Motivation Monday - St. Augustine

This section from Augustine's Confessions has been stuck in my head for the last few days. And I only realized last night that August 28 was his feast day (of course)!

"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new: late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace."

Annus Horribilis

In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning. Or maybe it is 2016. I’m starting to be old enough to realize that no election year is pretty, and elections are fairly common around here. But 2016 seems to be vying for a top spot on the bad years list. The political tension, the protests, the refugee crisis, the poisonous water, the spreading virus, and all the death. So many people have passed away, both in the public sphere and privately.

Recently, at a memorial Mass (the third I had attended in a month), the celebrant noted it had been a bad year but that good things had happened too. He fondly recalled a recent ordination then asked, “What other good things have happened?” No one answered. You could sense everyone trying to think of an answer, to find something to celebrate. But it’s been a rough year.

I mean, not 1353 bad, or even 1916 bad, but maybe 1968 without the optimism of going to the moon. The year is only halfway through, and I’ve heard multiple people ask, “Is 2016 over yet?” I hear the end-times-ers crying that we’re living through the prophecy of Revelation, and while I vehemently disagree with their theology, I get it. Surely this can only be fixed through total destruction and rebuilding, right? How do we get ourselves out of a global dark night of the soul?

Much like purgatory, a dark night of the soul is temporary, and it leads to something greater. I wouldn’t go as far to call it necessary—we got ourselves here—but is a part of the path, not an end. There is light somewhere, even if unseen. A new year is only a few months away.

Solidarity

Back in July I attended at stateside World Youth Day event. The pilgrims there gathered in Washington, D.C. for catechist talks, veneration, and Mass. It was a small-scale replica of what the pilgrims in Krakow were doing and seeing. We gathered from across the country and ate Polish food, saw Polish dancers, and visited the Holocaust Museum (the pilgrims in Poland toured Auschwitz). The prayers were said in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Polish, and ASL. The idea was that we couldn’t make the pilgrimage to Poland, but we could experience the pilgrim spirit and show solidarity with those who did go.

I wasn’t really sure about being a pilgrim. Can one be a pilgrim in less than 48 hours? My ideas of pilgrimages are mainly sourced from The Canterbury Tales and The Way. So, walking around Europe with strangers. My idea of a pilgrimage is a very individualistic trip—one of self-realization and renewal. But this pilgrimage was all about the collective, solidarity with those in Krakow. It was about being part of something bigger than yourself, and any individual actualization was a byproduct, not the selling-point.

I guess what always turned me off to the idea of pilgrimage is the idea that I should expect some profound spiritual change. I’ve never held the idea that I could choose when to have an awakening, that I can plan a trip and organize spiritual insight. Now, the visiting places of religious significance I understand, because I’m a history buff, but I don’t think all those Europeans were travelling to Jerusalem in the 1100s because they were history nerds on vacation. But for me there is a fear of pilgrimaging: what if I spend all this time and money and effort to reach this holy place, and feel nothing?

But I’ve realized pilgrimage doesn’t have to be about that (and maybe never was meant to). My modern sensibilities prioritize the individual’s feelings, but feelings are fleeting, and they can be deceptive.  Faith is more than feel-goods and epiphanies. A pilgrim goes to a shrine because they are told to or because they need to or maybe because they want to. In the act of pilgrimaging, the reasons don’t matter so much; the pilgrim fades away into the faces of the thousands of other pilgrims—there together or over the centuries. It doesn’t matter that I go; it matters that a pilgrim goes. It matters that the saint is venerated, the holy day observed, the faith kept.

The faithful come from different cultures, with different languages and different prayers and different reasons for being there. But they converge onto one spot, and the differences fade in the brilliance of the shared faith. Solidarity. Something the Polish people know something about. So how do I be a pilgrim in less than 48 hours? I just go.