The image of the Church as a pilgrim people is a constant refrain throughout the documents of the Second Vatican Council. It appears throughout the Council's texts regardless of topic: liturgy, Church, revelation, ministry of bishops, and in every other document of the Council. Why was this image preferred to the many others the Council references in #6 of Lumen Gentium?
Being on a pilgrimage is an egalitarian undertaking. Every person on the pilgrimage is really in the same position: we are all on the way, journeying to a common destination. Pilgrimages are hard undertakings. They last a long time, and while you may know everyone with you on the journey, there are times when you get on their nerves and they get on yours. In order to be successful on the pilgrimage you have to follow your guide. Straying from the path can get you into a great deal of trouble. A pilgrimage is a great undertaking and a great experience of solidarity.
As you journey along the pilgrim way, your perspective begins to change over the course of days. You arrive at new insights you never had before. You come to appreciate home a great deal, and yet there also comes a real love for the place you are visiting. If you did manage to lose your way and find your way back to the right path, there comes a genuine sorrow for taking your own way and a deep connection to the path you are to follow.
The Council Fathers recognized that for a long time we had, to quote a profound passage from the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite Liturgy, "followed the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have done those things which we ought not to have done, and we have not done those things which we ought to have done." Holiness had become a specialty of the professional clerical and religious class. Constantinian Christianity had led us to compromise ourselves into accepting the use of violence to justify a great many things that are unjustifiable. These were the conclusions of one Joseph Ratzinger, theological peritus at the Second Vatican Council, which he set to paper in his book "Theological Highlights of Vatican II."
The study of Church history and our own experiences of the last forty years should dispel any notions of a triumphalistic understanding of the Church. The Council noted, "For although the Catholic Church has been endowed with all divinely revealed truth and with all the means of grace, yet its members fail to live by them with all the fervor that they should, so that the radiance of the Church's image is less clear in the eyes of our separated brethren and of the world at large, and the growth of God's kingdom is delayed. All Catholics must therefore aim at Christian perfection and, each according to his station, play his part that the Church may daily be more purified and renewed. For the Church must bear in her own body the humility and dying of Jesus, against the day when Christ will present her to Himself in all her glory without spot or wrinkle." (Decree on Ecumenism, #4)
And so the Church stops to look at her earthly pilgrimage to assess where she has been and where she is going. Each of us must do this for our own particular journey and to look at the larger communal journey as well. Each day should lead to a new perspective on the same pilgrimage.
In my own life I have served as a teacher in Catholic schools, catechist, parish minister, diocesan office director, and now chancellor. Each place is a different perspective on the journey - my own and that of the whole Church. None is greater than the other. Taken in isolation they can be very narrow perspectives; taken together as a whole there is much to be learned. The same is true regarding our fellow pilgrims. Take the time to listen to others as they share their perspective as a fellow pilgrim - and listen to many, many people as there will be great variety in their stories. Then, share your story with great humility, recognizing that your story is not greater than that of another. In fact, we are likely to find that our stories aren't so different after all. And all the while let us encourage each other to continue the journey together, agreeing to let God resolve our disputes when we get to the end of the road. But for now, we need each other, and we can't let our differences obscure that fact.
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