Faith and Light International is preparing a pilgrimage to Rome—a journey for families and friends of people with intellectual disabilities.
Why this pilgrimage?
Not simply to show the world that people with intellectual disabilities are children of God, capable of living lives of faith, hope, and charity. That is one purpose, but not the essential one.
What is a pilgrimage?
It is answering a call from God—a call to leave our homes, our habits, our comforts, and set out in search of something vital.
God has always called men and women, drawing them away from their familiar worlds to speak to their hearts.
Abraham, hearing God's voice summoning him to father a great people and become the father of all believers, leaves the civilization of Chaldea for an unknown land.
The people of Israel departs Egypt to encounter God in the wilderness.
This is the meaning of pilgrimage: to leave behind what is superfluous, to live simply, journeying toward a place of spiritual meaning—a kind of promised land.
Through pilgrimage, we live out the meaning of our Christian life not as an idea but as a concrete reality: moving toward God while releasing some small security.
Our young people need this experience, as do their families and friends—to live it directly, concretely. They are capable of it.
And it is a vital experience that will deepen their spiritual lives.
Parents and friends need it too. They will learn from the clear, simple faith of their children—learn what it means to relate to God with simplicity, to understand what is essential and let the rest fall away, to find strength for the journey ahead.
We all need this. We all need to search for light. And we will see that light shining in the joy on the faces of our young people—those who are profoundly sensitive to spiritual truth.
- Read also: The Rome Pilgrimage Schedule, 1975
Some may say that certain people with disabilities will not be able to join this experience. But it is right that even the most severely disabled be present in Rome—because they, the most silent and defenseless among us, will speak a word of eternal life.
Others will not understand what we are doing. They speak a different language than ours; they do not share our faith.
For them and their criticism, we have only one answer: prayer. We pray that God will help them too understand the message of faith and light.
We believe in this. And that is why we go to Rome.
- Sister Ida Maria, 1975