Blessed are those whose strength is in you; whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.  Psalm 84:5

In many faith traditions the idea of pilgrimage is one that offers a journey; a spiritual adventure taken on a quieter plane than most adventures, but equally thrilling and life-changing. Sometimes this pilgrimage is made in company with others, sometimes it is undertaken alone; always it is done with an intention of looking internally, divesting oneself of the masks and maquillage we so often wear in our public lives. We face God, or ourselves, unmasked and unmediated, and that can be both scary and exhilarating. What we discover may be unsettling, but it is also clarifying, if we come to accept the truth that has been excavated from those hardened sedimentary layers of self. John O’Donoghue writes May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within. I am reminded that this interrogation must be clear-sighted and imbued with the hope of growth.

This pilgrim journey is about soul-searching: finding meaning in the mayhem, slowing down, pausing, being attentive to the moment. It is about leaving behind the world of work, email overload and the din and demand of 21st century living. It may be about time away or time out when time, that horological slavedriver, no longer matters. We have stepped off the treadmill to take spiritual stock. It is about a journey to the centre of the self; the self of spirit and purpose; the who we are and why and what we are doing with what Mary Oliver calls this wild and precious life. 

Pilgrimage may be the long walk of the Camino or the retreat in daily life, but ultimately it is an awakening journey, however and wherever it is taken. It is about finding an inner sanctum, that place of calm within, that is salve and solace when the world beyond is bustling and bruising. It is about an equilibrium that enables us to act with grace in that world of jostle and joust. 

More importantly, though, we have this pilgrim life which is our own unique journey to shape. We make choices and compromises and encounter all manner of decisions as we sculpt the very clay of who we are in the world. And we are blessed to know that we are not forever defined, but that our lives can be remoulded and renewed through later spiritual experience and the encounters with others, living and dead, whose witness speaks to our hearts.

St. Augustine wrote that the world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page. Mary Mackillop reminds us that We are all but travellers here. This travelling starts when we are born and comes to fruition as we live the lives with which we have been gifted. But pilgrimage is more than mere geographical travel because it enlarges the heart and joins us to others on that same soul-searching journey. 

In the last six weeks I have made a pilgrimage to Israel to acquaint myself with the environs in which Jesus taught, to see and experience those places on the map of my religious consciousness. I can now join some dots having walked by the Sea of Galilee, seen the room reputed to be that of the Last Supper, prayed at the Western Wall and in any number of churches. Because our accommodation was in the Muslim quarter, I was awoken to the call to prayer from the minaret across the street at 3.45 every morning! This is also part of what a pilgrimage is – the awakenings to those whose beliefs systems are profound, embedded deeply and otherwise. We stayed with the Sisters of Sion at Ecce Homo in the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem and followed that holy trail to the church of the Holy Sepulchre. I bobbed like a cork in the Dead Sea and bought trinkets in the Suq El-Attarin and walked where Herod the Great built a great fortress and Jewish patriots refused to surrender to the Romans in 73 CE at the siege of Masada. I became accustomed to dealing with shekels and queuing to visit the holy sites and sitting out at night looking over this remarkable ancient city and pinching myself that I was finally here. I know that I still need my pilgrimage experience to deepen and take hold as time and reflection do their interior work.

The other pilgrimage of my heart was to the church of my baptism. I always knew that I was baptised in Nuneaton in Warwickshire, but I just didn’t know where. Last year, my niece found my original baptismal certificate, mislaid in the labyrinth of the family archive. I was thrilled. I now had a name: Our Lady of the Angels. So I visited the church, went to mass, made a donation, lit candles, took photos, prayed and burst into tears. These were not sad tears; just the tears of love and gratitude and the recognition that my parents were my first educators in faith. I saw the font in which I was baptised as a mewling infant and admired the stained-glass windows, especially the recent one of the forty English martyrs. The church itself is quite squat and functional externally, not one of Gothic splendour, but the day I attended midweek mass it was full of all sorts of people living out their faith. I realised again that we are a universal church full of ordinary good people trying to do their best in loving God and loving neighbour.

We might carry the words of Psalm 84:5 with us as we follow our God in pilgrimages planned and celebrated and in the daily pilgrimage of routine and endurance. Blessed are those whose strength is in you; whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. The pilgrim spirit in each of us looks ahead with hope and gratitude as we live out our unique pilgrim lives in this our pilgrim Church on Earth.

By Ann Rennie