Following the Pilgrims
by Fr. Roger J. Landry - November 20, 2004
When the pilgrims lowered the anchor in Plymouth harbor in December 1620, they were full of hope.
They had survived a perilous three-month journey on an inhospitable Atlantic with only one casualty. Their incessant prayers for a safe arrival had been heard. They had finally landed in the new world and were ready to begin a new life.
Little did they know the year that would await them.
Of the 103 that disembarked, more than half would die before winter was over. Governor John Carver, their leader, succumbed quickly to fever. Ten of the seventeen husbands and fathers died. Fourteen of their seventeen wives also perished. The young wife of soon-to-be Governor William Bradford drowned in Plymouth harbor before even reaching shore. Those who avoided the grave remained in grave danger because of fevers, famine and freezing temperatures.
Yet they didn't give up hope.
With the Spring came the arrival of Squanto, who taught them various survival tactics, like how to distinguish between poisonous and good plants, to tap maple trees for sap, to fertilize soil with dead fish and to plant corn. When that soil produced a modest harvest a few months later, they organized a feast to thank God for all his blessings since their arrival.
The fifty-one survivors easily could have looked at the previous eleven months as the worst year of their lives. They had buried almost as many bodies in the soil, after all, as bushels of food they had taken from the soil.
The reason they were able to thank God so heartily, however, in spite of the suffering they had endured was because they believed those hardships and blessings were both part of God's providential care.
They were full of gratitude because they realized they were on a pilgrimage not only to Plymouth but to Paradise. Everything — adverse or propitious, life and even death — was part of God's plans for them on their journey not merely to the new world but to a New World.
That final destination, and their faith in the God who awaited them, was what gave meaning to all their sufferings and joys along the way.
The pilgrims had come to our shores so that they might worship God free from religious repression.
As we come together this week with our families, may we use the great blessing of religious freedom to thank God for everything — adverse or propitious.
And, with God's help, may we follow the pilgrims all the way to that eternal shore where we will be able freely to worship God forever.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
