The road stretches seemingly without end, the landscape barren and desolate. But travellers always have a destination, even if orientation to the destination occasionally wavers, even if the same place has different meanings for different people.
The road is long and arduous for Mary and Joseph and seemingly has no end. But they have an orientation, a firm, trusting one. Mary carries the Lord in her womb.
Where am I going and with whom am I going during this Advent? How do I carry the Lord so that he can be born anew in a Bethlehem near me? So that a star becomes clearly visible to all around me? How far is the journey to Bethlehem?
Thoughts originated on an old “Monk’s Trod” on the high moors in North Yorkshire:
On the high moors there are often monk’s trods like this .They were used in all weathers by priests (even in Mary Ward’s time of persecution and afterwards) to get safely (and secretly) from one place to another to bring the sacraments to the Catholic population. How often the Lord was carried in the Sacrament of the Altar under a woollen cloak along this route!
Angela Simek, Friend of Mary Ward