Tag: Pilgrim

The Universal Prayer

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A friend sent me “The Universal Prayer”, apparently attributed to Pope Clement XI, because it talks about pilgrims 🙂

Lord, I believe in you: increase my faith.
I trust in you: strengthen my trust.
I love you: let me love you more and more.
I am sorry for my sins: deepen my sorrow.

I worship you as my first beginning,
I long for you as my last end,
I praise you as my constant helper,
And call on you as my loving protector.

Guide me by your wisdom,
Correct me with your justice,
Comfort me with your mercy,
Protect me with your power.

I offer you, Lord, my thoughts: to be fixed on you;
My words: to have you for their theme;
My actions: to reflect my love for you;
My sufferings: to be endured for your greater glory.

I want to do what you ask of me:
In the way you ask,
For as long as you ask,
Because you ask it.

Lord, enlighten my understanding,
Strengthen my will,
Purify my heart,
and make me holy.

Help me to repent of my past sins
And to resist temptation in the future.
Help me to rise above my human weaknesses
And to grow stronger as a Christian.

Let me love you, my Lord and my God,
And see myself as I really am:
A pilgrim in this world,
A Christian called to respect and love
All whose lives I touch,
Those under my authority,
My friends and my enemies.

Help me to conquer anger with gentleness,
Greed by generosity,
Apathy by fervor.
Help me to forget myself
And reach out toward others.

Make me prudent in planning,
Courageous in taking risks.
Make me patient in suffering, unassuming in prosperity.

Keep me, Lord, attentive at prayer,
Temperate in food and drink,
Diligent in my work,
Firm in my good intentions.

Let my conscience be clear,
My conduct without fault,
My speech blameless,
My life well-ordered.
Put me on guard against my human weaknesses.
Let me cherish your love for me,
Keep your law,
And come at last to your salvation.

Teach me to realize that this world is passing,
That my true future is the happiness of heaven,
That life on earth is short,
And the life to come eternal.

Help me to prepare for death
With a proper fear of judgment,
But a greater trust in your goodness.
Lead me safely through death
To the endless joy of heaven.

Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

What pilgrims do

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A friend of mine forwarded me an email from her daily email reflections…

That is very simply what a pilgrim does: walk. And it is the way the pilgrim prays, with his or her feet. And the feet walk through dark clouds to illumination to the light that is holy action. Through dark, cloud-filled days to a hint of subtle lightening to the sun breaking through, the feet taking us where we least thought we’d go, where before we had thought darkness dwelt, and finding there instead, in bright sunlight, the broken, the poor, the marginal, those made ugly or disfigured by abuse and oppression and woundedness.

We are changed simply by walking, rain or shine, toward and back from whatever shrine we had thought contained our hope and longing. We walk back toward what was there all along that we could not see.

— from Enter Assisi: An Invitation to Franciscan Spirituality

TOT: What does it mean to be a restless pilgrim?

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Our three-part “Theology On Tap” series came to a conclusion tonight. The Associate Young Adult Director, Pamela Poe, had tasked me to give a talk which answered the question “What does it mean to be a restless pilgrim?”. In this presentation, I recount the story of my own faith journey, I describe the story of Salvation History as a pilgrimage, and I explain why we’re all restless pilgrims…

“What does it mean to be a restless pilgrim?” (Download)

“Q&A” (Download)

If you would like to hear audio from other San Diego “Theology On Tap” sessions, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play or manually via the RSS feed.

— Questions —

• “What’s the next journey you have in mind?” (Winner of the box of fine tea)

• “How long were you on the Camino before you started to regret it?!”

• “Do people really die on the Camino?!”

• “Before you reverted, what did you believe about the Eucharist?”

• “How did your Protestant friends explain John 6, where Jesus speaks about eating and drinking his Body and Blood?”

• “Does the restlessness ever come to an end? Should we ever be able to settle?”

• “What is the Byzantine Church?”

• “What is the difference between an English and an Australian accent?”

Book Review: The Way of a Pilgrim

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screen-shot-2016-12-09-at-1-54-03-pmI’ve been getting through lots of books recently. I’ve been intending to write reviews for each of them, but have been procrastinating. Therefore, over the next few days I will be publishing a review for each of the books I have recently read.

Today I’d like to begin by talking about “The Way of a Pilgrim”. This review is also published on Amazon.com.

This book is well-known in eastern Christian circles and had been recommended to me by Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic friends for several years, but I somehow never never quite managed to find the time to read it.

However, soon after returning to San Diego last month, it was announced that my parish would be beginning a study of this book during the Advent season. This gave me the extra bit of motivation I needed to buy this book and was subsequently very quickly hooked, finishing it in just a few days. Here’s how the book begins:

“By the grace of God I am a Christian, by my deeds a great sinner, and by my calling a homeless wanderer of humblest origin, roaming from place to place”

– The Way of the Pilgrim

I’m sure you can understand why this Restless Pilgrim loved these opening words!

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