PILGRIM WAYS
Theological Reflections
By Henry Ralph Carse, Ph.D.
Part Three - Journeys
A pilgrim’s intentions are tested and purified by the journey itself. Although pilgrimage routes seem designed simply to lead to a shrine, it has long been recognized that the way itself is the most sacred of experiences. As Robert Grudin puts it (Time and the Art of Living p. 157):
Those pilgrims who… place all their hopes in arriving at some wished-for chapel or shrine, are unaware of the true purpose of their pilgrimage, for the fulfillment of that purpose resides equally in the exhausting approach, the chosen encounter and the silent journey home.
In the 4th century, St. John Chrysostom urged pilgrims to “come hither in faith… and return [home] with much joy.” But between faith and joy lies the pathway itself, often the scene of hardship, sorrow, and doubt. Seen in this way, a pilgrimage derives its “serious” nature as much from the conditions of the journey as from its motives. These conditions may include such mundane aspects as rough terrain or aches and pains.
The sanctity of the “exhausting approach” is in its inherent instability and ambiguity, in comparison both to the home context of the pilgrim and the shrine seen as the “goal.” For Christians throughout history, “home” was a parish setting organized around the Church and its norms; the “shrine,” likewise, was defined by “shrine keepers” appointed by the Church and answerable to ecclesiastical authority. The word “itinerary” often means the expected route a pilgrim “should” take between these two “orthodoxies.” However, the real journey traces an alternative way of dubious piety, ambiguous norms, and transgressive virtue.
An insightful vade mecum for pilgrims, published by the Franciscan order (Enter Assisi: An Invitation to Franciscan Spirituality), gives poetic expression to this journey-paradox:
That is very simply what a pilgrim does: walk. And it is the way the pilgrim prays, with his or her feet. And the feet walk through dark clouds to illumination, to the light that is holy action. Through dark, cloud-filled days to a hint of subtle lightening, to the sun breaking through, the feet taking us where we least thought we’d go, where before we had thought darkness dwelt, and finding there instead, in bright sunlight, the broken, the poor, the marginal, those made ugly or disfigured by abuse and oppression and woundedness. We are changed simply by walking, rain or shine, toward and back from whatever shrine we had thought contained our hope and longing. We walk back toward what was there all along that we could not see.
From this point, to use a phrase from the Stoics – “The Obstacle Becomes the Way.” Christian pilgrims, following the way of Jesus to the cross, must mark this threshold from pious intention to “holy action,” if they are to become true to the realities the journey brings. Now, in whatever shrines they reach or encounters they experience, the light of moral engagement will begin to eclipse the shades of the status quo they are leaving behind.
…To be continued…
