Final Stage

Good evening from Villa Maria Education and Spirituality Center, near the Ohio-Pennsylvania state line. The Sisters of the Humility of Mary are hosting the postulants this evening, the last of our nine-day journey to the Midwest.

We left St. Conrad Friary in Milwaukee at 5 a.m., making it to Indiana in remarkably good time by beating the rush-hour traffic to Chicago. Though at departure our sleep-starved bodies were sagging, spirits soared steadily as the sun rose. One of the postulants thought it would be a good idea to go to Mass at the University of Notre Dame, and none but our postulant director had ever been there before, so we all agreed. To South Bend we went. Arriving shortly before 9:30, we learned there would be no Mass at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart for another two hours. However, our resourceful postulant director found the sacristan, a Holy Cross sister, who arranged to let us use a chapel in the lower level to celebrate the Eucharist. Together we offered a blessing for the priests, brothers, and sisters of the Congregation of Holy Cross, who founded Notre Dame, and for all who work and study at this quintessentially Catholic institution.

We overestimated the duration of our journey because we erroneously factored in a visit back to the Capuchins in Detroit, which we never made. So we crossed the Ohio-Pennsylvania border four hours early! This was perfect, because we had plenty of time to unpack, do our evening prayer, and have a leisurely dinner at a lively Italian restaurant in Youngstown, Ohio.

With about 400 miles to go and no reason to hurry, we will reach New York City tomorrow in the late afternoon to early evening, traffic, weather, and God willing. I am eager to be back in Brooklyn. One always rests a little more soundly in one's own bed after a time apart from home.

Our sojourn in the Midwest has done us all kinds of good. Here I name two goods:

We are blessed to have studied with Fr. Bill Cieslak, who knows and loves the liturgy like few other souls I have met. From him I have gained a theological thinking to give a sure voice to what my heart longs for when it longs, often in vain, for the presence of God in the very temples the Church has built for Christ. Brother Bill speaks to Catholics' frustration when they feel that their liturgy shrinks God the Father, makes Jesus look ugly, obscures the Holy Spirit, and draws a velvet rope between them and Christ. I feel like my prayer life has been enriched, for it has been given both new direction and fresh intention. Thank you, Brother Bill.

It is very good that we met the five postulants of the Province of St. Joseph, because we will be living with them, and with all the Capuchin postulant classes in North America and the Pacific, during our combined novitiate next year in California. Our two-month pre-novitiate program next summer in Victoria, Kan., with all the postulants across the continent, is meant to bond us before we begin our year of retreat, but every prior opportunity to get acquainted with our brothers is beneficial. I pray we will become better brothers to each other through the grace of Jesus.

Our week of pilgrimages draws to a close. In the final stage of this journey home, I have been reminded of the homeless, who live a life of involuntary pilgrimage. A friend of mine shared a story of several homeless women and men of remarkable faith who have consecrated their pilgrimage -- who have made it a holy sacrifice. They remind us that we have no fixed home in this world but within God's incarnate love, and God has no fixed home but within these temples of flesh and blood. The path has no end in this life; its end is in the eternal newness of life.

Be on your journeys. May they be good; step by little step, may they set you free.