"Tomorrow"

My Friends in Christ:

     In my last blog I said that "tomorrow" I would describe the salient details about my pilgrimage up to that point, since the first month of my journey had already passed. Well, "tomorrow" has turned out to be nine days long, and although difficulty finding wi-fi connections on the Kansas plains has been part of the problem, I have to confess my own lack of diligence to be the greater part. The Lord had in mind these vices of mine as well when He took me on this journey.....to purge me of them. A greater freedom of conscience and a greater confidence to tackle the sins of our Church would be ours if we would only act upon the graces ever being offered us for our own perfection in Christ. I have much, very much to learn from our overly patient Lord, and from His Mother, and His Saints, and from my Angel.....
     Our Holy Mother Church allows her faithful a plenary indulgence for those who make a pilgrimage, under the required conditions, to the church of their baptism. This seemed to me the best place to start. At our baptism the whole drama begins! I was baptized in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, at the church of St. Cecilia. This first place of pilgrimage turned out to be providential in bringing me to understand in microcosm all of my reasons for undertaking this pilgrimage in the first place,and a foretaste of some of the difficulties that were awaiting me.
     When I arrived at the church, I found everything outside to be well kept but the doors of the church were closed and locked. This didn't really surprise me since St. Cecilia's now finds itself in the midst of a troubled neighborhood. So I went to the rectory to explain myself to the pastor and see if he would let me in to pray. (In a future blog I will list and explain all the prayers that I have chosen to pray at each shrine). No one was there. So I knocked some more on different doors but still no answer. Eventually, across the street I happened to see a plain-dressed woman coming out of a building that I previously had supposed belonged to the parish. I immediately thought that she was a nun both because she wasn't dressed like one and because she also wasn't dressed like any other woman would dare to dress. It turned out I was correct, and she immediately let me know that the church was closed. "Yes, I know. I just tried all the doors myself". "No", she replied, "the parish itself is no longer functioning. There are no more Masses said here, nothing, from about a year ago. There is another parish down the road and a little up the other side of the valley. All the faithful from St. Cecilia's go there now".
     I was crushed with disappointment. The church of my baptism no longer baptizes. There are no more Masses, no more weddings. Such a beautiful little stone church in the true Catholic style......empty! I was sad, then indignant, then angry. And I felt swell up within me everything that has driven me to this whole ordeal. We have failed You, Lord, horribly! Have mercy on us and help us! We don't know how to save ourselves!
     Well, I decided that I would try to find a way into my church anyway. So I went to the other parish on the other side of town to find the pastor there. The pastor was away. I found a retired priest who was about to leave to bring communion to the sick. He said that I should go back to St. Cecilia's cemetery and look for the groundskeeper, he would have the key to let me in. So I did.
     At St. Cecilia's my grandmother, to whom I was close, was buried. So while I waited for the groundskeeper to appear, I prayed at her grave. The groundskeeper I eventually found repainting the cemetery gates. He agreed to go back down into the valley with me and open the church for me.
     The air in the church was like a couldren. We entered through a back door and climbed a thin, spiral flight of stairs to a small, dark, very hot room. We walked over to the front of the room where a  locked door would probably lead to the poor church itself. But before my guide opened the door he first walked over to the front wall of this dingy, lonely room and parted two small red curtains oddly hanging there......What!? No! How can it be!? It is! It's Our Lord! Our Lord exposed in a monstrance, here, alone, forgotten, waiting.....for who?.......for me?......how?..........why?
     When I came out of my stupor, I finally went down on my knees. Now I knew that my Lord wanted this pilgrimage of me. How could I ever dare another doubt? About this. About Him. About His Church. About any and all of His promises........

Pax Christi.