“Pilgrimage is not a linear path. You listen moment by moment what is the new offering, the new opening, the new unseen blessing inviting you to the next thing.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, Virtual Celtic Pilgrimage: The Wisdom of the Irish Saints Brigid, Ciaran, and Gobnait – A Self-Study Online Retreat
What awareness surfaces from within when you engage the non-linear path of pilgrimage?
Jesus wants us to receive the love he offers. He wants nothing more than that we allow him to love us and enjoy that love. This is so hard since we always feel that we have to deserve the love offered to us. But Jesus wants to offer that love to us not because we have earned it, but because he has decided to love us independently of any effort on our side. Our own love for each other should flow from that “first love” that is given to us undeserved.
“We ought to speak, shout against injustices, with confidence and without fear.”—Bl. Miguel Pro SJ
Verse of the day
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
– James 1:27
Voice of the day
… [D]ominant culture often makes monsters out of vulnerable populations, therein maintaining or reestablishing the status quo. We seek to exorcise the other-ness out of us by exorcising them.
– JR. Forasteros, “When Monsters Serve As Prophets”
Prayer of the day
God, we become the monsters when we demonize those made in your image; may we break the status quo of exclusion and embody invitational love.
Gentle whistles of a bluebird and, in the mist, a SAC plane swoops huge and low over the ridges where Edelin’s valley is and where the final hermitages are to be. I wonder if it carries bombs. Most probably. They all do, I am told. October 30, 1964 (Dancing in the Waters of Life: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage — Volume 5: 1963-1965)
As wars and rumors of wars increase, I truly do wonder what God thinks. This creation that was created good (and humankind was created very good) has fallen so far. With my mentor, brother, and friend Thomas Merton I do wonder… speak your words of peace dear Lord in the midst of this chaos.
Dona Nobis Pacem, Grant Us Peace
Verse of the day
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
– 2 Corinthians 3:17
Voice of the day
If the gospel we preach does not address the evil that oppresses people, then it is not good news for everyone.
– Dennis Edwards, Might from the Margins: The Gospel’s Power to Turn the Tables on Injustice (2020)
Prayer of the day
May we not forget that your gospel has the power to not just change hearts, but to also dismantle systems.
Thomas Merton spoke out from a cloister in Kentucky against the Vietnam War. Catherine of Siena walked the streets of the city when women were not permitted to walk the streets of the city feeding the poor. Hildegard of Bingen preached the word of justice to emperors and to popes. . . . A spiritual path that does not lead to a living commitment to the coming will of God, to the present Reign of God, to the Kingdom of God within and around us everywhere for everyone, is no path at all. . . . — Richard Rohr
Verse of the day
Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
– Matthew 18:21-22
Voice of the day
I’m looking for signs / For some kind of highway to letting it go, but / Forgiveness is a winding road
– Rina Sawayama, “Forgiveness”
Prayer of the day
Without you, God, it is impossible to forgive; give us the strength to walk the winding path of forgiveness.
Thomas Merton’s words speak truth today as they did back in 1951 when he wrote them. Far too often I hear segments of the American church complaining about being persecuted. Those segments of the church would do well to listen to Merton’s words. I know that I am listening…
The big problem that confronts Christianity is not Christ’s enemies. Persecution has never done much harm to the inner life of the Church as such. The real religious problem exists in the souls of those of us who in their hearts believe in God, and who recognize their obligation to love Him and serve Him—yet do not! (The Ascent to Truth, p. 4)
The poor we see every day, the stories about deportation, torture, and murder we hear every day, and the undernourished children we touch every day, reveal to us the suffering Christ has hidden within us. When we allow this image of the suffering Christ within us to grow to its full maturity, then ministry to the poor and oppressed becomes a real possibility; because then we can indeed hear, see, and touch him within us as well as among us. . . . Once we have seen the suffering Christ within us, we will see him wherever we see people in pain. Once we have seen the suffering Christ among us, we will recognize him in our innermost self. Thus we come to experience that the first commandment, to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, resembles indeed the second: “You must love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39–40).
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