15 August 1984
Paris, France

Mother Rogé, Father Lloret, and my dear Sisters,

When you pray the Rosary and reflect on the words, actions and experiences of Our Blessed Lady, perhaps you have found yourself impressed by the number of times Mary made the journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem and back. There is, first, the journey from Nazareth into what St. Luke calls "the hill country to a town of Judea" (Lk 1:39) to visit her cousin, Elizabeth. The Gospel passage to which we listened at Mass this morning opens with noting that fact, and it closes with the observation that Mary made the return journey three months later. The third joyful mystery of our Rosary is celebrated at the end of the journey which Mary with Joseph made from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The fifth joyful mystery also marks the beginning of the journey back to Nazareth from which Mary, Joseph and the child Jesus had earlier set out. Whether she returned, like the disciples, into Galilee after the Resurrection, we do not know, but if she did, we know for certain that she was again in Jerusalem when the Spirit of God came upon the Church at Pentecost.

These journeys of Mary from Galilee to Judea tell us something of the physical strength and endurance of the Mother of God. We have only to look at present day photographs of the type of country that separates Galilee from Judea to realize what physical effort and endurance must have been called for. More important for us, however, is the inner spiritual strength that sustained Mary in these journeys, for these journeys which Mary made had the character of pilgrimages. Pilgrimages are more than journeys, because pilgrimages have a special inner quality which faith in the living God gives to them. It was quite clearly faith in the living God that prompted Mary to make those journeys or pilgrimages from the humble town of Nazareth to the city of Jerusalem, the special dwelling place of the God of Sion.

In the years since Vatican Council II, we have come to appreciate the insight which the Spirit of God has given us on the pilgrim nature of the Church. It could be said that the Constitution Lumen Gentium presents Our Lady as the pilgrim who has already reached the heavenly Jerusalem and, because she is glorified both in body and soul in heaven, can be a special source of hope and encouragement to us who are still on the pilgrim's road.

A pilgrim must resist the temptation to settle down, however attractive the countryside may be through which he passes. The vows we take in Community can be seen as means to help us from putting our roots down too deeply into what the passing scene may offer. A pilgrim does not set up his own house and home along the road he travels: so, we have our vow of Chastity. A walking pilgrim will travel light: so, we have our vow of Poverty. A pilgrim on the road will ask and accept directions; so, we have our vow of Obedience. A pilgrim will have an eye and a hand and a heart for the weak and wounded he may meet on the road: so, a Daughter of Charity has her vow to serve the Poor of Christ.

Our vows have as one of their purposes to counter our innate tendency to settle down too comfortably on the road of life and not to press on. Perhaps it is for that reason that St. Vincent had so much to say on the importance of what he called indifference or detachment.

When we make our meditation on indifference or detachment, it is important to allow the Community to enter into the sanctuary of our hearts. By that I mean that it may be relatively easy to offer the total gift of myself to God in the intimacy of my prayer. It is much more difficult to offer the total gift of myself to God through my Community. It is through the Community that I receive my apostolate, my house, my office. To none of these, however, must I be so attached that the Community finds it very difficult or even impossible to ask me to give them up. A pilgrim on the road does not build walls around himself. Neither must we surround ourselves, nor even our apostolates, with walls that make it difficult for our Superiors to approach us with the suggestion that we move forward in a direction that we may not have thought of, or even which may not appeal to us.

Perhaps the quality, or rather gift of God, which I am thinking about, is availability; that is, a readiness, a facility, almost an agility, to move in any direction which obedience may indicate or suggest. Devotion to Jesus Christ present in the poor is indeed central to the vocation of a Daughter of Charity, but it must always be understood as only to those poor whom the authorities in the Company present to the individual Sister to be served. The attachment of a Daughter of Charity to her poor must never be so great that she makes it difficult or almost impossible for her Superiors to ask her to accept in exchange another group of poor to be served in place of those whom she is presently serving. True dedication to the service of the poor goes hand in hand with the gift of availability. It was precisely because she had this gift of availability, this spiritual agility, that Mary was able to go "with haste" into the formidable hill country of Judea to visit and assist her cousin Elizabeth in giving birth to John the Baptist. In one word, the gift of availability enables us to walk on the pilgrim way with lightness in our step.

The pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem had their songs, as they walked along the road. No doubt Mary knew them well. We still have some of them in our book of psalms: "They are happy whose strength is in you, In whose hearts are the roads to Sion. As they go through the bitter valley, they make it a place of springs." (Ps 83:6-7).