I found a description of myself in the City of God. God's City "lives in this world's city, as far as its human element is concerned; but it lives there as an alien sojourner."
Those individuals who are members of this city belonging to God and who are aliens, are called in Latin, peregrinus, which is defined by the scholar who wrote the Introduction to my copy, as "either a free man who lives in a Roman city but who does not have rights of citizenship, or an actual wanderer, an 'outsider' with no home." As noted by this person, Augustine uses both definitions in his work.
The heart of the Catholic must always be that of the peregrinus. one who is not comfortable in the world, one who is on the outside, an alien in an alien land.
The New Jerusalem is our homeland, not this world. I have been fortunate to have been stripped of all things in order to really experience the sojourner lifestyle. But, whether one does on the outside or not, one must be a pergrinus on the inside, always ready to be separated and taken into God Alone. One's daily separations prepare us for death, of course, but also allow us to die daily to self-will.
Be a peregrinus.
BTW, there are several saints named Peregrinus.
