We use many metaphors to describe and explain life’s mystery; a journey, or a pilgrimage, for example. A journey generally involves travel from one place to another. It can be undertaken for any number of reasons. A pilgrimage is generally undertaken with some religious purpose in mind. Like any journey, pilgrims have an exterior, physical element that sometimes involves arduous travel over small or great distances. But a true pilgrimage involves something else. A pilgrimage undertaken for the right reasons also involves a journey within, into the often uncharted environs of one’s soul.
It is this call to take an interior pilgrimage, or journey that makes the life of a Christian a great adventure. Walking a pilgrimage to some religious site might involve the physical difficulties of steep hill climbs and rugged, rock-bound descents into deep valleys, or hours on dark, narrow, and winding forest trails, and some periods of walking down cheerful, sunny paths through open, flower-dappled fields. Our inner pilgrimage will also move through the hills and valleys of our memories. Here, too, we will struggle through rugged spots where we encounter the wrecked landscape of our sins. But we will also recognize those periods where God’s generous blessings and graces lit our paths with many joys. While the exterior elements of a pilgrimage will often demand real, physical courage, the inner pilgrimage requires far greater courage, spiritual courage. It requires the courage to look within with brutal honesty. A little fear and trembling goes naturally with such a journey. But it can be done precisely because the Holy Spirit calls you to it. It is Jesus who walks through it with you. And it is God the Father who waits for you at its end.
When we undertake this great adventure, this interior pilgrimage we will encounter our failings, our sins against God, against our neighbor, and ourselves. We will confront the realities of our selfishness. our pride, jealousy, anger, greediness, prejudices, or excessive sexual appetites. And we will have to face down the attitudes we have adopted consciously or unconsciously that are the motivators behind those sins. It is these things that often go unrecognized or unresolved that bind us in the terrible chains of our sinful habits, that imprison us in our fears. But the Holy Spirit will give us the courage to do this. Yes, it is scary and difficult, but it is possible because of the Cross. We can make this journey because Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, took on our humanity, suffered and died on the Cross to liberate us from the darkness of sin and death once and for all. So, this kind of inner pilgrimage is truly a knight’s quest, a hero’s journey. That’s why it is a true and great adventure.
God will never fail to pour out his graces upon us if we undertake this inward pilgrimage in faith and trust. The more we stick to the path, the more we continue, no matter how timid we might be, the closer we get to God and to becoming the person he wants us to be. When we take this journey in faith, we discover more and more that we are never consumed by God’s presence; we are elevated by it. We do not lose our ‘freedom’ in drawing ever closer to God on this interior pilgrimage, we find it. Through this long and difficult effort of gradually learning to submit our often fractious wills to His constant and loving will, we discover, paradoxically, that we become ever more free, more capable of loving ourselves, others, and Him in the way that He loves us. Though we are weak and broken, we discover how deep His love for us is and how freely, generously, and joyfully He is ready to forgive. It is God’s unconditional, forgiving love that liberates us and strengthens us for the adventure that remains before us until we die.
This is the pilgrimage that we call the repentance of sins. It is the inward search for that turning point deep within our innermost self, where we finally are enabled to turn from the ‘I’ of me to the ‘thou’, that is, to God and others. It is on that great pilgrimage that we learn to turn away from the sterility of our selfishness, from living solely for ourselves, and we begin to learn the power and the joy of living for others. We empty ourselves of all of the clutter and junk of our sins, which allows God to fill us up with His liberating and empowering love and grace. The closer we get to God, the more beautiful we become. And all the way, Jesus tells us, “Do not be afraid…I will be with you until the end of time” (Mt 28:20).
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