Sanctuaries and places of worship and devotion are both the destinations of a pilgrimage, as well as the place the baundaries between heaven and earth disappear, and the heavens come down on earth in order that the earth is raised in heaven. But wait, the journey is only just beginning! As Sir Winston Churchill said in a speech on November 10, 1942, following a crucial victory of the Allies in Egypt during World War II: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

The end is the beginning. The destination is the place of departure. With the completion of a pilgrimage begins the road back to ordinary life. But you cannot go “back” to being the same person; otherwise, you would have taken a long journey, hike, or a walk during which you enjoyed yourself and relaxed your mind, but it would not have been a pilgrimage. Your pilgrimage destination becomes the point of departure on this same journey of life, only now transformed: the perspective on this same life is no longer the same because it is now open to new horizons. Hidden truths might have emerged, or events you had hidden under the carpet that you finally tripped over along the road. The words you heard during your pilgrimage, or many years ago, still echo and have resurfaced, and you cannot, nor do you want to, ignore them. You sensed fragrances you would not experience in a city, mingled with the smell of your sweat and that of your companions on this pilgrimage. On the one hand, you want to rid yourself of odour, but on the other hand, it’s better this way because the hardships of the journey have formed great and intimate friendships than now seem to be fading into nothing.

You begin to experience the fear of your journey back. You may feel that you want to escape from the life you will find on your return. You may want to completely transform your life, or you may want to remain in the sanctuary forever. Who knows how many other “maybes” there are on your mind. Don’t ignore them: listen to them but go back nonetheless.

The fact that you are returning home slightly changed already makes a huge difference. From the void at the beginning of the journey, you have arrived at the Holy of Holies at the depths of your soul, and there you have encountered the Holy One. Because you have understood all this in an existential way, you will return conscious of the fact that you are not alone, because God dwells within you, you who are essentially His image at the core of your being. This is your identity, newly emerged into the light, an identity that you will begin to live. The embrace with Him in the sanctuary, after allowing Him to expose your inner self, will remain with you. For the rest of your life, He will continue to embrace you, and you will embrace Him—even when the embrace is in the form of a cross … of the crosses of the past. Promise yourself that nothing will separate you from Him, because neither does He want to lose you! This is what He desires for you, and it is possible to treasure it and live it forever!

Romans 8: Who Can Separate Us from the Love of Christ?

²⁸ We know that God makes all things work together for good for those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son so that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. ³⁰ Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
³¹ Who Can Separate Us from the Love of Christ? What then can we say in response to all this? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He did not spare his own Son but gave him up for all of us. How then can he fail also to give us everything else along with him?
³³ Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who acquits. ³⁴ Who will condemn? Christ Jesus, who died, or rather rose again, who is at God’s right hand and intercedes for us? ³⁵ Who then can separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword? ³⁶ As it is written,
“For your sake we are being slain all day long;
we are treated like sheep to be slaughtered.”
³⁷ No, throughout all these things we are conquerors because of him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8, 28-39