The confluence of so many events today – the feast of Epiphany, another celebration of our community’s 150th anniversary in Chicago, the beginning of National Migration Week in the U.S. Church – got me to thinking about travel. I know we are all over the board in how we feel about travel. There are those who love it: the adventure, the excitement, that craving for the new and undiscovered. There are some who dread it: the unpredictability, the inconvenience, the loss of what is known and meaningful. Each of us would probably have a pretty easy time placing ourselves somewhere along that continuum. No matter where you would put yourself, though, I imagine all of us can find some truth in this quote from Italian poet Cesare Pavese: “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending toward the eternal or what we imagine of it.” So I thought about the people and ideas colliding together today in light of this quote and realized that even as we make our way along our own individual journeys and look for ways to be in solidarity with those who migrate for whatever reason in our world today, we come from a long line of travelers, all of whom were called out of what they knew to be ordinary into what, indeed, “tended toward the eternal.” Let’s spend a couple minutes looking at them and how they trusted strangers, lost sight of the familiar, possessed only what was essential, and got thrown off balance.

Travelers must trust strangers. When Mary and Joseph got to Bethlehem, they had to find a place to stay, fast. Whoever owned that stable was surely a stranger, in whose hands they placed their lives and that of their unborn child. The magi trusted Herod – but then, wisely, didn’t- thwarting his manipulation of their joyful and genuine seeking. Antonia, Frances, Gonzaga and the rest of our early foremothers had to rely on those who brought them here to Chicago for everything, and they also had to trust their fellow immigrants among whom they lived and served. Modern migrants, too, must trust those they meet along the way, who may or may not speak their language and respect their culture, who may or may not regard them as equals, who may or may not have their best interests at heart.

Travelers lose sight of all that is familiar. Imagine that journey to Bethlehem for Mary and Joseph; they had to know it was possible, if not probable, that their baby would be born away from home, surrounded by strangers. And when they went home, they would not be going back to their old life. They would be parents, parents of a child about whom wondrous and mysterious things had been said. The wise ones came to Judah from the east – maybe Persia or Syria or Arabia – but wherever they were from, they found themselves in a new place with different customs, beliefs, and approaches. The Chicago to which our sisters came surely looked, smelled, sounded, and felt different than Erie, Pennsylvania – or Eichstaat, Bavaria. That is the nature of migration. Anyone who leaves one place for another – whether voluntarily or involuntarily – must let go of people and places and things which they love.

The traveler has nothing, only what is essential. To guide them Mary had the promise of an angel, and Joseph had dreams. Both also experienced the birth of a child; what could be more immediate and elemental than that? The magi had the brilliant light of a star. What our foremothers brought – and passed down to us – was a faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ and a way of life shaped by the Rule of Benedict. People migrate for all kinds of reasons – family, love, education, art, freedom, opportunity, necessity – but it is that core desire which must sustain them through the attendant hardships of the journey.

The idea from the Parvese travel quote that rang most true for me was: “You are constantly off balance.” Just as losing my physical balance can force me to pay attention and remind me of my own limitedness – I think that’s called humility – so being in a different place among people I don’t know makes me look at things from a new vantage point and see alternatives and possibilities I didn’t see before. Mary and Joseph must have had those feelings. The magi, too. The women who came to found our community, and all migrants, whatever their situation.

We who worship together are particularly blessed. For some of us the experience of migration is deeply personal and very real. But even for those of us who don’t have that experience, we have immediate access to those with important stories to tell: those who live with us, those who work with us, those we teach or counsel or pastor. In their stories – and in our own – let us listen for the epiphanies, the revelations about what is true and real and holy. Let us listen for “the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending toward the eternal, or what we imagine of it.”

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