Food for thought

From Bishop Vasa's most recent column:

It is a great time to travel through the diocese. This does not imply at all that other times are less attractive, but only that the possibility of icy roads and snow covered passes is greatly reduced. This affords a little more leisure in travel and a greater opportunity to appreciate the beauty of the countryside. When the weather is less cooperative I do tend to focus on arriving at the destination much more than the joy of the journey. This week was a time to focus just a bit more on the pleasantness of the country through which I am blessed to travel.

This is something that is perfectly legitimate to do when traveling across the diocese to a variety of locations but one needs to take a slightly different approach when considering this life as a journey. In cross-state travel there is little danger, at least for the time being, of getting so distracted by the country through which I travel that I forget both where I am going and how I plan to get there. Unfortunately, in terms of the spiritual life, it is quite easy to get so distracted by the “foreign land” we presently inhabit that we can quite literally forget who we are, where we are going and how we plan to get there. In the midst of the busyness of a typical day, we can forget that we are Catholic Christians, followers of Christ, pilgrims, lovers of the Gospel, sons and daughters of God, a resurrection-believing people. We can forget that our true citizenship is in heaven, that we are “strangers and aliens” here, that our true home still awaits us, that this world is passing, that our relationship with God surpasses all others. We can forget, usually because of being distracted by what we find along the way, that we are to leave ourselves behind, that he who seeks to save his life will lose it, that strict obedience to a moral code is essential, that Jesus is the way, that he gave us the Church to show us the way.

On one of my journeys, not this round, I needed to get to the cathedral and I started out, who knows why, going east out of Bend on US 20. Now it is possible to get to the Cathedral on that road but it is about 100 miles further than the US 26 route. I “woke up” to my error very early and so doubled back the two or three miles to reestablish a start on the right road. Prior to discovering my mistake I was making great time and I was enjoying the journey. However, there was a problem. I was on the wrong road. It wasn’t as wrong as being on US 97 South and not ever so bad as being on US 20 West but having temporarily lost sight of my destination and the proper road to get there my journey had the potential to be a great deal of fun but really quite ineffective in terms of my predetermined goal and destination.

We can never forget that our living is really a spiritual journey with a very important and baptismally predetermined destination. It is certainly good and proper to enjoy the journey but never at the expense of the destination.