Our Inner Pilgrimage
by Fr. Roger J. Landry - August 26, 2005
When Jesus returned to Nazareth and preached the Gospel in the synagogue that Scripture was fulfilled in their hearing, those of his native place rose up and tried to throw him off the precipice on which Nazareth was built (Lk 4:16-30).
When Pope Benedict XVI returned to Germany, many skeptics were predicting that he would encounter a similarly cool-to-hostile reception and rediscover that a prophet is accepted except in his native place. Instead of trying to throw him off a hill, however, they built him a hill —and called it the "Pope's hill" — which was a fitting symbol of how he, on this first foreign apostolic voyage, exceeded almost everyone's expectations.
His arrival in Cologne could not have been more synthetic and symbolic. He rode high aboard the RheinEnergie, a high-tech modern version of the barque of Peter, from which he, as Christ did in Peter's first boat, spoke to the crowds on the shore. The words he spoke were perennial, but the pulpit was ultra-modern.
From there, the pope announced that he had come to join the young Catholics present — and indeed the entire Church — on a modern pilgrimage to an ancient place: Bethlehem. They were all going to follow the wise men on the path that makes people wise, the search for the one true God. Along the way, he had a moving encounter with Jewish leaders at Germany's oldest synagogue as well as a very candid exchange with Muslims, giving each praise to the extent that they are seeking out the light of the one, true God.
But he spent most of his time with his younger Christian companions on the journey. He put into practice the words with which he called them to put into action during his Sunday homily (printed on p. 3 of this issue): "Anyone who has discovered Christ must lead others to him. A great joy cannot be kept to oneself. It has to be passed on."
Like the original wise men, whose words "We have come to worship Him" (Mt 2:2) were the theme of this World Youth Day, Pope Benedict was seeking "fellow travelers to continue together to follow the path of the great pilgrimage that the Magi from the East first pointed out." And the young people enthusiastically committed to join him on that journey. It is a journey of communion in faith that Benedict wants the whole Church to make with him.
The itinerary of the pilgrimage is two-fold. First, like the wise men, it is a seeking of the "newborn king of the Jews." Benedict, within this year of the Eucharist, pointed out that the modern version of the Star indicating Christ's presence is the tabernacle lamp and the altar candles.
The Magi themselves, he noted, must have been surprised when they discovered the humble appearance of the king wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed within a manger in an animal stable. Likewise, many of our contemporaries are taken aback, he said, by the claim that that same king is veiled underneath the appearance of Bread and Wine in the Eucharist. But the same King of Kings is present in both. Benedict called all of us first to make the physical effort to journey into that King's humble presence.
The second stage of the trip is interior. When the Magi arrived in Bethlehem, "a new journey began for them, an inner pilgrimage which changed their whole lives." They gave to Christ great material gifts, but the deepest gift of all occurred when they dropped to their knees and gave Christ humble adoration. Slowly Christ began a transformation in their hearts so that when they left, they "departed by another route." They did not leave the way they came, but thoroughly transformed.
Benedict is calling all of us today — however young we are — to a similar interior pilgrimage, to fall down in adoration before Christ in the Eucharist, and to receive through the Eucharist what the Magi could not even dream of: a union with the One adored through the loving reception of Him in holy Communion.
The episode of the Magi, he concluded, "is not a distant story that took place long ago. It is with us now. Here in the sacred Host, he is present before us and in our midst. As at that time, so now he is mysteriously veiled in a sacred silence; as at that time, it is here that the true face of God is revealed. … He is present now as he was then in Bethlehem. He invites us to that inner pilgrimage which is called adoration. Let us set off on this pilgrimage of the spirit and let us ask him to be our Guide."
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
