By Charlotte Tomaino
A true Pilgrimage is a way to bring you
to the Sacred Center of your self
where your richest, most meaningful life awaits.
Having visited the pilgrim site of your own beginnings and those who have been most admired, inspiring and a source of guidance by how they lived:
- What has been renewed in me?
- What has been released in me?
- What gratitude has risen up in me?
- What intention for the future now calls me?
- What unexpected gift has come to me?
- What contributions can be made by me?
Living our dreams
- How have I lived out my dreams over the last 50 years?
- How have previous generations lived out their dream?
- What is calling me now and how will my imagination guide me?
- How will I live to inspire the next generation to action?
Returning Home – What were your epiphanies, discoveries and who have you now become?
- These are the greatest gifts of pilgrimage – the transforming gifts of grace.
- How is your journey home different than your venturing out?
- Are you no longer living on the surface of the life you had but are seeing deeper to where you want to go?
- What were your challenges, fears, resentments when you left?
- What soothed and freed you, enabling you to move forward?
- What have you taken from the ‘undersong of meaning,’ the spirit of the events?
- What revelations came to show you, on a deeper level, what you had not previously seen?
“The ultimate aim of the quest,
if one is to return,
must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself,
but gaining the wisdom and power to serve others”
Joseph Campbell
Why did I go, what did I return with?
- What have been your discoveries when you encountered challenges and renewed your purpose?
- Has your purpose developed and your intention strengthened?
- Could you transform painful moments into wisdom and mastery?
- Maryknoll is simply a place that has grown to signify the depth within yourself that originally called you forward into the world to have your purpose be revealed to you.
What will last?
- What greater gifts have you received and hence have to offer others on your return?
- How will you move forward in a new way because you offer your riches to others?
This is a “perfect” final reflection for me. It opened my heart to acceptance and love in ways unexpected … and, which I didn’t know I desperately needed. Blessing on us all and thank you Charlotte for navigating us to this place.
Thank you Georgia,
These are the times when we can lift each other up and see beyond the unwanted to the light which shines o the horizon where we all really want to go.
With love and appreciation for all who are ‘holding tight’ to each other and the progress we all want for everyone.
Charlotte