Fear. How many of us are crippled by it in one way or another? Fear for the future of a son or daughter. Fear of getting sick. Fear about our financial future. Fear of losing a job. Fear of not finding a job. Fear of not finding a spouse. Fear of dying. Fear of…you name it. Of the many arrows in the enemy’s quiver, fear is one of his sharpest.

When Paul writes that love bears all things he means that love “hides”, or “keeps confidential” certain things about others. George Montague, in his excellent commentary on this letter, offers a more poetic translation: “Love throws a cloak of silence over what is displeasing in another person.” Uh…this isn’t exactly what I do. Far too often, to my shame, I speak about and expose the things that are displeasing in others. And yet, Paul says we are not to do this. Once again, what an extraordinary thing that God doesn’t do this about us — can you imagine?!

Paul would have been standing right in the area where we were celebrating Mass. Huge crowds of people would have been walking all around him and the court officials surrounding him, some stopping to look and listen, just as people were stopping and looking at our strange group of pilgrims, gathered around a makeshift altar in the sun.

I’ve been fortunate to make this pilgrimage several times before, and it is indeed life-changing — or can be, if we will allow the Holy Spirit to guide us. Christians have gone on pilgrimage almost from the very beginning. We do things like this quite simply because God acts in history, in concrete time and space. Visiting and praying in places where He did wonders of old can serve to remind us that He wants to do them now in our time and space.