Pilgrim of hope

In this Jubilee Year as a pilgrim of hope, I sit and reflect on where I have come from and where I am going to on my journey through life. We are all on our own unique journeys as pilgrims of hope. Let me tell you about my journey.

My whole life, you could say, has been a journey, but the latest chapter of this pilgrimage began when my wife and I decided to move to England and enrol our children in secondary education at St. Gregory’s Catholic College in Bath during August of 2023. This entailed an enormous amount of preparation before we left our comfortable life in the city of Chihuahua, in Chihuahua State, Northern Mexico. It involved finding and buying a house, being accepted at St. Gregory’s Catholic College in my home city of Bath, getting British Citizenship for our children and a spouse visa for my wife.

Both the actual arrival on August 2nd, in Tunley near Bath, and subsequent settling in during the last twenty months, has had many challenges for us all - but how are these experiences related to and tied in with the spirituality of St Benedict, you might ask? It has involved an enormous amount of praying, searching, hoping and patience.

Since we arrived, we have prayed together as a family every night, thanking God for everything that he gave us, praying for our families and friends with a simple concluding prayer:

“Lead us, guide us, teach us, help us, now and forever. Amen”

Photo credit: Hey Sakura on Unsplash

Our trust and faith in the Lord have been tested by certain people who did not welcome us into our new neighbourhood, and by the rules and regulations of certain institutions. We searched for churches I was familiar with from my youth: Downside and its parish of St. Benedict in Stratton on the Fosse, St Joseph in Peasedown St John, and St. John the Evangelist’s in Bath, where we could not only receive the sacraments  but also start to integrate ourselves into new communities and build stability through a weekly routine. Now, the people in these parishes are no longer strangers to us, they have invited us into their homes as we have invited them in return. We have also been put to the test with an extension to our new home in March 2023; this is just coming to its conclusion a year later, testing our resolve and patience as well as getting us fully reacquainted with English work practices!

We have one friend in particular, a close friend of my parents, who has gone out of her way to include us in her life, and has been a beacon of hospitality by inviting us to Sunday lunch once a month since we first arrived, playing the part of a mother to my wife and I and a grandmother to my two children, as well as introducing us to friends of her own. To her we say: God bless you. Through all this we recognize our complete dependence on God and our newfound friends and family in England. At the heart of everything is love for God and neighbour, fostering a community of care and support.

Matthew Watts