The Fools Pilgrimage – The adventures of a Roaming Catholic in Croatia

I love being Catholic – I often get described as religious but really I’m a spiritual being on a human adventure and religion simply offers a springboard to help get me there!

What’s great about being Catholic is that everywhere we go there’s likely a Catholic Church or place that ‘like minded’ folks can get together and spend some time in reflective contemplation. Now, whilst you don’t need anyone else when you do meditate or pray having others around it sure does help in making a more profound impact. After all, “where two or more are gathered in my name – there I am” (Matthew 18: 19-20)

I went to Mass this morning in Split – I don’t speak Croatian but aided by by copy of Universalis I was able to follow along and what was lovely was a baptism that was included into the service – even though I’m not part of the local community I could definitely share in the joy and love of the experience.

I’m a big fan of the teachings and spiritual exercises of St Ignatius and whilst in Dubrovnik we went up the Jesuit steps (made famous by the Games of Thrones for being the steps of shame ) and into the church of St Ignatius.

The aim of all St Ignatius’ exercises is to culminate in the contemplatio – to be in a state of awareness that reaches the highest level of contemplation and literally be held in the Divine state of love.

This is found in all forms of spiritual practice – Samadhi in yoga. Enlightenment in Buddhism. Ruhhaniyyat in Islam.

How you get there depends on the traditions you follow or were born into but the end result is the same – to reach a higher state of consciousness where peace and tranquility in all the chaos reins.

I’m into all things spiritual and any thing that helps lead me there is perfectly fine and that’s why I love being catholic – you see, catholic with a little ‘c’ simple means universal – a spiritual director of mine was a big fan of using ‘other’ meditation methods to help elevate that level of awareness – when using a Sanskrit mantra once to start a Christian meditation I asked “how can you chant a Sanskrit word in a Catholic meditation?”

They replied – “because catholic means universal. And everything is universal – it’s open to everyone and if anything is excluded then it’s not catholic just a sect”

Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam

“All roads lead to Rome” my gran used to tell me and she was right – so if all roads lead us to where we need to go it doesn’t matter how you get there, or how the person next to you is getting there – we’re all on our own journey of experience – enjoy it

Namaste have a great day