Earlier
this summer, I went with my husband and two friends to Europe for two weeks
visiting Paris, Lourdes, and Assisi. Each city had it’s own challenges, beauty,
and joys, which I will explore over the next couple of entries. Today, however,
I would like to spend time on the journey that is pilgrimage.
When I spoke about going away, a friend corrected my use of the word ‘pilgrimage.’ “Don’t you mean ‘religiously themed vacation?” He joked. It’s a fair question, though. What is a pilgrimage? Is a pilgrimage just a vacation with religious overtones? In my answer to my friend, I strived to provide a definition that explained a pilgrimage as a trip away that involved growth, struggle, frustration, but I’ve had plenty of vacations where I lost my luggage, been delayed, argued with my travel companions, and walked many miles. Another attempt was that to explain that a pilgrimage included a lot of prayer. Then again, there have been vacations where I visited Churches and prayed in the pews. The line between vacation and pilgrimage may indeed be thin, so why is there a differentiation? Does there need to be? Is a pilgrimage defined by what happens to you or by what your purpose is in going? Is it defined by where you go or who you are with?
Another
question was brought up when I returned. After asking questions about my time
away and listening to my various adventures, a priest friend explained that he
didn’t believe in going all across the globe to find God. He said that God was
in his heart and that he could speak with Him in prayer, especially at Mass and
in the Adoration Chapel, which were closer and less expensive. This is also a
valid point. Do you have to go away to
find God? Many times, I’ve prayed right in my chair or read a section of
Scripture and heard God speak to me. How does going away change that?
I
think the answer to all these questions lies in purpose. God loves us and can speak to us no matter
where are, but I do think that there are times that we are more open than
others. Typically, pilgrimage combines physical, spiritual, and emotional
elements into prayer. So, I think pilgrimage is an extended
metaphor about the journey of life that we are on; therefore, I think you can
have a vacation that has pilgrimage components, and a pilgrimage that includes
vacation moments and fun times. I also think that any day, every day, one can
have a pilgrimage.
Am
I going away or going away to be with God?
You
can be with God at any time, but is what you’re doing or how you are living
pursing God, specifically? This, to me, is what it means to be on or go on
pilgrimage. (And, how I am learning to live.)
Thomas Merton said, “The geographical
pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out an inner journey. The inner journey is
the interpolation of the meanings and signs of the outer pilgrimage. One can
have one without the other. It is best to have both.”
By living and going away with this mindset,
we are giving God permission to use the time to work on our hearts,
relationship, or whatever He wants to. It is a practice of
surrender and faith. This can take place by walking for miles in the footsteps
of other pilgrims, some even Saints who walked before us, or it may mean to
stop and pray where they prayed and ask for them to pray for us. Pilgrimage can
be a school for prayer and virtue.
It
is praying in old Churches, taking in the beautiful paintings and architecture
and allowing them to lift our eyes and hearts upwards to God. I think this can
also happen while stopping at a gelato shop to sit and take in all of the
beauty and wonder of creation that lies before you, in sharing laughter,
meeting new people and trying out new languages and foods, talking to strangers
about your faith, Jesus and Mary, washing your clothes in the sink, and even
getting on each other’s nerves. It’s getting lost and allowing yourself to see
life from other’s perspectives. When you
purposefully take on a pilgrimage, all can be used as fodder. This can
happen hiking up a mountain or going to the grocery store. I like to think of it as taking a class field trip with Jesus as our
Teacher and Him setting up each interaction, frustration, moment of peace and
joy to help us to learn how to listen to our Father or to learn something about
Him or ourselves.
You don’t have to go away to find God, but
sometimes you have to go away to let God find you.
For me, that happened while I received the Eucharist in elaborate Cathedrals, was
sitting in a Chapel in Paris in front of an incorruptible Saint next to a chair
where Mary sat, while prayerfully and tearfully walking through the Stations of
the Cross in Lourdes, and examining with my fellow pilgrims the valley atop
Assisi at sunset. Because I was in a
different location spiritually and physically, these places and in the
conversations along the way was when, Jesus, the Gardener, broke up some of the
huge, hard chunks of old soil in my heart and spoke to me, so He could show me
what needed to be healed, His immense mercy, and the tremendous Love of the
Father. No matter how the pilgrimage takes place, the task of the pilgrim
upon return, is continue to allow Jesus to teach us what all that meant and how
to live out what He sought to change in us on the journey.
