AN INVITATION TO BE PILGRIMS OF HOPE
“This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the LORD, as a perpetual institution.” - Exodus 12:14
Holy Thursday is one of the most beautiful liturgies of the year. Perhaps it is because we are in the year of the Jubilee of Hope, that I’m more attuned to the theme of “pilgrimage to the Lord” found throughout today’s readings and psalm. “How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me?” Jesus himself was “fully aware that he had come from God and was returning to God.” I’ll admit, this is something I had previously missed among the major events that take place.
With so much sorrow throughout the world today and in the lives of those around me, I’ve been wrestling with how to be a pilgrim of hope. In the fight for justice, how do I not let the inequities and disparities in hurting communities lead me to anxiety, worry, or despair? While I am committed to serving those on the margins with love here on Earth, I am humbly reminded that my life is a journey toward God that requires me to continuously return to Him.
On Holy Thursday, Jesus instructs us with how to be pilgrims of hope. The first is by being in communion with Him as we receive His precious blood and body. Everytime we go to mass is an opportunity to go on pilgrimage, to make a return to the Lord with Thanksgiving for all he has done for us. The second is to follow his model of washing the feet of others. How different would our world be if more people followed this model to not only cleanse feet, but by the very act, to show more compassion and love? How different would it be if you let others embrace the parts of you that you want to hide? How different would it be if you let Jesus embrace the parts of you that you want to hide?
I pray that we may be able to pilgrim with Jesus to calvary and to His resurrection. I pray that we may be pilgrims of hope in the remembrance of Jesus in the Eucharist and that we may be living monstrances to others. I pray that we may be pilgrims of hope that notice when the invitation from Jesus comes to wash the feet of those on our path, regardless of how we may feel towards them. I pray that we be pilgrims of hope that love as Jesus has loved us until He comes again. Amen.
Guadalupe De La O