ABSTRACT
Chapter 11 of St. Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews has inspired me to reconsider what it meant or should mean to be a citizen, especially 11:10-11;16. In that passage Paul describes how faith in that which has been promised, but not yet attained or tangibly seen, guides the life of the pilgrim. Paul expresses the essential spiritual identity of such a pilgrim: “They all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers on the earth.” This sense of being alien to what is, thirsting for what might be, embodies the yearning of the pilgrim. In Pauline language: “they seek a country,” but not a return to “that country from whence they came out.” No, “now they desire a better country, a heavenly one.” Faith can be understood as the belief in the reality of that which cannot yet be experienced or demonstrated, but can be, and so must be. Faith merges with hope for that better country, embodying a spiritual understanding of human destiny as potentially transcendent in relation to presently surrounding circumstances.
