The fog spread over the red brick streets like butter. There is an aura of mystery and profound silence greeting the morning. A swallow chimes its song. A small omen to the days beginning.

The air is crisp. The pages ruddy against my hands shifted as I pressed open the pages of my book.The coffee I’m sipping is steaming hot and the warmth against my hands is comforting.
Steaming Hot Guatemalan Coffee

The book that changed my life. The book that redeemed the way I thought about my conscious and saved my wayward thinking about Christianity.

Faith, Hope, Love by Josef Pieper is a riveting theological book that sparks all kinds of curiosity in the Christian mind. We, as Christians are all striving for the ultimate perfection of Heaven. We’re visitors to this life living as we have been called to live out our vocations, our callings. Being a visitor, viatoris, means “to be on the way”. The status viatoris is, then, the condition or state of being on the way.

To be a viator, therefore, is the state of making progress toward eternal happiness. This strikes a profound knock-on what seems the directionless doors of our society. We all strive for direction but it’s just as easy to get lost in the shuffle buried in passion, work, relationships, education, etc.

The way of man leads to death. The antonym of status viatoris is status comprenensoris which describes one that has comprehended, encompassed, arrived, is no longer a viator but a comprehensor. This word was borrowed from St. Paul’s epistles: “Brethren, I do not consider that I have laid hold of [the goal] already” (Phil 3:13)

The state of being on the way is not to be understood in a primary and literal sense as a designation of place. It refers rather to the innermost structure of created nature. It is the inherent “not yet” of the finite being.

So, therefore, the innermost structure would be how we think and what we do. At least that’s how I interpret it. Not a physical state of being but a look at the insides of who we are and where we’re going. It’s quite intense to think about, emphatically perplexing and overwhelming.

Now that the dust has settled from my life. I am able to look around and reflect on where I am and where I want to go. How I can strive for the perfection of heaven in my everyday. How I can help others on their status viatoris.

Where am I on my status viatoris? What am I called to do on my pilgrimage?

We, as Christians are all on a faithful pilgrimage trying to avoid sin and reach Heaven.