Daily Reading for July 7
St. Columbanus called Christians “hospites mundi,” guests of the world. He gives the classic statement of peregrinatio when he speaks of it as going into exile, seeking the place of one’s resurrection, the pilgrimage to heaven, the true home. “Therefore let us concern ourselves with heavenly things, not human ones, and like pilgrims always sigh for our homeland, long for our homeland. It is the end of the road that travelers look for and desire, and because we are travelers and pilgrims through this world, it is the road’s end, that is of our lives, that we should always be thinking about. For that road’s end is our true homeland. . . . Don’t let us love the road rather than the land to which it leads, lest we lose our homeland altogether. For we have such a homeland that we ought to love it. So then, while we are on the road as travelers, as pilgrims, as guests of the world, let us not get entangled with any earthly desires and lusts but fill our minds with heavenly and spiritual things: our theme song ‘When shall I come and appear before the face of my God?’. Christians must travel in perpetual pilgrimage as guests of the world.”
From Every Earthly Blessing: Rediscovering the Celtic Tradition by Esther de Waal. Copyright © 1991. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com