Airports have always been a fascinating thing to me.

As a toddler, I can vaguely remember trips to Nashville, Tennessee flying on planes with my family to visit my grandparents. Occasionally, instead of taking the long drive to Tennessee from the small town in Kansas I was raised in, my parents would book our family tickets to travel by air instead.

I can still remember arriving at the airport, so excited for takeoff. On one occasion my brother and I got to meet the pilots, and they gave us pilot’s wings to clip onto our shirts. Flying became a place of wonder as a kid. A dream come true. Something about traveling by air lifted my heart towards something more.

Since becoming a missionary, flying has become more of a routine. Yet, the familiarity of the airport has never left me. Often, on connecting flights, the engineer in me will reflect on the grandeur of it all. So many planes in the air all at once, so fastly and so quickly jumping from one place in the country to another. We sure have come a far way in our modes of travel.

Then, the historian in me comes out. Life today really isn’t much different than life a few hundred years ago. Instead of ship ports we travel by air ports. Instead of sailing the seas to new lands; we sail through the air, a different kind of liquid, to reach new cities and places.

Often, I’ll sit back and wonder what it must’ve felt like to be at a port in Spain as a missionary preparing to go to a foreign land to proclaim the gospel. What the people and vendors and markets would’ve looked like, what luggage I would’ve brought with me. I’ll sit with the smell of the ocean air, the bells of the church towers in the seaport town ringing, the fervor and anticipation of conversations with those at port, the hustle and bustle and grunting of those preparing the ship for sea.

On Friday evening, following 5 days at SEEK, I found myself wandering and wondering through the St. Louis airport looking upon the many priests, nuns, and students at their gates. Boston flashed by, then Orlando, Dallas, Raleigh, and more. There was that same sense in the air as how I imagined those first missionaries to the Americas felt. Many students were debriefing the conference and the graces the Lord had given them, excited for what might lie ahead for them as they returned to their campuses. There was a sense of excitement in the air after 5 days spent together receiving the goodness of Christ and his gospel.

At one moment, I stopped and noticed many of the missionaries I have come to know on many campuses around the country. I watched as they laughed with students from their campuses. I reveled in their sacrifices and commitment to Jesus to sow the ground with his gospel on their campuses. Tonight, they were reaping some of its fruits. I watched in gratitude at all Jesus was doing in his Church. I couldn’t help but think; the renewal of the world is right here.

As we jumped onto our plane and the first leg of our flight to Houston, I sat in gratitude for the past 5 days, returning to campus with a hope not only for a renewal of New Mexico but also for a renewal of the world through this generation. As we journeyed into the air, more conversations were had with a student from Texas who just proposed to his girlfriend (she is coming into the Church this year). I prayed a rosary for another missionary, as his Father was in the last hours of life, and in need of prayers in preparation for death. His son, the missionary, was doing everything he could to return home as fast as possible. In my mind and heart, I reflected upon the sadness of our world but also the great hope lying in the hearts of many. There is so much darkness in our culture, so much pain and confusion. How will our culture be renewed, when, and by whom?

Then, I looked out the window. In the dark of the night, below us, clouds were covering the earth. No piece of ground was seen in sight, just the faded lights of towns and cities spread across the plain below. I thought of the cloudiness with which many in the world today navigate their lives, how lost many are in the fog, unable to see or experience the splendor of light in the night.

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” – John 1: 4-5

Many people’s lives today are filled with dull and vague experiences of the light. Without the clarity of Christ the world is stuck in haziness.

“The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not.”  John 1: 9-10

Then, I looked to the eastern horizon. Lightning filled the clouds on the horizon as a thunderstorm was raining down miles away. Above the clouds, painting the eastern horizon, I saw the constellation Orion filling the night sky. His bow pointing upward to the sky reminding us of the battle waged and won for us in heaven. The stars glistened gently up above.

I thought for a moment of the battle being waged here on earth, of the thunderous fight for truth and salvation pouring down upon us. Of the battle between Satan’s lordship and Christ’s. The war has been won by Christ, but battles for the culture and for souls rage on. The earth and humanity are still covered in the cloud of darkness, still fallen and broken. Baptized souls are fighting to bring people to the light amidst the haziness and the fog.

Then I looked to the sky, to the stars and the heavens. I reflected on their calm in the night. There in the heavens, peace has reigned. There we find glory, laud and honor; comfort and joy; worship of the redeemer king. There, the angels look upon their king in splendid delight. A war was won there long ago, and the saints experience its victory.

Yet, for us who still reside on this earth; we return home and a battle for this world rages on. However, God and his angels in the heavens look silently and quietly upon us to remind us of the battle they fought for us:

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host (army) praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!’” – Luke 2: 13-14

“Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” – Matthew 26: 53

God came vulnerable. And by his cross he defeated the deplorable. The war for humanity’s salvation has been won. The battles ahead are simply for the margin of victory. Simply for the souls that have yet to hear the name. Simply . . . to extend Christ’s reign.  A battle is upon us but from the east lies a new day and a new dawn. The sun shall rise and come out tomorrow, a new day is coming, bet your bottom dollar on it.

But what shall we do in the in-between? In the wait of a new day when all we see is the great fight of the night ahead. Do we trust the calm of the new day star shall come? Do we hide our light under bushel baskets, or do we bring forth our lanterns to the world? Do we trust the promise, which celestial peace testifies to us: The war has already been won; will you simply join in the victory today?

The world will be renewed through this generation, their hunger for Christ is evident. If you track the movements of the Church she is smaller but mightier, trained ever more for this battle of the night. Unity is being brought across ancient, divided lines. Jesus is being proclaimed. We rest in apostolic, but not hopeless times. The world is still in need of their savior, infinite in reign. They are in need of him now just as ever. Who will stand up and proclaim?

When the late great John Paul II reflected on the call to evangelize the world he always thought Europe would be the place where the Church must first be renewed to then go out to the world. When, however, he went west to the United States; to Denver, Colorado in 1993;  A realization hit him, it would be from the far west that the revolution would begin. A watershed moment in the renewal of the world hit in those days on the Rocky Mountain plain. When asked later about the moment, John Paul could be heard saying, “The Revolution! The Revolution!” The renewal of the world for which he had prayed, sacrificed, and hoped for, had begun. Now, it has hit its turning point. While seemingly small and insignificant, the movement of the renewal of the world has crossed its threshing point.

"The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." – Matthew 13: 31-32

The souls of the world are before us. The revolution has begun. The Church is being renewed. Christ’s victory shines bright in the night, never to be undone. The salvation of more souls is for what his heart aches. Then, the new dawn will break. A new heaven and a new earth one day awaits. But, until then is the mission for our fellow man’s fate.

For tonight, on this old wearied earth, the stars look stilly upon us. They glisten gently from the victory of the heavens in the night. They remind us of the great angelic chorus. They remind us of the God who came for us. The son of man, the human one, came and defeated the tyrant. Long ago, God entered this clouded world in celestial silence.

Airports have always been a fascinating thing to me, but even more so, the flight of another soul entering into the Celestial Peace.