On a recent pilgrimage, my daughter and I took a detour to see if we could find the hospital in which I was born. The map was confusing, the traffic was pressing and we waived off for lunch. There, over our meal, we looked up to see the building we sought across the street, with its sign hidden by the surrounding trees. We just smiled at the irony, finished eating and headed home.

The decades between that first drawn breath and now have been complicated in ways, and yet remarkably straight-forward in others. The first maternal embrace and swaddled welcome gave way to an unforeseen abyss as death intervened, and the essential motherly tasks were undertaken by others. God provides, and yet the yearning for a reliable sanctuary has ever been with me, for those who are deprived feel keenly what others may take for granted.

God is good, and in His almighty plan the perfect sanctuary endures even when the smaller icons of it slip from our horizons. Thus if a person needs a mother, father, food, shelter and a lamp to light his path, then such things can be found — in both concrete expressions and the supernatural echoes that point their true meaning.

When it comes to the essential tasks of motherhood, the Church — the bride of Christ — stands ready to scoop up the wayward souls in search of peace and order, and to swaddle them in truth and love. The door is open, her arms reach down and she gives freely from her storehouse of nourishment to all who ask. The fact that this bride first “drew breath” in Jerusalem should draw special attention to the pilgrimage that the Holy Father is making to Israel this very week — for supernatural echoes abound in that holy place.

Benedict will see many things during his visit, and three faith communities will parse his every word and gesture. Interestingly, while all three look to Jerusalem as a city integral to their worship of God, only Catholicism puts weight on the maternal dimension of that place.

Layers of the mystery unfold when we recognize that the temple built by Solomon was precursor to both the bride of Christ and the heavenly Jerusalem to which all our churches here on earth point. There are also deep implications tied to Mary, the mother of God, who is herself related to that city. “Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells” (CCC 2676).

While Benedict XVI is privileged to walk in the footsteps of Our Lord, we must remember that every Mass is itself a pilgrimage. “In the earthly liturgy we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God” (CCC 1090). In each Mass we’re privileged to glimpse the wedding feast of the Lamb, which will take place at the consummation of the world.

Benedict has described his journey as a pilgrimage of peace — “the lasting peace born of justice, integrity and compassion, the peace that arises from humility, forgiveness and the profound desire to live in harmony as one” — and we pray that it bears fruit. Only through the blood of Jesus is lasting peace possible, and to that end Holy Mother Church offers her sanctuary of ordered love and humble service. She is the true witness — a signpost to the tranquility of heaven.

A few years ago, I toured the far north of England.  There, stretching 73 miles from coast to coast, the Roman Emperor Hadrian built a massive wall.  Constructed of stone, it was built to last, since it marked the northernmost boundary of the greatest empire the world had ever known.  Soldiers from every corner of the world were garrisoned there, and excavations tell the fascinating story of their lives and deaths.

Roman civilization was nearly 1,000 years old by the time the wall was built, and it must have seemed that Rome would indeed last forever.

Soldiers manned the wall continuously for 200 years after its construction.  But the empire did not last forever.  It collapsed, and Hadrian’s wall became a quarry used by the local people scavenging for building materials.

Historians spill lots of ink debating why Roman civilization fell to roving bands of barbarians.  But when you get right down to it, the answer is in the Bible (see this Sunday’s readings–Isaiah 5:1-7 and Matthew 21:33-43).  Rome fell for the same reason that the Kingdom of Israel fell in 722BC and Judah was exiled to Bablyon in 587BC.  Divine Providence had blessed all three societies.  But he had also called them all to account, and found them wanting.  He had planted them as choice vines, but these civilizations had yielded sour grapes.  Idolatry, adultery, and social injustice were some of the fruits the produced before their collapse.  And how about the people of Jericho?  Why did their walls come tumbling down?  Could it have anything to do with the fact that they practiced child sacrifice and ritual prostitution?

That was then.  How about now?  America was founded in large part by those seeking to make it “a city on a hill.”  Its motto was “in God we trust.”  Now judges rule that we can retain this motto without infringing on anyone’s rights precisely because we really don’t mean it.  America once exported democracy.  Now it exports “Desperate Housewives” and “Sex in the City.”  When I travel around the world and tell people that I’m from Dallas, their faces light up.  Even if they can’t speak English, they manage to smile and exclaim “J.R.!”

Many assume America will last forever.  But there were soldiers manning Hadrian’s wall for more years than a US president has occupied the White House.  We are not invulnerable, as September 11 and Katrina have reminded us.  If we continue to yield sour grapes, our walls too will come tumbling down.

So what are we to do?  Perhaps instead of killing the prophets, we ought to listen to them.  Maybe we can begin honoring God rather than exiling him, respecting marital fidelity rather than ridiculing it, protecting the unborn rather than protecting their “terminatators,” and caring for the poor rather than abandoning them.

And maybe we can follow the advice of St. Paul (Phil 4:6-9) and renounce the anxiety that makes us miserable and causes us to conclude that we must “take care of ourselves” rather than do things God’s way.  Perhaps if we thank God for blessings and even trials, presenting our needs to Him in faith, we’ll see a change in our mood and even a change in our world.   And maybe if we fill our minds with the splendor of truth rather than with the trash of “Desperate Housewives” we might just notice more joy and serenity in our lives.

Have you ever seen a more frantic society than ours?  We eat, drink, and breathe tension.

Yet St. Paul speaks of a “peace that passes all understanding.”  It’s a peace that does not go away even when planes strike towers and hurricanes swamp cities.  It starts in the inside but has impact on the outside.  Without it, Mother Teresa could have never lasted in the chaos of Calcutta and John Paul the Great could have never made his way through Nazi tanks and Communist oppression to occupy the chair of Peter.  

This peace indeed defies comprehension.  But it’s ours for the asking.