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The following is a letter from Marie Therese McLaughlin’s spiritual director before her pilgrimage to France in 2001. He gave it to her to be read during the pilgrimage.
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Dearly Beloved Pilgrim,
What is a pilgrimage? It is a journey, one inspired by God, the Holy Spirit, calling to the inmost spirit of the pilgrim saying, “Arise, go!”
Go where? A place may be named Lisieux, Lourdes, Chartres, etc., but that is not the goal of the journey. Rather it is the unknown, life-transforming meeting, feared and longed for, that will occur there.
Arise from what? From the fear, love of comfort, routine and habit, the self-centeredness that keeps the soul in bondage. A departure from the security of the known and familiar into the threatening and fascinating unknown. But a pilgrim is not a tourist. She is a seeker, consumed by a passion for Life. She is not interested in novelties, distractions, entertainments. She is not on the lookout for the picturesque, the exotic. She does not collect souvenirs.
Her yearning is to go out of herself, beyond herself, to find the Unknown One who is stirring up this restless/peaceful, longing/possession within her. How does she know this journey will bring her to the promised blessing? Like Abraham she goes forth in faith, leaving behind her identity, her status, her self-identifying relationships in the direction indicated by the One who calls her. Therefore trust is the attitude that gives strength and firmness to her spirit, as she passes through the banal and the strange, through distress and happiness, receiving welcome and rejection, experiencing abundance and want. She trusts that it is all part of the pilgrimage, of the plan and care of the One who calls and sends her. She surrenders her own expectations and abandons herself to all that He provides for her, receiving everything as part of His blessing.
So for her nothing can go wrong. All is His gift. This abandonment, the total surrender is the goal of the pilgrimage, the promised blessing, the liberation and transformation of the pilgrim, the Sabbath rest of her restless heart, the reception of what she asked for, the treasure and precious pearl for which she sought and has sold all, the opening of the Great Door upon which she has been knocking. She is now on an eternal still and silent journey into the awesome depth and mystery of the Trinity. She has come to her true home.
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This letter has helped literally hundreds of pilgrims. Marie Therese; her sister Susan, who walked the Camino three times; and Bonnie and Ruth (see February 25, 2019) have given out countless copies of it.
