Dr. Junius Johnson

It's that the word is peregrinatio, right?

There were sojourners in the land.

And I think that's so—this powerful choice that the Lord made to send Abraham to this foreign land and then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom Israel will be understanding itself in terms of for the rest of its existence—

were never possessors of the land that was promised to them.

They lived in the land that was promised to them as those who did not have right of possession to it and who were just pilgrimage, pilgrimaging through it.

And then the church picks that up in the Latin West.

And yes, if heaven is our patria,

then Earth is in via.

It's on the way.

And we are viatores, people who walk a road, or pilgrims.

And then the Eucharist becomes our viaticum, the kind of food that can help pilgrims be strong enough to make it along the way.

And I think all of that's here.

He references bread, which takes us to the Eucharist.

It takes us to that promise in Genesis, the first curse, when the Lord says, you will eat your bread in pain.

All of that bound up into that because that's the only perspective that makes any sense from one up in heaven looking down on earth is it's tiny, it's small, and in its present form it is transient.

And so, yes, it's a valley of tears, but it's not so great a valley at the end of the day.

Yeah.

That's really good.

Well, friends, let's cast our eyes a little higher.

I think it's time to mount up to the Celestia Rose or, as I like to think of it, that great football stadium in the sky.