Pilgrim Journey

“Take nothing for the journey...” Luke 9:3

“We are pilgrims on a journey, not tourists,” Father Suarez admonished us when we went on a Pilgrimage to Lourdes, Assisi, and ended up in Rome for Good Friday and Easter Sunday. What is the difference? A pilgrim is a person who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons. A tourist, on the other hand, visits places for pleasure. While we live on this earth, what is our perspective?

Do we go about our daily life with heaven as our goal, believing that each day God is with us, tending our growth as a human being? Knowing that there are lessons we need to learn, virtues and disciplines we need to practice and truth we need to live by? 

Or perhaps we prefer to join the crowd that follows the trail of happiness, enjoyment and success? Do the roads never meet? I believe loving, and following Jesus is the path to true happiness, enjoyment and success! “Delight yourself in the Lord,” we read in Psalm 37:4, “and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  God is our Creator and He knows us inside and out. He is really the only one who can teach us what to do to have true joy!