Dear Friend,
Just the other day, a friend reached out to share the news that he’ll be going on a one-month, 400-mile walking pilgrimage this June along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela (“The Way of Saint James”) from Portugal to Spain.
“Text me your intentions if you’d like,” he said. “With an average walking day of around 12 miles and 7 hours, I’ll welcome opportunities to stop at a local church and light a candle!” (He shared that he’s not looking forward to three days when he’ll need to walk 20 miles in order to get to the next hostel.) We’ll definitely be sending intentions his way, and can’t wait to learn about the graces he’ll experience.
Granted, not many of us may have such an epic pilgrimage on our schedules this year—but no matter where we are or what we’re doing, every last one of us is fundamentally a pilgrim. That’s the urgent insight that Journeys of a Tin Can Pilgrim: Finding Joy in Everyday Life author Lynda Rozell shared with families just last weekend on a visit to our Heaven in Your Home Gathering in Leesburg, VA.
Many years into her career as a corporate lawyer, Lynda sensed a powerful call to take up the ancient Christian practice of pilgrimage by traveling the country in an Airstream. “Lynda seeks to live out her Catholic faith in her ordinary, everyday life as she travels around the country visiting campgrounds, RV resorts, parks, and religious sites,” a summary of Lynda’s ministry explains. “Through engaging stories, she invites others into the communities she has found on the road and shares the beauty of Creation and spiritual signposts that continue to lead her to radical trust in God.”
To our gathering last weekend, Lynda gave examples of how—as a full-time nomad—she encounters challenges and opportunities to witness to Christ’s love. She suggested that parents model “pilgrim behavior” for their children as life is essentially a pilgrimage to heaven. And true to her love of campgrounds, she recommended family camping as a way to learn patience and how to help one another on the journey. “My pilgrimage ministry is based on witness, being present, and planting small seeds,” Lynda said. She blogs at Tin Can Pilgrim and her book is here on Amazon.
In the fourth week of each month, we turn our focus to Family Culture, Level 4 of your Trinity House. In light of our friend’s upcoming Camino pilgrimage and Lynda’s inspiring witness, we can’t help but reflect on our own family culture with questions like these:
- Are we instilling “pilgrim behavior” in our children by keeping their eyes on the true goal (heaven) of this daily journey?
- If our spouse and children are fellow travelers on this pilgrimage, how are we helping them on the path?
- Are we “traveling lightly” as a family and trusting God to provide for us?
Candidly, it’s so easy to lose our pilgrim mindset. While we are blessed by the memories of pilgrimages we each took many years ago, we recognize that this pilgrim-mindset can atrophy through our busyness, anxiety, lack of trust, and over-focus on material things. With bills to pay and mouths to feed, how can we realistically form our children as pilgrims?
When we posed that question to Lynda, she shared these practical points which we encourage you to reflect on as you look to form your own family culture:
- Praise God on your family’s pilgrimage. Pray and sing together.
- Think about what your family is carrying on your pilgrimage. Do you need to detach and downsize?
- Try family camping as a way to experience a mini-pilgrimage.
- Realize that our travels do not go as planned. When you have detours, are you growing in patience and understanding?
- Find rest on your pilgrimage (physically, mentally, spiritually) and help others do the same.
Our friend who is leaving for the Camino de Santiago this June signed off his email with the words, “Buen Camino.” It’s a needed reminder that everyone of us is, at the end of the day, a pilgrim on a camino. We can all be praying for one another’s intentions as we walk. May the Lord bless your family as you walk with Him today, tomorrow, and always!
Buen Camino!
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In Memoriam: Deirdre McQuade
In the pilgrimage to our heavenly home, our friend Deirdre McQuade, 53, has gone ahead. She entered eternity last week on April 21st, following a long fight with breast cancer. Here is one of the many online tributes: “Saying Goodbye to Two Inspiring Pro-Life Leaders” (Aleteia). We were blessed to meet Deirdre over 20 years ago and to collaborate with her on a lecture series our ministry hosted in parishes in the D.C. region from 2006-2010. She was a frequent keynote speaker for our gatherings, and is already missed by so many.
> In this brief but powerful homily by Pope Francis, he says that “family life is a series of pilgrimages, both small and big.”
> Check out Fr. Paul Scalia’s “The Pilgrim Family” (The Catholic Thing). He writes, “Just as the Holy Family was formed by their pilgrimages to Jerusalem, so every Catholic family is to be a pilgrim community—one that has a clear destination, a journey to make, and companions on the way.”
> In “Finding Faith as a Weary Pilgrim” (Denver Catholic), Aaron Lambert points out something important: “It’s a funny thing that happens when we choose to leave our comfort zone as men and women and travel as weary pilgrims: as we walk along these paths in faith, we end up discovering what faith really is.”
> RSVP here for our free upcoming Heaven in Your Home Workshop: How to Build a Flourishing Catholic Household at St. Luke’s in McLean, on Saturday, May 21st from 10am – Noon. With an investment of just two hours, you and your spouse will: 1) Be inspired to refocus your family on your ultimate mission, 2) Gain practical tools for how to give your children an immersive experience of the faith in your own home, 3) Be strengthened in your confidence in your God-given vocation as a parent to raise your children in the joy of the faith.
“Trinity House draws us closer to each other, to family and to the Church. It encourages quiet moments of rest, reflection and prayer — an evangelizing presence in a noisy world.”
– Msgr. John Cregan, Diocese of Arlington
