A Pilgrimage Towards the Absolute
By Fr Kieran Kilcommons
It is the New Year which means that many people have made new Year’s resolutions and are looking for new beginnings and the possibility of change and renewal.
I stopped making New Year’s resolutions some years ago. The Lord’s words were impressed upon me: “Today has enough troubles of its own.” What a thought! It means that in a given day I have more to deal with than I can handle.
“Today has enough troubles of its own.”
How am I supposed to reform my week, my month, much less my year? As I contemplated that each day has so much trouble I was also impressed with the overwhelming presence of God in each moment. Yes, too many troubles for me in the day, but not for God! Hurray.
Our blessed faith offers us many ways to allow the powerful presence of God into these daily troubles (and triumphs; yes God wants to be all in all).
Pilgrimage is one powerful way to learn to be present to the moment, the moment of grace, the NOW of our daily lives in which God brings his love.
“Why pilgrimage”?
It is a spiritual work we accomplish with our bodies. It is a work that requires us to move step by step towards a place in time, which requires us to bring all we are carrying and maybe worrying about, to that place, with our whole self. Yes, to make a pilgrimage, to be a pilgrim puts us in the hands of God, and thus all that is in us, our desires, our cares, our worries, hopes, dreams, disappointments, hurts, loves, all are brought to God in a very physical yet spiritual way.
It is a very wholesome act. As many of us know this is a Jubilee Year with many graces attached to the way of the pilgrim. Just being a christian makes me a pilgrim moving towards the Absolute, Our God who is absolutely God.
But in this Jubilee year I have the advantage of destinations close to me; St. John of Beverly, Ampleforth Abbey, Middlesbrough Cathedral. And there are many ways of making my pilgrimage. I can walk, but not too much for me, more for the younger and the stronger. I can bike: that may be more my speed. But in these modern days where people expect you to be available “the next day” it is more likely that I will get in a car and drive most of the way.
Whatever way I find to go to a place with a holy door the Lord will be waiting. Well He will be traveling with me and my friends and waiting at the destination with a word, with a grace.
I look forward to journeying with my friends, or alone, to these places where I can bring the Lord my whole self. I know that he is waiting for me to do it then, and even now and each day as I pilgrim around Madonna House and Robin Hood’s Bay and Whitby.
Happy pilgriming friend.
Previous Months Letters from Madonna House
December 2024: A Christmas Gift By Carol Ann Gieske
November 2024: Finding Christ in the Saints By Mathieu Dacquay
October 2024: The Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi By Jeanne Guillemette
September 2024: The Triumph of the Cross By Rev. Kieran Kilcommons
August 2024: Jesus and the Little Girl By Carol Ann Gieske
July 2024: Dont Forget to take Jesus Home By Jeanne Guillemette
June 2024: Living Under Mary’s Mantle By Fr. Michael Weitl
May 2024: Vocation & Journey in Christ’ By Mathieu Dacquay
April 2024: Christ Lives! By Carol Ann Gieske
March 2024: Putting everything ‘on the altar’ By Jeanne Guillemette
February 2024: Finding Peace in Surrender to Christ By Mathieu Dacquay
January 2024: Celebrating Epiphany with the Christian east By Fr. Michael Weitl
December 2023: Journeying through Advent with Joseph By Carol Ann Gieske
November 2023: The Saints Are Alive By Jeanne Guillemette
October 2023: Ordinary Miracles By Mathieu Dacquay