As you go

“As you go…”

What is a pilgrimage? It is a symbol of our life that is sometimes long and sometimes brief. We do not know how long it will last, but it is a journey toward God. We walk toward the Lord because he is the North Star, the point of attraction on our compass which guides our journey. If we lose our direction, we go to the right or to the left and our journey wavers. To go on a pilgrimage means to embrace our spiritual poverty because a pilgrim is one who accepts God’s call to be poor in spirit. Think about when people traveled on foot with a piece of bread in a sack and when it was gone it was necessary for them to extend their hand and beg. To have a spirit of poverty means to recognize that we are poor people in need of everything, above all the grace of the Lord that fills our heart. 

Being on a pilgrimage also means to recognize our need for each other. When we walk together we need one another’s help. When one person gets tired, the other sustains him; when one runs too fast, he needs someone to stop him. This is what it means to be pilgrims in the name of the Lord: to discover that our brothers and sisters are gifts to us, a richness in our lives…. We go because we have a need to find something. We need to find Someone. It is true that we have met him so many times, but we always feel a greater need to encounter him.

Mother Elvira Petrozzi