The pilgrim and the vagabond

The pilgrimage from Chartres to Paris is invested, each year a little more, with an exemplary value that may escape the pilgrims, but certainly not those who watch them walking along the roads of Beauce and the streets of Paris.  These thousands of Catholics who do not hide their true colors in their pocket, who sing at the top of their voices about the faith that inspires them while cheerfully treading underfoot the latest tittle-tattle, leave no one indifferent.

By the side of the road people observe them and find them less and less “quaint”, with their crosses, their statues and their banners.  The reason is that, despite their fatigue, they are smiling and advancing confidently, toward a goal—which mercilessly calls attention to the state of a society that knows not where it comes from nor where it is going.

On the one hand, there are pilgrims who march with assurance because for them life is a destiny; on the other—vagabonds who wander aimlessly without any fixed destination in life.  The former tell the latter, wordlessly, kilometer after kilometer:  life is not meaningless; it really does have a meaning.  This is the silent and yet eloquent sermon of the pilgrims traveling from Chartres to Paris.

Father Alain Lorans