Again, there may be a shortage of posts for the next little while. I’m heading off in 36 hours to help lead a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. We are heading to Cairo on Wednesday, then over to Jordan, then a few weeks in Israel, following the footsteps of Jesus through the gospels. I’m not sure how often I’m going to have access to broadband connections. Certainly not in the monastery on Mt Sinai, but perhaps in a few other places. I’ll upload some pics if I can, or you will be subject to a long slide show when I get home.
We will travel, and we will break bread – on Mount Sinai, on the Mount of the Beatitudes, by the Sea of Galilee, and in a few other places.
There are several stages to a pilgrimage. First, there is preparation for the journey. Second, there is the journey itself, which is done in the context of a community. We are pilgrims together, and it is in the shared journey that much takes place. Remember Canterbury Tales? It was about what happens on the road, on the journey. The third part of the pilgrimage is arriving. But that is not the climax of pilgrimage. The true pilgrim returns home, and has been changed by the journey. The final part of pilgrimage is returning to the place you left. The place you left has stayed the same, but through the journey of pilgrimage, you have changed. And so you re-enter your community as a changed person, and you bring the fruit of pilgrimage home with you, and let it shape your world.
The road to Emmaus is a picture of pilgrmage. Two are walking together, companions in conversation. Jesus comes among them, unrecognized at first. When they arrive at their destination, Jesus becomes clear to them, but then he vanishes from their sight. The pilgrim does not linger, waiting for a repeat of an experience of God. The pilgrim returns to his own community, and shares what he has discovered on the journey:
That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions…then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
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