"We forget sometimes that our entire life is a pilgrimage." That's how Sr. Josephine Garrett began to answer my question about her personal experience as a pilgrim, after she eagerly welcomed my affirmation that all of us at the National Eucharistic Congress are pilgrims.
But, just being a pilgrim isn't enough, she suggested.
"I really hope that we leave here hungry pilgrims, and okay with being hungry," she said.
Sometimes we think we're not supposed to be hungry. And that we're not supposed to be starving. But we're on a pilgrimage. And we are supposed to be hungry until the day that we die.
Sr. Josephine is getting at the whole truth of suffering in this life, in this "valley of tears."
As the CCC says, illness and suffering have always been among the gravest problems confronted in human life. ... Suffering makes us face our "powerlessness ... limitations ... finitude."
Can we become "okay with being hungry?"
If we remember that we're on a journey, then it's suddenly easier.
"I really want us to remember that -- that we are perpetual pilgrims, we're pilgrims on this earth ...," Sr. Josephine said, alluding softly to the group of young people who've literally been on pilgrimage for the last two months and arrived to the Congress last night like celebrities.
"I really hope that we leave here hungry pilgrims."
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Josephine Garrett was raised Baptist and entered the Catholic Church in 2005. In 2011, she began her formation in a religious congregation, and in November of 2020, professed her final vows as a Sister of the Holy Family of Nazareth.
She is a licensed counselor and has also served in vocations ministry and as a national speaker for youth and young adults.
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