While we can always look back and see where we've come from, we don't know what lies ahead, but the further we go, the more we understand that all the journey is important. Even the worst experience is a teacher and can ultimately be seen as gift.

Like those early disciples going to Emmaus, we spend much of our pilgrimage time talking to each other about Christ Jesus, and all that he means to us.

We also carry aids for the journey, and while some of these are held in common, others are particular to our own needs.

On the way, we compare faith notes and maps, agree or disagree about what is useful, and give each other support; but we don't always recognise the one who walks with us.

He is closer than close, the companion who makes our hearts burn within us.

Why do we not recognise him?

Maybe it's because we expect to see the Son of God elsewhere, in some important place, with some important person. Why would he choose to be with us?

Then there comes the time when we know him in the breaking of bread.

This is not the head knowledge we were taught, the ritual we've discussed many times. It is something new, the dawning of a light in the heart that illuminates the entire journey and reveals the reason for our existence.

The sacrament lives within us. All this time, he has been with us. We simply needed to arrive at a place where we could see him.

At this stage, everything about the road to Emmaus becomes holy for us. The maps we've been given shine with truth, and we recognize the Word made flesh in all creation.

If we all try to describe our progression on the road, there will be slight variation. But generally, the stages are like this:

1. In early journey we can experience chaos as we are called to take down fences and step into a larger space.
2. We can feel aloneness, vulnerability, until we realise that our companions feel the same way.
3. We become aware of remarkable Godincidence in our lives, teachers, guidance, learning patterns, everything is there at the time when we need it.
4. We enter into the mystery of paradox and discover the richness of the Beatitudes.
5. We become aware that God's word is all around us in nature, teaching us. We discover the parables of the natural world.
6. We have an overwhelming sense of the interconnectedness of everything.
7. There us a peace that comes with simplicity, a freedom, a lightness and enhanced sense of humour.
8. We have a knowing without words.
9. We know that separation from God is an illusion.
10. There is awareness that the foundation of the universe is love.

Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

He had been profiled as a moderately conservative archbishop from Argentina, renowned for his simple lifestyle and pastoral affection for the poor.

Perhaps the only clue of his intention radically to reform the papacy and the Church, though barely understood at the time, was his bold and unprecedented decision to name himself after St Francis of Assisi.

People in the rainy square below fell silent and wept with joy as the newly elected Bishop of Rome, as he explicitly described himself, bowed his head and asked them to pray over him.

"Before the bishop blesses his people, I ask you to pray to the Lord so that he will bless me. Let us make this prayer in silence - your prayer over me," he said.

That evening Francis declared that he was launching the Church of Rome, "which presides in charity over all the other Churches", on new journey.

He said: "We take up this journey - bishop and people."

It would be months before most Catholics, especially the new Pope's fellow priests and bishops, would begin to understand the profound significance of those words. Continue reading.

Source: The Tablet

Image: Financial Review