under the patronage of St Joseph and St Dominic

By the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, remembering Zion;
on the poplars that grew there we hung up our harps. . . Ps 136

THE PASSENGER

He shall drink from the stream by the wayside, and therefore he shall lift up his head. Psalm 109

Early English writers such as Dickens use the word passenger in a way quite foreign to modern ears.  A passenger is not someone who travels on a coach (or, as in our days, on a bus, train or plane) but someone who is making a passage.  This is its correct meaning.  A passenger is a wayfarer, someone making his way somewhere on foot.  There is no connotation of being conveyed in a carriage.  A pilgrim is a passenger.

Thoughts such as these occupied my mind as I walked much of the way from Goulburn (in New South Wales) to Canberra recently.  Circumstances had so arranged themselves that the official Pilgrimage for the Unborn Child had had to be cancelled.  Local Councils and the Police had become much more concerned about public safety than previously and there was simply not time enough for us to comply with their now rigorous requirements.  I hoped by walking the route to make some satisfaction for the failure of the Pilgrimage.

The Church ascribes the words of the splendid song of David, Psalm 109, to the tremendous mystery of the Incarnation, the act of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God, in assuming our fallen human nature as Jesus Christ.  This dialogue between God the Father and His Son discloses something of the truth of this mystery—

The Lord said to my lord, sit at my right hand
While I make your enemies into a footstool for you.

The Lord will wield from Sion your sceptre of power:
Rule in the midst of all your enemies.

Principality is yours in the day of your strength
Among the splendours of the saints.
From the womb before the daystar did I beget you.

The Lord has sworn an oath—
And he will not go back on his word—
You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedech.

The Lord at your right hand has broken kings in the day of his wrath.

He shall adjudge the nations, lay waste whole cities,
crush the heads of many over the face of the earth.

He shall drink from the stream by the wayside,
And therefore he shall lift up his head.

Here is an extract from St Augustine’s commentary—

God promised divinity to men, to mortals immortality, to sinners justification, to outcasts glory.  But because his promise that we who are mortal, corruptible, weak and of low estate, mere dust and ashes, were to be equal to the angels seemed incredible, God not only made a written covenant with us to win our faith, but he also gave us a mediator of his pledge.  This mediator was not a prince, an angel, or an archangel, but his only Son.  Through his own Son he meant both to show us and give us the way by which he would lead us to the promised goal.  He was not satisfied with sending his Son to show us the way.  He made him the way itself.  [Commentary on Psalm 109]

Christ is the Way.  We who seek to emulate him must make ourselves wayfarers, passengers.  This is the dignity accorded the pilgrim; he emulates the Divine Exemplar, Jesus Christ.

Michael Baker
3rd June 2006