Blog | Subscribe | Free Trial | Contact Us | Cart | Donate | Planned Giving
Log In | Search
facebook
rss
twitter
  • CURRENT
    • Fall 2022 PDF
    • SUMMER 2022 ARTICLES
    • NEWSworthy: What’s Happening and What It Means to You
    • Blog
    • INSISTING ON LIFE
    • Pastoral Reflections
    • About Us
    • HLF In The News
    • LIBERTY TO DO WHAT? Hadley Arkes and Rusty Reno join George McKenna June 1, 2022 in New York
  • DINNER
    • GREAT DEFENDER OF LIFE DINNER 2022
    • HOST COMMITTEE Great Defender of Life Dinner 2022
    • Great Defender of Life 2022 Dinner Ticket
    • Great Defender of Life 2022 STUDENT or PREGNANCY CENTER STAFF Ticket
    • DINNER JOURNAL ADVERTISING 2022
  • ARCHIVE
    • Archive Spotlight
    • ISSUES IN HTML FORMAT
  • LEGACY
    • Planned Giving: Wills, Trusts, and Gifts of Stock
  • SHOP
    • Cart

Pastoral Reflections

1 Comment

God Has All of Us in Mind

31 May 2022
Victor Lee Austin
pilgrimage
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

 

I have recently returned from a seven-week pilgrimage, walking the traditional Camino Francés across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. I was part of a host of pilgrims that this year will number several hundreds of thousands. As we peregrinos passed through villages and cities where (altogether) thousands more were attuned to our care and feeding, an old wonderment came to mind. How can God hold all of us in his mind, with our myriad paths and stories and destinies? He makes each of us distinct and uniquely who we are. And he knows all of us, all the time.

Along the Camino, every day one finds the cross. It sits atop churches. It is carved in stone monuments alongside the path. It is painted on rocks. It is on pins that some people wear. Sometimes, it is just a couple of sticks tied together to mark the place where someone died.

The Camino is an allegory of human life as a whole. Wherever we are, we are within view of the cross. Jesus on the cross, being God, had every moment of our lives in his mind.

It is beyond human comprehension, the breadth of God’s saving plan. When I was rector at the Church of the Resurrection in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., at midnight a hundred of us would hold candles and sing Christ is risen from the dead / Trampling down death by death. Under the stars, ringing bells, holding candles, singing—Easter was palpably true. By dying, Jesus had conquered death for us, for those buried in our cemetery, and for all those other people we can’t see and we don’t know.

Later, I was on staff at Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue in New York City. On Easter morning, the line for the eleven o’clock service started forming before the eight o’clock was finished. By ten or so, all the good seats were filled. Before eleven, every alcove or corner would be packed, and still there were people standing in the narthex peering through the glass. They kept coming (and some of them going) during the next hour and a half; indeed, to behold the church in its Easter glory, they came all day long and even throughout the following week. We are talking serious crowds here. They were looking. Some were kneeling, a few quietly weeping. Others were curious and sometimes rude—but even in the “touristy” cases, one wondered what might have been going on in their soul. What was the story of their life? What nudged them to come to church? Did they know what they were seeking? What was God doing for them?

I pondered similar questions as I made my way along the Camino. Some of us left trash on the way; others picked it up. Some rushed ahead; others lingered to sniff the shrubbery. Some were noisy, some silent. Many were looking for . . . something. Some were looking for God; others had rejected God. Some were ill-tempered; some were helpful beyond expectation. Each of us was a unique blend of good and bad, which is to say, each of us was a sinner on the road—even that professor of architecture who told me he was not a sinner.

God has all of us in mind, all the time. This, I believe, is the grounding of the claim of human dignity. And it is worth learning how to see it on our walk through this life.

 

174 people have visited this page. 1 have visited this page today.
About the Author
Victor Lee Austin

The Rev. Canon Victor Lee Austin is theologian-in-residence of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas.

Social Share

  • google-share

One Comment

  1. David James June 9, 2022 at 1:55 pm Reply

    Buen camino por la vida!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Comments will not be posted until approved by a moderator in an effort to prevent spam and off-topic responses.

*
*

captcha *

Get the Human Life Review

subscribe to HLR

Recent Posts

Abortion activist attempts to expose crisis pregnancy centers—and fails

17 Jan 2023

An Abortion Clinic in Your Neighborhood

09 Jan 2023

“Benedict XVI, 95, Who Defended Doctrine, Dies.”                                                         — The New York Times, January 1, 202

04 Jan 2023

CURRENT ISSUE

Anne Conlon Anne Hendershott B G Carter Brian Caulfield Christopher White Clarke Forsythe Colleen O’Hara Connie Marshner David Mills David Poecking David Quinn Diane Moriarty Dr. Donald DeMarco Edward Mechmann Edward Short Ellen Wilson Fielding Fr. Gerald E. Murray George McKenna Helen Alvaré Jane Sarah Jason Morgan Joe Bissonnette John Grondelski Kristan Hawkins Laura Echevarria Madeline Fry Schultz Maria McFadden Maffucci Mary Meehan Mary Rose Somarriba Meaghan Bond Nat Hentoff Nicholas Frankovich Patrick J. Flood Peter Pavia Rev. George G. Brooks Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth Stephen Vincent Tara Jernigan Ursula Hennessey Victor Lee Austin Vincenzina Santoro W. Ross Blackburn Wesley J. Smith William Doino Jr. William Murchison

Pages

  • Issues
  • Human Life Foundation Blog
  • About Us
  • Free Trial Issue
  • Contact Us
  • Shop
  • Planned Giving
  • TOPICS
  • GREAT DEFENDER OF LIFE DINNER

Follow Us On Twitter

Tweets by @HumanLifeReview

Find Us On Facebook

Human Life Review/Foundation

Search our Website

Contact Information

The Human Life Foundation, Inc.
The Human Life Review
271 Madison Avenue, Room 1005
New York, New York 10016
(212) 685-5210

Copyright (c) The Human Life Foundation.