.
Earlier this year, Sr. Terry retired from her ministry of nearly 20 years at RENEW International and began a year-long sabbatical that included two months in Ireland, a journey along the Camino, and a trip to the Holy Land in Israel.
In the most recent episode of the Hearts Afire Podcast, Sr. Terry reflected on these pilgrimage experiences.
“I started out as a pilgrim, as I went to Ireland and continued that sense of everyday picking up my stuff, one foot at a time, got a deeper experience of that, of a pilgrimage, during my time of walking on the Camino,” shared Sr. Terry.
During the interview, Sr. Terry described her time in Ireland as educational as she studied ecology “and the theological and biblical implications of that.”
After finishing her studies in Ireland, Sr. Terry would go on to walk the Camino in Northern Spain for three weeks, walking 12 to 15 miles every day, which she called an “incredible experience.”
Sr. Terry would return back to the United States after walking the Camino for a “brief rest” before traveling to the Holy Land in Israel.
“To me, what was most incredible (about the Holy Land) was seeing places where Jesus was.”
When reflecting on these pilgrimages, Sr. Terry shared that she “always had the attitude of being a pilgrim, seeking a relationship with God, whether through nature, whether through walking and then most recently, encountering God through the sacred sites of the Holy Land.”
To hear more about Sr. Terry’s pilgrimage and her trip to the Holy Land, click here.