Road to nowhere.

So the Easter ceremonies are over for another year. They were absolutely beautiful , from the procession on Palm Sunday, the "Miserere" of Tenebrae, the stripping of the high altar on Holy Thursday to the joyous mass on Easter Sunday, beautifully and reverently prayed and attended (apart from the NO heads who attended on Sunday clapped after the recessional when they had been told not to, and despite being told that reception was kneeling and on the tongue, stormed off in a huff when they stuck out their hands and were politely told that this was not the norm). 
    To attend and participate prayerfully ( no active participation for me no siree!) in the ceremonies was to immerse oneself in the mystery of Easter, the passion , death, burial and resurrection, it was to journey through the sacrifice of the Redeemder and to become reborn through his victory on the cross.
 Journey, now there's a word, with the rare gift of common sense it denotes a trip from one place to another, there it is a definite action it has a beginning and an end.
Let's for a moment pretend that some people don't avail of common sense, you know the ones to which I refer in particular the Catholics who don't exercise their God given faculties. To them journey denotes something esle, namely the aimless meandering through their life, akin to a drunk trying to negotiate their way home after a night on the tiles. Manys the time I have heard this nonsense from clerics, religious and laity.
      The destination is not important it is our experience as a pilgrim people on this journey that matters.
What absolute and utter rot!  Imagine getting into a car one fine sunny morning and saying to your passengers."Listen I don't know where we're going, in fact I'll not hold onto the steering wheel, but I know it will be a lovely experience wherever we are going."   If the journey doesn't abruptly terminate in a wall, then the occupants could find themselves anywhere out of petrol and lost. And because they have been so busy paying attention to the experience and how they are feeling then they have not noticed the signposts. Consequently the first place that they come across that looks nice they decide that this must have been their destination and they pitch camp there. Hence the Catholics that have been lost to protestantism, islam, buddhism, hare krishna, hinduism, confucism, secular humanism and atheism. What is the response of our bishops? "Well they are on their spiritual journey and have searched outside the church. Sure wont they find God there? After all in a modern pluralistic society there are many voices with a hint of the divine in all of them" (Nostra Aetate has a lot to answer for!!!) This is always said in a smiling yet slightly pleading manner, desperately seeking reassurance, for the clergy need to be affirmed by those who really matter (eg anyone but a faithful Catholic) that the enormity of their negligence can be glossed over. And those in the know will nod their enlightened heads and say unto the bishops, well done and pat them on the head and send them off until they are ready to attack the Church again.
   Yes we are a pilgrim people but we know exactly where we are going, the route is mapped out from the cradle to the grave and providing we have the map the right way up then we can follow it. No one said it would be easy, in fact it is damn hard but then if it was easy the prize would not be worth striving for. And what a prize it is. The journey continues every day, let us keep our eyes on the prize and not stray off the path into darkness, Lumen Christi.