Monday, November 2, 2015

PIILGRIMAGE AND MEDITATION

 
 
 
SILENCE OF MARY
 
Mary, Queen of the Heavens
Montréal
 
 
Robert Trabold
 
 
Simple chapel,
simple church
silence of the chapel
touches me.
 
Mary does not say
anything. Lets
us know she is
there – silent – listening.
 
I came a long way to
make this trip – pilgrimage.
Ride – long – tiring
 I made it.
 
I want to thank Mary
for being here.  She knows
all my problems
problems of the world.
 
Silence is here
language of God.
Mary learned it
 covers me with it.
 
I sit in the chapel
a pilgrim who travelled
long distance to touch
the Divine – the Beloved.
 
Mary assures me
trip was not in vain.
Jesus – Mary are
listening – touch me with silence.
 
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PILGRIMAGE AND MEDITATION

 

 

Robert Trabold

 

 

            During the last month of September, I had the opportunity to make a two week pilgrimage to Québec, Canada and I visited beautiful shrines on the shores of the St. Lawrence River.  I made this pilgrimage by myself and considered it a trip of silence and meditation.  I did not go in a group so that I would have much time to make such a contemplative trip. I first went to Québec City where I visited the shrine of St. Mary of the Incarnation. She lived there in the early years of the French colony and was a great mystic.  She had a deep experience of the presence of God at her center and still point and wrote beautifully about this in her letters. She is called the Theresa of Avila of North America. I then went to the beautiful basilica of St. Ann of Beaupré on the outskirts of the city and situated on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. It is a famous pilgrimage church in Québec and many pilgrims go there especially for physical healings. I then drove to Trois Rivières and visited the shrine of Our Lady of the Cape. It is also a beautiful church situated on the banks of the St. Lawrence River and commemorates the apparition of the Virgin to the people there in the 19th century. I continued on to the city of Montréal and visited three places. I went to the shrine of St. Brother André who lived in the 20th century and had a profound influence on the people of that city due to his sanctity and healings.The latter continue to this day. I also visited the shrine of Saint Padre Pio and the church of Our Lady, Queen of the Heavens.

 

            During these two weeks of visiting these churches, I was in silence and meditating. I knew few people in Canada so I could focus on the visit to these holy places. The beauty of the shrines and they being dedicated to very holy people reinforced the sense of silence in my prayer. I was in a special place and made great efforts to drive long distances to visit there. This added to the experience of meditation and silence.  There was an encounter with Jesus and the saints which I felt very intensely. This immersion in silence and meditation for two weeks can make us feel a bit uncomfortable. In our modern life in the big cities, we are not accustomed to much quiet since noise is all around us with many people, television, our activities, cell phones, etc. Silence seems to be out of place and a mysterious thing. But being immersed in silence and meditation for two weeks highlighted the meaning of contemplative prayer.  This quiet is not really empty but is the place of a deep encounter with the divine, the Lord, Our Beloved. We meet someone and out of the nothingness of silence, we have an encounter of love with the ground of our being and around whom we rotate our whole life. Our life has a meaning and depth that no one else can give to us. We no longer have a feeling of the emptiness of life but have it filled with a personal reality who wants us to love in return.

 

            Coming home then to New York City where I live, I feel that I had a deep contemplative experience enriched by the visit to beautiful shrines and basilicas in a lovely part of the world, Québec and on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. Hopefully this rich experience of prayer and silence will help me be faithful to the practice of contemplation twice a day, each time for 20 minutes. It will help me be preserving in the contemplative path when there are times of dryness and distraction. I can look a back to the deep experience of prayer in this pilgrimage encouraging me to continue on and not give up.

 

                                            

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