God’s Words for the Pilgrimage #2 Words of God for life

The Words of God in Pilgrimages

Above all, the pilgrim finds himself gathered together with others to listen to the Word of God, and the light of this word provokes in him a new look of faith on his own life, and on the rejection he has made of God on many occasions. He discovers the road ahead. Like David, like the prodigal son, he turns away from his sin and turns to God, who is always ready for forgiveness. He does penance in the full sense of the word: his pilgrim confession is the starting point of an authentic conversion.

In joy, and in an atmosphere of celebration, he partakes of the bread and wine together in memory of the Last Supper of Jesus Christ (the Eucharist). He experiences the unity that exists among all the children of God: there is truly one faith, one Lord, one baptism, one God and Father, but also an unfeigned charity, which carries with it peace and happiness. Finally, he finds himself part of the Church’s mission. At the same time, he feels solidarity with all men in the same struggle for justice and freedom.

God’s Words for the Pilgrimage of life

Life is a pilgrimage

It is in a second phase that pilgrims will discover, in the light of the Word of God, that the unfolding of their life takes on a new meaning in the radiance of the realities lived during a pilgrimage: « Life is the true, the only pilgrimage ».

A Journey to Meet God

Like pilgrimage, human life is a journey to meet God. God has always been looking for man to give himself to him and he offers him an exchange of love, which is realized in Jesus Christ. The sanctuary that the pilgrim frequents is only the image of that « perfect sanctuary » which is the humanity of Christ. God was the first to love us with an extraordinary love through the gift he gave us of his Son, Jesus Christ.

A walk in the Church

Son of God, who came to the earth of men, ‘the Word of the Father which he reveals, ‘a servant who accepts suffering’, he continues his mission in the Church.
Through Baptism, he united us to the mystery of his death and resurrection. Now, when we gather in the ecclesia, we feel connected as brothers and sisters in Christ, but even more so with our Divine Father, the One True God. This connection with God or God’s covenant with His people, and us, gives us the strength to go on in life.

And his Spirit is beginning to realize in the community of believers the unity towards which the whole of humanity is on the move.

An Upward Walk to Holiness

It is also in the Church that the Christian receives the eternal Word of God. He receives it in faith, and in its light he perceives the vocation to holiness which is his and which he must realize throughout his life and through the most diverse forms of his activity. He will do so, not on the cheap, nor even passively, but with a fully lucid commitment, the true dimension of which he sometimes needs to rediscover. Through his work, in his daily life, the effort made will not only be a legitimate search for the happiness for which he is made, but also a contribution to the building of a new world.

Preceding