Turn of the Jubilee Year

Suffering.  Not a word one would associate with Christmas, and yet the source of great joy.  My pilgrimage to Medugorje was one of suffering from beginning to end, yet the time was ever blessed.  In a final lesson to my college students before departure for the holidays, I spoke of the suffering of life, its inevitability, and the importance of accepting and transcending it.  The lesson was confirmed in my pilgrimage.

In the airport parking lot furthest removed from the terminal, I waited half an hour in the bitter cold for a shuttle which was to come every ten minutes.  A first driver told us he wasn't to pick us up.  A second said the same, then finally relented.  When finally I arrived at the check-in line, an attendant informed the persons immediately behind me that there might not be seats for them on the plane – I was barely safe.

The first of three plane flights was to Brussels, Belgium, and was to take better than seven hours.  The less-than-usual legroom and relatively hard seats provided little comfort for the overnight flight.  (We left Newark at 11:30 p.m. and were to arrive in Europe at about 12:30 the next afternoon, having lost six hours.)  On this flight I found sitting next to me the couple who would be my pilgrimage companions, especially for what would prove to be "adventurous" travel.  The few others on this tour we would not meet until arriving in Medugorje – though we should have met them in Dubrovnik.

The couple were middle-aged: he originally from the rolling hills of Iowa, though having spent most of his adult life in Los Angeles, and still connected to the Air Force; she a Korean woman whose struggles with English (though having lived in the U.S. at least twenty-five years) provided some amusing exchanges.  She was Catholic and hoping her husband would agree to be baptized by the end of our pilgrimage.  He was a rather devout secular humanist.  (Even showed me its creed in the front of a magazine at the start of our flight.)

I took what opportunity I found to speak of the faith and its place, which could not be preempted by science.  He seemed to listen patiently to my responses to humanism's tenets and my thoughts on the need for moral imperatives, as well as balance of faith and reason.  But most of the flight was spent struggling to sleep and eating the food laid before us.

My first epiphany came as we descended to Belgium.  Over the years I have developed major difficulties with change in pressure and almost always experience severe ear pain when landing on a plane (and even taking off).  I had found earplugs made for flights some time ago (though they did not always help entirely) and bought two sets for this journey.  But I did not use or need them.  When my fellow pilgrim told me of his technique – holding nose and blowing out the pressure – it made me question my dependence on my earplugs-- me, who am supposed to be so devoutly Christian and who depend on God for everything (rarely taking medicine, for example).  I recalled my belief that one must accept suffering/sickness first, and offer it to God, or any cure would be useless.  And so I prayed.

And I found that the silent WORD that is God's NAME (YHWH) not only focuses one on the awe and wonder of God's presence, but its leaving the mouth agape and the throat open even physically allowed the pressure to pass through me.  I faced this impending suffering, this death, with patience and in prayer, and remaining in His WORD was kept free of the pain.  (Such faith must we have in facing trials.  May I remember His WORD in all things.)

Arriving in Brussels in the early afternoon, having gotten maybe three hours sleep, I sought the airport chapel, since we had an hour and a half before our next flight.  I didn't happen upon a Mass, but the chapel provided a quiet place – with the Blessed Sacrament – to offer prayer.  (There was also a spare Protestant chapel and an icon-filled Orthodox chapel.)  I said my Daytime Prayer, prayed a decade of the Rosary, and knelt in silence before the Sacrament for a while... then made my way to the gate, not wanting to be late.  I could have stayed another hour.  On my way I noticed the plane was listed as delayed.  Now the "adventure," as my fellow traveler called it, was to begin.

Against his own warning (in bold letters) to those needing to take an extra plane to the departure city – to leave three hours between planes – our tour coordinator had left less than two, not only here, but before our next connection in Rome.  Making that flight was in jeopardy that grew more serious as this flight was continually pushed back further, and, of course, contrary to the tour coordinator's assurance that someone would be there if we had a problem, there was no one to speak for us.  So the scramble was on.  We spoke with the airline representative in