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Founders Feast in Chennai 2019Chennai, IndiaBackForwardPauseCaption
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LENT– A PilgrimageDear Confreres,
Over the centuries pilgrimages have enjoyed immense popularity among Catholics. The allure of pilgrimages continues to this day. Many of us know people who have made their way to Jerusalem, Rome, Fatima, Lourdes, Velankanni, and so on. Of course, Catholics are not alone in fostering pilgrimages. Jews flock to the Holy Land. Moslems travel to Mecca. Hindus journey to the Ganges, Kasi, Rameshwaram, and other places.
Pilgrimage is not simply a recurrent phenomenon in popular piety. It is, rather, a metaphor for the whole Christian life. Its biblical roots run deep. The authors of Exodus and Deuteronomy depict a pilgrim people whom Yahweh loves and forms as He leads them toward the promised land. Many of the psalms are pilgrim songs, ringing out God's praises as His people “go up to the house of the Lord,” (Psalms 42,5; 43,4; 122,1). Luke's Gospel, beginning with 9,51, focuses on following Christ to Jerusalem, and Luke's second book, the Acts, describes Christianity as “the Way,” (Acts 9,2; 18,25; 24,22).
Since as early as the second century, Christians have engaged in pilgrimages both literally and metaphorically. Literally, many set off courageously for unknown lands, facing perils and physical hardships, hoping that an exodus from the ordinary circumstances of daily life would sharpen their consciousness of what is central to being a Christian.
By the middle ages, there were hundreds of pilgrimage sites. As travelers visited shrines they hoped to grow in sensitivity to the mysteries celebrated there. Of course, a danger, then as now, is that such pilgrimages degenerate into tourism. Unfortunately, many a group that has passed through Rome or Jerusalem and other pilgrim places has pondered the scriptures little and has remained largely untouched by the Death and Resurrection of the Lord.
So, as we begin the Lenten season, let me suggest to you three reflections about pilgrimage in its metaphorical sense.But whether we remain at home or travel abroad, all of us profess to be a pilgrim people.”
Lent itself is a pilgrimage. It is a desert experience like that of the people of God in the Exodus or that of Jesus at the beginning of the synoptic Gospels. Its goal is to immerse us more deeply into the mystery of the Death and Resurrection of the Lord as we journey toward the Kingdom of God. Since most of us will not be journeying literally during these 40 days, the question is: What will we do, metaphorically, to alter the monotonous circumstances of our everyday lives so that we might have a heightened consciousness of our baptismal commitment to follow Christ even to death, and thus share in the joy of His Resurrection?
Of course, not just Lent but all of life is a pilgrimage. That is the principal meaning of the metaphor and it is precisely what Lent seeks to recall to us. Do we really sense that we are pilgrims in life? Are we patient with ourselves as we come to understand better, on our pilgrim way, how imperfect we are?
In our Guanellian Family, we choose to make our pilgrimage in company with the poor. I want to encourage all the members of our family today, at the beginning of this Lenten season, to listen ever more attentively to our neediest fellow travelers, to work beside those who experience helplessness in the face of violence, natural disasters, unemployment, or similar crises, to love them deeply as brothers and sisters, to stand with them in their struggle for justice, to support them in being agents of their own human promotion, to be their soul friends, evangelizing them and being evangelized by them. Do the poor perceive us not merely as aid-givers but as friends whom they have grown to love on the journey, as bearers of the genuinely good news of God's closeness?
This season reminds us that our pilgrimage like the Lord's will surely involve suffering, especially as our journey becomes more closely entwined with that of the poor. I join with you in praying that suffering love may be an energizing force along the way and that as it develops into dying love, it may burst into the joy of resurrection. For us, Guanellians, the journey of the Lenten season is walking with, listening to, and learning from Jesus in His Passion and Death, with our gaze fixed on the Resurrection hope and new life of Easter joy. We can pray: “May the Passion of Jesus Christ be in our minds and hearts, so the Life of Jesus, too, may be in us.”
I ask you to pray for me, as I will for you, that our Lenten journey together will bring us a fuller share in the Lord's risen life. I end with the following action statement from Pope Francis' Lenten message:Putting the paschal mystery at the center of our lives means feeling compassion towards the wounds of the crucified Christ present in the many innocent victims of wars and violence, in attacks on life, in environmental disasters, and in poverty.” (Pope Francis)
Fr. Ronald J, SdC
Provincial Superior
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