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Finally, let’s talk about pilgrimage. Most specifically, a pilgrimage is a physical trip one makes to a particular location of spiritual relevance, inviting special reflection as part of the journey. More broadly, though, pilgrimage is a mindset we can carry with us in daily life. This mindset embraces life as a winding path of discernment with various calls from God and special moments of grace unfolding on this journey toward our fullness in salvation with God. It helps ground our thoughts and decisions in everyday life in a way that helps us better remember that we are made from Love, in Love, and to love, and, ultimately, to return to Love.
Pilgrimage means embracing the winding road of life with prayerful trust in God and attentive openness to grace as it unfolds before you. #EncounterWitnessPilgrimage pic.twitter.com/wUx1Csd1Fs— Dan Masterton (@ThisLadDan) July 26, 2019
Let’s think about this first with respect to travel. When we are coming up with ideas for travel plans, we’re often looking for what’s most exciting, most sought-after, most photogenic. And this can often lead to crowded itineraries with lots of extra travel time, jam-packed scheduling, extra costs, and perhaps a vacation that barely gives us any chance to relax and recharge. I know when I finished my year of service abroad and my best friend came to visit and travel with me, we were way too overzealous about jam-packing our schedule. We traveled multiple hours almost every day and almost never spent two straight nights in the same place over a ten-day trip. We had a lot of fun and saw a lot of unique things in a lot of new places, but it certainly would not qualify as a relaxing and recharging sort of trip. Now I’m not saying that you can’t travel with ambitious plans and a desire to see and learn about new places; in fact, some travel hopes just require a bit of ragged journeying and tight scheduling to get where you’re dying to go. Let’s focus on the mindset.
On the one hand, we can approach travel by sort of demanding that people, places, and things show us something we’re insisting upon -- I am going to go to Paris, and Paris is going to show me the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa, and Arc d’Triumph. Are those even that cool of things? Do they warrant more than a brief pause to look on, admire them briefly, and leave space for other things? Maybe. On the other hand, we could instead approach travel by choosing a destination and inviting those people, places, and things to teach and show us something, with an open mind and humble heart. My brother once told me, “A tourist demands; a pilgrim receives.” It can be hard to let go of list-making and box-checking, especially when you go somewhere far away that you might not get to see again soon. However, it helped me feel more at ease when traveling to make that list, shorten it significantly, and do about half as much as I might have originally have intended, leaving greater space for the people and place to impact me.
I credit my best friend, Kurt, with setting me straight on this one. Kurt’s travels are almost exclusively motivated by relationship. Rather than choosing places to sight-see, Kurt chooses places where he can people-see. Most of his travels are trips made to see friends and family, stay with them in their homes, and see their local world. Then, if there’s a bit of sight-seeing to be done, it’s done in the company of family and friends and shared with them in a way they can host and curate as the locals. The whole attitude is one of humility, receptiveness, and gift. When the focus of your travels is seeing people and catching up with them, the whole equation is reset to get away from demands and toward open reception. This is a good mindset to remix your travel intentions, but it can also help us in daily life. Are we too frequently obsessing over making lists and checking boxes? Are we putting productivity and multi-tasking on a pedestal? Are we so obsessed with going out to trendy or photogenic places that we aren’t attentive to our friends and relationships? Maybe. The intention isn’t to discard your whole social attitude but to reflavor it with an attitude of pilgrimage.
To help illustrate the point, I’d like to talk about one of the most well-known pilgrimages in the world, El Camino de Santiago de Compostela. I’ve gotten to do the five-day version twice, and the lessons of this pilgrimage have stuck with me. Quick facts on the Camino: it’s a system of trails through towns, woods, and countryside that winds through forests, along roads, and right through cities; the traditional Camino is about 35-40 days and 800km of walking, starting just over the Pyrenees in France, but many pilgrims start in Sarria in the northwest of Spain and hike just the final 110km; the route concludes in a medieval plaza in Santiago de Compostela, where a 1000-year-old cathedral sits on the tomb of St. James the Apostle and his companions; pilgrims carry a pilgrim’s passport that needs stamps along the path, ensures you discounted lodging in pilgrims’ hostels, and earns you the compostela certificate in Santiago.
So, along the way, you are living out of the pack on your back, relying on simple means, simple clothing, and simple meals and lodging. This typically means walking 20-30km a day, usually from dawn until late afternoon, eating a bocadillo for lunch, and finding some grocery staples to cook a simple dinner at your hostel kitchen. This means having lowered, basic expectations of the food you’ll happen upon along your way, being less picky and more patient, and waiting your turn to cook and eat at your hostel kitchen. It also means you may be able to offer extra portions to fellow pilgrims or be the beneficiary of others’ generosity if they prepare extra that they wish to share with you. One morning, my friend was making tea with some Irish teabags he had packed, and a French man saw and asked if he could share. My friend gave him some tea, and the man shared his French jelly with my friend in kind. This exchange happened because our hostel that night was a simple 12-bed room with a small yard, a kitchenette, and a simple common living space. Our close proximity fostered respectful treatment and natural sharing.
You might ask, “How do you travel hundreds of kilometers and know the right path?” Well, the Camino is marked with a seemingly endless string of yellow arrows. At times, they are carefully done on official road signs or displayed in intricate stone mosaics or carved markers; other times, they are just spray painted on to lightposts, slathered on to the walls of buildings, or tucked on to the bottom of a signpost. First, this invites trust. You have to simply accept the premise the a haphazard series of yellow arrows can guide you all that way to your intended destination and accept that the path they lay out for you is the right one. It can be a real test of faith, as you’re already roughing it in a foreign country and may find some frustrations as you go. Moreover, it’s a test of attentiveness. Are you keeping an eye out for the signs that you’re on the right path? In an age when we frequently eschew looking up directions ahead of time or even taking directions from friends or family -- in lieu of our phones’ ability to navigate for us -- the Camino invites you to walk with heads up and eyes open to ensure you see the signs placed there to help you. The call to trust and attentiveness helps sustain a pilgrim attitude as you journey westward and endeavor to reach St. James.
Finally, the dialogue on the way is simple. Spain is where Spanish came from, but for those of us who learned Spanish primarily from Mexican or Central American teachers, you may find some serious differences. While there’s Spanish Spanish across the country, there’s also dialects that differ by region of Spain, perhaps most famously the French-influenced catalan of Barcelona and Catalonia. In the northwest of Spain around Santiago, the dialect is gallego. Additionally, the Camino draws people from all manner of countries who speak all sorts of languages, many of them hiking with no particular religious motivation to speak of. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t go to the pilgrimage if you’re afraid of languages; it is to say that the Camino offers a simple way to bridge any language gaps that could separate pilgrims on the way -- and that’s “Buen Camino”. At any time of day, in any situation, whether you’re coming or going, pilgrims from all places simply greet each other with a “Buen Camino.” It’s good morning/good afternoon/good night and “how are you” and “good to see you” and “keep it up” all rolled into one, through a phrase that just means “have a good journey.” There’s something wonderfully soothing about saying and hearing it that brings me peace, just thinking about it… so, maybe go on the Camino? I don’t get any commission. I just really like it. Happy to talk more or share pictures later!
So all of this is to say, a mindset of pilgrimage can peel away a lot of the BS that modern life can try to impose into our thought process to cloud our daily lives of faith. I think the best way I could describe that temptation is as a flimsy quest for productivity and efficiency. I will admit that there are certain days or weeks, at work or at home, where I just feel deluged by to-do’s, and so I have to activate a bit of butt-kicking mode to dig out from that pressure and make it back to a better baseline. On the whole, the times when such a mode is required or needed are probably fewer are further between than I might sometimes think. The more attractive and helpful and important quest is that of humble, receptive presence, and a mindset that readily gives and openly receives love. So while it’s well and good to have a stated, prioritized direction for your life, toward deeper faith, toward stronger family love, toward career stability that provides for you and yours, having a pilgrim’s attitude of trust and attentiveness is a more peace-filled path toward that best life.
— Dan Masterton (@ThisLadDan) July 26, 2019As we reflect on the pillars of encounter, witness, and pilgrimage, I wanted to conclude with the words of our Mass. I think sometimes the wording and structure of our Mass can be a bit rote or tedious or stumbly. But if we are attentive, the right words and phrases can leap out to us and touch our hearts with their grace and beauty. Every Mass, in the Eucharistic Prayer, we acknowledge the pilgrim nature of this life. And as we strive to more intentionally encounter one another and be better witnesses of discipleship in the love we share, this is the prayer I’ll offer everyone: “Grant also to us, when our earthly pilgrimage is done, that we may come to an eternal dwelling place and live with you forever; there, in communion with the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, with the Apostles and Martyrs, with all the Saints, we shall praise and exalt you through Jesus Christ, your Son.”
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