Beheading of St. John the Baptist, Thu, 8-29, Maple Hill, KS

     By the help of God, I arrived here at Maple Hill yesterday at about 2:30 pm, having left Topeka at 5:45 am. The trip was about 7 hours of walking after subtracting rest stops. The trip would have taken close to 2 hours less had I been permitted to continue on the more direct route of I-70, but a patrolman stopped me at around 7:30 am and told me I'd have to get off and find the back roads. So I did.

     For the first time today I had to grab the pepper spray that I have linked to my belt loops. A large dog ran me down barking furiously.(The dog was barking furiously). But since it was an Irish setter nothing came of it and I fortunately did not have to spray him. After a few minutes we both calmed down and parted ways. I told him I'd pray for him.

     The next major destination is Wichita, but I came a little out of my way from Topeka in order to come here to Maple Hill since St. John Vianney parish here is served by priests of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. I knew I could attend Mass celebrated with great devotion and attention to detail, and without arbitrary additives. They themselves have been helpful to me and generous. Such simple Christian helpfulness is exaggeratedly appreciated by a pilgrim like me who owns next to nothing, knows no one, is known by none, and is held in suspicion by many. May You bless them, Lord, in their work. Blanket the earth with such Christianity!

     Tomorrow I will try to write a brief summary of my pilgrimage during the first month (since I have already been on the road for a month now). I am still getting used to the technical difficulties of blogging and of this blog site in particular. The last blog got posted accidentally before I could proofread and make some corrections. Even though I write it, I may not be able to post it, since it seems I will be traveling into a large wi-fi blackout zone for the next few days.

     Before I forget, I want to be sure to remind all who read this blog to send prayer intentions. I will continue offering all my prayers and sacrifices along the way, with every labored step I take, and at every shrine I can carry myself to, for all of your personal intentions. There is no need to describe your intentions explicitly.....God knows them. Don't worry that they've been sent late....I've already been praying from the start of my pilgrimage for all the intentions that would eventually reach me.....but they must reach me. It would be best if you could send them to my other email address since it will be used almost exclusively for this: markbyerlyao@gmail.com.

     Pax Christi.

Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!

     Friends of mine have suggested that I start a blog to record my experiences on this journey, this pilgrimage I have undertaken. Others have suggested also (some quite strongly) that I write some form of statement, a kind of "manifesto" which would describe what it is I am doing, and my intentions for doing it.
     My own inclination was not to create the blog for many reasons that I still consider to be quite good. However, since they are friends who have urged it, and since I am confident that my friends want only what is best for my soul (that is why they are friends), I have decided to do it.
     In June I left my work as a restaurant manager, either gave away, sold, or threw away everything I owned (except what I now carry on my back), and left my home in Newark, Delaware on pilgrimage and on foot. The pilgrimage is one of penance in reparation for sins.
     The way in which I will carry out the pilgrimage is as follows: I will do it all on foot. So I will not hitchhike or petition people for rides. The only rides I am accepting are those that people offer in charity of their own free will. In this way, by their charity, they also partake of the graces of the pilgrimage. The only exception to this is within cities where safety may require me to take short public bus trips within the city limits. I will sleep in a tent where I am given permission to place it, since I haven't funds to sleep in motels. I am generally dependent upon the charity of others for my sleeping arrangements. I am traveling in this way to 150 Catholic shrines across the country, many of them Marian, but also of Saints. I also consider all chapels of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration and all monasteries to be shrines as well. The significance of the number refers to the 150 Hail Marys of the complete 15 decade Rosary. In this way I hope to especially honor the Mother of God. Depending on how things develop, the pilgrimage should take close to a year, perhaps a bit more or less. Within not too long a time, I will also be dependent on the charity of others for my food, since I always knew that my personal savings would never be enough to sustain me. Poverty is part of the penance. But it is also conducive to a complete and exclusive trust in God, which is what our Lord most longingly desires from us all.
     No true pilgrim in the Catholic tradition can ever think but that he must do penance for his own sins first. Of my own sins, private and public, I have accused myself both privately and publicly, and do so regularly. But my intention, besides, is to do penance also for the sins of many others who do no penance for their own, in imitation of Christ. The Christian has this calling and this power by the very fact of being Christian.
     Our Blessed Mother, at Fatima, with the most urgent pleas, begged us to pray most fervently and do much penance. But in the last 50 years especially, with disingenuous sophistications, we have rationalized away what authentic fervor in prayer and penance really means. We have allowed our own clear Catholic vision to be clouded over by the smoke of Satan. And so, we now have the world in its present state. The world's present spiritual dilemma is essentially a Catholic problem.
     Most "manifestos" are written to protest something. Very well. Then I am protesting the presence of so much obstinate sin in our bishops, priests, religious and laity of our Catholic Church. I protest their obstinate adherence to a watered-down, lukewarm catholicism that has proven itself moribund for any who have eyes to see. This obstinate adherence to the lukewarm is by its very nature diabolical. So, yes, I protest all of this with every fiber.
     But social protest has never been and could never be the Church's principal means of obtaining God's grace for the purpose of conversion. For this, our Lord commanded prayer and fasting. And pilgrimages of prayer and penance have long been a Catholic tradition for this purpose.
     So my own purpose in this effort of mine is not so much to protest as it is to beg God's grace and mercy for the Church and for humanity. Specifically, I want to obtain for us the grace of more time, because time has all but run out. Time to bring us all more fully to conversion. And secondly, that God will now release upon the world the saints that must be waiting in the wings. They must be here now, because we cannot wait another generation. They are here, now, somewhere. They are perhaps very young or not so young, but they must be here, and they must start answering the call of grace now. They must rise up now and start crying in the wilderness, in the streets, in the churches. Their purity, patience, and fortitude must be irreproachable, because they will have to suffer much. Drink greedily from the pure sources of the grace of Christ, and respond now! We cannot wait any longer. Too many souls are being lost. Mercy, Lord, mercy! Be patient with us still!