Pilgrim progress- a disciple on a journey!

I am happy to post a reflection from our guest blogger Sr. Kathryn Williams. Sr. Kathryn is one of my sisters from the Athlone community. Her reflections are printed weekly in the parish bulletin of the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul.    A Warm Welcome I was abroad for four years. When the time came to return, I felt a bit nervous. My imagination worked overtime. Many questions and fears swirled around my head. “Would I be welcomed?” As the plane glided down the runway, I scanned the tiny figures searching for someone familiar. Coming out of customs, my fears vanished when greeted by a group of welcoming and eager faces. I was expected. They knew I was coming. Today’s Advent Gospel might evoke a similar scenario. We can focus our attention on preparing for the coming of this infant king. At this particular time of his coming, he will be defenceless and tiny, clothed in helplessness. He desires to be longed for, warmly and eagerly welcomed. When a new ba...

In our dining room here in New York, as part of the Christmas decorations, there is a statue of Joseph leading a donkey upon which sits a heavily pregnant Mary. It is the statue which often is associated with a tradition called Las Posadas. Las Posadas is celebrated in Mexico from December 16th until Christmas. Las Posadas literally means “the inns” and is based around a reenactment of Mary and Joseph trying to find lodging at numerous inns and being turned away. As the candlelit procession with Joseph leading Mary on her donkey winds through the streets, the Pilgrims knock on the doors of various houses. They sing the first stanza of the song, and the people behind the closed door reply with the second and so on, back and forth. The pilgrims are turned away several times before they reach the night's chosen house. Here, the householders realize who is really knocking. The final choruses are sung, the door swings wide, and the pilgrims are allowed inside. The words are as follow...

Over the past few days there seems to be a recurrent theme of Scripture passages where Jesus is out dining or even invites himself to dinner! The Gospel both today and yesterday and tomorrow invite us to reflect on whom we welcome or don’t welcome in our homes. We are called to the hospitality of the heart. Yesterday we had the story of Zacchaeus. It is the story of the hospitality of God shining a light into Zacchaeus’ darkness. Jesus goes to eat at the house of a tax collector. This story presents two kinds of “lostness.” There is the lostness of Zacchaeus, a social outcast, a man who suffers from a different kind of poverty than we normally think of—and there is the lostness of the crowd, which we need to identify with ourselves. We who call ourselves Christians are not immune to this kind of lostness. Often, we judge and we look-down-upon, we fold our arms and we distance ourselves, and we make little biting comments about each other to others or in our own minds. Yet Zacc...