what a week for me, as we progress my attention, my mind and my soul are entirely in communion with my brethren in Brazil for World Youth Day. See, the concept of pilgrimage has disappeared quite a bit nowadays! Yet it is still very much alive and it is a deepening experience for who experiences it. Once tasted, you would rather sacrifice any other vacation and save for pilgrimages alone whenever God permits. You come to realise your every trip is a pilgrimage where God works even family gatherings, because you pay more attention to how God is moving. Bl. Pope John Paul II used to say that his every trip was a pilgrimage. We are pilgrims on this earth, and at times, we forget that we are to live as such.
Few years ago in Madrid, I met a couple that has 10 kids. The oldest was 16 years of age, and the youngest in the arms of the mother. They had arrived with all ten kids with the help of divine providence. They shared with me how when they were still singles, their love for World Youth Days drew them closer, and during their courtship they kept going whenever God permitted together.
Now after getting married, they had promised each other to trust that Our Good Lord would always provide for them to carry on that tradition with their children, just as Mary and Joseph annually took Jesus on a pilgrimage.
They had a very limited budget that year, and kept asking for the intercession of our Blessed Mother to make a way. Usually WYD packages go pretty fast along with accomodations, and etc... They were regularly checking trusting that if she wanted them to take the kids this year again to deepen their knowledge of the Faith - she would make a way.
A week before World Youth Day in Spain, the plane tickets dropped radically, so radically that; it was within their budget, but even lower than what they had set for budget. Upon arriving in Madrid, Spain - there were no more accomodations, when someone who had just purchased a house there and was among those giving pilgrims their back packs said: 'Why don't you come stay at my house for the week?' I will not be there for the week.
Such is the testimony that I just shared with you in short. I am let you partake in this because the two poems of today are inspired of Pope Francis' Homily at the National Shrine of our Lady of Conception of Aparecida today, and by the reminder of the story of this family I was blessed to meet in Madrid. Indeed God can surprise us if we allow ourselves to be open - such is the beauty of being a pilgrim, yet a challenge at times. We wonder how many blessings do we throw away at times.
- Poem 51 -----"130 -149 - 19"
- Poem 52 -----"130 - 148 - 19"
Thank You...
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