Father Sam McCarty Leads Pilgrims to Reflection and Encounter
We’re a Long Way from Home
We are pilgrims on our way home. We are foreigners in a land that is merely a means to a more excellent end. As St. Therese of Lisieux says, “The world is thy ship and not thy home.” Although evidence of this truth can be found around each of us in our daily circumstances, there is a unique purpose in making a pilgrimage that the Church encourages. Father Sam McCarty accompanied his flock around Rome and Assisi, knowing they would certainly return with hearts farther along the path home.
A Young Shepherd’s Heart
Father McCarty was ordained in 2020 and served in Tomah for two years before being called to La Crosse, where he is currently associate pastor at Blessed Sacrament Parish and is the associate pastor at Roncalli Newman Parish. The Newman Center is the Roman Catholic community for students at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and Western Technical College. Working within a parish, a grade school and a college campus, Father McCarty indeed has a broad spectrum of experiences. He explained, “In the parish, things move more slowly, so we have more time to get to know people and explore the depth of our faith. Within a parish, there is a strong focus on the sacraments and a desire to receive the treasures of the Church—and I am blessed to lead the parishioners in these areas. The college students are marked by a great openness and hunger, which is exciting and encouraging, especially since we only have them for four years.”
During Father McCarty’s adolescent formation, he was inspired and struck by God’s beauty and power while visiting various sacred sites in Europe and attending World Youth Day in Madrid.
Driven to create space for encounters with the Lord and aware of the excitement and energy among his students, Father McCarty led a group of about 30 college students, young adults, FOCUS missionaries and one baby to the holy places of Rome and Assisi earlier this year.
His primary motivation for organizing this trip was hearing about the many fruits of similar trips. He came to understand the positive outcomes and how profound and transformative these experiences can be. He had heard that, on average, every pilgrimage from a university campus inspires one religious vocation, and even though he wasn’t sure if the statistic was accurate, it intrigued him.
The group had seven days to see and do as much as possible. With so much to see and do in such a short amount of time, Father McCarty intended to engage and guide this trip as a true pilgrimage, emphasizing surrender and the sole purpose of reception, rather than a vacation. His intention was for this pilgrimage to build a habit of reflection, equipping the participants with a way to discern how God is speaking and what He is doing in their lives, empowering them and encouraging their spiritual growth.
What We Lack
FOCUS missionaries and those immersed in the experience of college students see and hear that many are convinced God is dead, or at least He is indifferent and removed from His creatures.
The fast-paced, short-lived, intoxicating digital age has dulled their ability to notice. They are swayed by images and ads and have lost sight of the divine in the ordinary.
In reality, it’s not that God isn’t close or working; usually, they just aren’t paying attention or don’t know how to. They may have yet to learn the skills of attentiveness. In an act of mercy, Father McCarty recognized this need and wanted to provide his spiritual children with tools to help them on their lifelong journey to heaven.
Transfiguration Moments
Father McCarty likened pilgrimage to a “transfiguration moment,” when one cannot help but notice God’s presence and what He is doing. In the book of Matthew, Chapter 17, it is written, “After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John, his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; His face shone like the sun and His clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with Him… While He was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, and then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.’ When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. But Jesus touched them, saying, ‘Rise, and do not be afraid.’ And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone.”
During a pilgrimage, the Lord leads pilgrims away from their daily lives to a high place, where the view is glorious and new, and the perspective is clear. God reveals His glory in ways He didn’t before, and His divine power and person become undeniable and unavoidable. Our smallness also draws out great gratitude, awe and docility. Jesus met the disciples and touched them, encouraging them, and their eyes were focused on nothing but Him. This is what occurs on pilgrimage. One can identify what God is doing in these “transfiguration moments” and build up the muscle of reflection through frequent exercise to bring it back into everyday life. Training ourselves to notice God during these significant moments makes it natural to recognize Him even in our ordinary, everyday routines.
Father McCarty intentionally chose to start the pilgrimage in Rome, where the participants would see and receive much from the fount that is the home of our universal Church. “The faith becomes touchable in these places of beauty and of the saints.” Father McCarty recalled a saying: “In the Catholic faith, you can grab hold of God.” While going up the Scala Santa on their knees, praying right above St. Peter’s bones, and sitting beside St. Paul in his tomb, the Wisconsinite pilgrims often exclaimed, “Wow, this is real.”
Leaving Rome, the group retreated to Assisi, a far quieter place with a slower pace of life. It was a perfect place for rest and reflection, with much less planned activity during this leg of the pilgrimage. Father McCarty led the group in using the examen, small group discussions, journaling and sharing graces in a large group setting to help cultivate the virtue and practice of reflection. Pilgrims were also invited to use a tool prominent in the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius—repetition—which invites one to enter a period of prayer and revisit moments in the past that had moved them, allowing God to make them fruitful again and deepen His movements in their hearts.
Staying the Path, Letting God Find You
Father McCarty hopes to continue helping the group process and apply what they learned and practiced now that they are back in La Crosse. He mentioned the abundant graces and fruits of the pilgrimage for himself and others, saying, “What struck me was how the Lord met everyone where they were at. A range of experiences came into it, and the Lord invited each person to their next step. Unique encounters were happening in each heart, although in the same physical places. Only God can act in that way.” The first paragraph of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness, freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength.”
Story by Carolyn Grimmer
Published in the September/October 2024 issue of Catholic Life Magazine