Pilgrims of faith

We are a profound force that, always restless, sighs and aspires for the Eternal. We are an infinite well that finite infinities will never fill; only an infinity would achieve it.

Forty minutes of prayer is that superpower set up that claims to possess God. The soul advances in the unification with God, trying to hold on, adhere, possess him... to finally adjust to him and rest. At a given moment, upon reaching the threshold of God, when the believer has the impression that the goal is within reach, God vanishes like a dream and becomes absent and silent. It is like a perpetually fugitive and inaccessible face that appears, disappears, approaches, moves away, concretizes, vanishes... And remains an aftertaste of frustration; adventure often turns into misadventure, and faith into a drama.

Then, the phenomenon of nostalgia arises, which turns the believer into an exile. Yes, just like an expatriate who always yearns for the homeland, the believer is devoured by the longing for the infinite. He always sets off again in search of him. He never meets him face to face. He cannot possess it. That is why we speak of the pilgrimage of faith. He who seeks walks. He who always seeks and never finds –finding in the sense of possessing– is an eternal wanderer. Faith, therefore, is a pilgrimage, always going out, an odyssey, an endless exodus. We will die on the way without reaching rest. The arrival will be the rest.

From the book Dios Adentro, by Fr Ignacio Larrañaga