“When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage and enter the presence of God?” When will my state be one of rest and not of toil?
A good question, with an easy preliminary answer: no rest until death, until heaven. For now, change and trial sum up our lot.
But perhaps that’s not the complete truth.
Heaven is more than the absence of pilgrimage, an absence of change. Heaven should not be defined by what it is not. Heaven, rather, means the abundance of what is there, or rather Who is there.
From time to time, the abundance of heaven spills through its gates to meet us on the way. The kingdom of heaven comes into our lives like the father who runs out to meet his returning, wayward son (Luke 15:20).
And so our lives must be both restless and still. Restless, because we are not where we should be. We must return to the Father. Still, because we live in trust that our Father will come to us.
Yes, as St. Augustine said, our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Unresolved, that restlessness shapes, and ruins, whole lives. Early monks warned each other against gyrovaguery—the ceaseless wandering from monastery to monastery in search of a better spiritual father, more suitable silence, more perfect conditions. We too face our own temptation to wander. The frequent job-jumping or serial monogamy of so many Americans speaks to this restlessness. Our mind flits from one worry to the next, unable to rest, to be at peace. Even if we have a moment of contentment, we know it will pass.
Certainly, not all restlessness is wrong. Some wanderers know how to be still. In Russia, for centuries pious people had a custom of taking time—a month, a year, a decade of their lives—to walk from shrine to shrine to pray. They became holy dropouts from society. They knew that no single shrine was their destination. In their wanderings, their hearts became still in the presence of God.
While we pilgrimage, we want to be still. A word comes to us from a place of quiet, for the one who speaks it is unchanging: “The Lord will fight for you, you have only to keep still” (Exod 14:14). We hear this word echoed in the prophets, who can be so dynamic, even violent: “For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: By waiting and by calm you shall be saved, in quiet and in trust shall be your strength” (Isa 30:15). Finally, we meet this word in the flesh: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). Our destination is like no other in that it comes to us.
“When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage and enter the presence of God?” Now we are both in pilgrimage and in the presence of God. Are you restless? Ask to rest in your God who carries your cross with you. Do you wish to enter the presence of God? Consider that “the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (Rom 10:8). Even as you wander, speak to yourself the divine words: “In God alone be at rest, my soul; for my hope comes from him” (Ps 62:5).
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Image: Rudolf Schiestl, Pilgrimage to Gößweinstein
