Our Personal Invitation to Some As-Yet Unidentified Catholics

After 70 days of walk­ing to Rome, we get to take a plane and a train back home. Luther and his com­pan­ion, of course, didn’t have that lux­ury. Every step of the way they came, they had to retrace all the way back to Erfurt—in Feb­ru­ary and March, no less!

So, in a sense, this pil­grim­age remains incom­plete. We’ve only gone halfway, Luther­ans fol­low­ing Luther’s path from a tra­di­tion­ally Lutheran land into the heart of Catholicism.

That’s why we’d like to extend an invi­ta­tion to our Catholic friends and fel­low trav­el­ers out there to take the return jour­ney. There’s some­one out there—maybe it’s you read­ing this, maybe it’s some­one you know—who we have been pray­ing for all these 70 days, pray­ing for a heart pre­pared to take up this invi­ta­tion. Fol­low Luther back again from Rome to Erfurt and so com­plete the pil­grim­age. We’ll help you sort out the route (Luther went back a dif­fer­ent way than he came!) and any other details you need along the way.

In our morn­ing prayers every day we’ve recited Zechariah’s prayer that God would “guide our feet into the way of peace.” This is your chance to take this metaphor­i­cal prayer and make it lit­eral for the sake of the unity of the church.

Be Socia­ble, Share!

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Tomi Karttunen says:
October 31, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Con­grat­u­la­tions, you made it and don’t look exhausted at all. It’s a good idea to give an ecu­meni­cal chal­lenge to our fel­low Chris­tians, our Catholic sis­ters and broth­ers to make the pil­grim­age com­plete! I hope the pil­grim­age from your part gave you also per­son­ally a lot of inspi­ra­tion and new insides to the topic to be dis­trib­uted and worked out in a dif­fer­ent form also in the future.
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Michael Plekon says:
October 31, 2010 at 9:12 pm
I have fol­lowed your jour­ney and am so happy for you & proud of your pil­grim­age. Every jour­ney starst with a step. The jour­ney back to unity or com­mu­nion in the churches is long and hard. Thank you for this coura­geous and beaut­ful pil­grim­age. the pho­tos were spec­tac­u­lar. Happy Ref­or­ma­tion Sun­day, All saints & all souls days.
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