Our life is a pilgrimage rather than a journey. One is sacred, the other is secular. The points of interest on a pilgrimage are primarily holy places and things. The points of interests on a journey are what the world holds valuable. We are meant to be pilgrims, not tourists.

As such our pilgrimage begins in God, continues with God with the ultimate hope of ending in and with God. Our earthly pilgrimage will have been a time of God’s loving mercy. When we arrive at the end of our physical life, it will be a time of accountability and reckoning, a time of God’s loving judgment. 

I believe that at that point God will show us if our life was a pilgrimage or merely a journey. He will reveal in an instant our earthly life from A to Z. He will show us the many graces of his loving mercy and our many responses, positive or negative.

What do you think you will see in an overall view: life as a pilgrim or life as a tourist? Surely, we will not have been purely a pilgrim. We were a tourist in many ways? The difference will be where were we in relationship to God from A to Z?