O “Little” Town of Bethlehem

Well, we made it to Bethlehem! As far the travelling goes, “all’s well that ends well.”

In the seminary, it’s common for family and close friends to stop by. When you meet a seminarian’s family and the people closest to him, whose presence and example have significantly formed them in from the earliest of days, suddenly he makes a lot more sense. It’s also pretty normal for the guys from nearby dioceses to invite other seminarians to their own homes for a meal or a weekend away. Seeing the place where a brother seminarian “came of age” is an incredible opportunity; these are the places and faces that silently formed him. Some of the most exciting and meaningful time spent with brother seminarians is having one drive me around his hometown and point out his high school and his first girlfriend’s house, the restaurant where he worked to save the money to by his first car and the little league ball field where he learned that he wasn’t very good at baseball. The best part is the joy – there is so much joy in being able to share ourselves and the meaningful places and people with the men, the brothers, who have themselves become part of that meaningful crowd.

Of course, Jesus’ time in Bethlehem was fairly short. After his birth, he was quickly taken to Egypt to avoid being killed by Herod and when his family returned to the Holy Land, they went back to Mary’s hometown of Nazareth. But this place is where it all began, it is the place where the light of God first shone on his people in a new and radical way. Here, the savior of the world was born; he is Christ the Lord.

It is this Jesus who has lived among us from the earliest days in Somewheresville, USA; it is this Jesus who has walked with us on our often winding and tumultuous road into the seminary; it is this Jesus who sustains us and calls us ever onward to become new and more and truly alive. Indeed, it is this Jesus who has called us out of Mundelein and onto this pilgrimage and to this not-so-little town of Bethlehem.

I’ve shown my hometown to plenty of seminarians over the last six years. It does, in fact, bring me much joy to show off this little place that I love. But now it’s my turn to be on Pilgrimage, and to rest. It is His turn to show me, with the greatest joy, His life in the towns and hills where it was –and still is – being lived. Jesus isn’t just guiding us through nine weeks of travel and prayer (and study, I guess), but through it all and through the rest, all the way to himself in that new eternal city of golden peace.

On this pilgrimage, I pray that we all might find The Light which shines in the darkness and silently guides us from the lands of little league ballfields and soft-serve ice cream shops to the one place where we’ll at last be truly home.