We had a marvellous planning meeting for our pilgrimage to the Holy Land this coming spring. As a beginning point, let me say that there is a difference between a pilgrimage and what other adventurers might call a "voyage of discovery". A pilgrimage is, among other things, an intentional journey, which leaves one changed.
The fundamental and all-encompassing theme of spiritual life is pilgrimage: its images are the images of wayfaring, of exile and repatriation, of alienation and reconciliation, images of journeying through wilderness to gain the promised land. The Bible abounds in imagery of that kind, from the beginning to the end; from man's ancient exile from the paradise of Eden, in the Book of Genesis, to the vision of the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation. Indeed, the Scriptures represent the whole of our existence, the whole of natural and spiritual life, under images of pilgrimage: from the descent of all things from God in creation, to their return to him in the final summing up of hell and heaven. The theme is all-inclusive, and cosmic in dimension. As St. Paul explains (Rom. 8:19-23), "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now .... awaiting the adoption", when "the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God".
Pilgrimage - pilgrimage to glory, pilgrimage to liberty - is the life of all creation, and the meaning of all natural and human history.
The work of God for man's redemption is represented, too, in just such imagery: the descent of God the Son into the world to do the Father's will, and his return, through a wilderness of suffering and deprivation, to the homeland of the Father's glory; the descent of God the Spirit upon the infant Church, giving unity and order to the chaos of conflicting tongues, and the return of God the Spirit in the Church's life of charity, of penitence and adoration, making intercession "with groanings that cannot be uttered" (Rom. 8:26).
Finally, in a difficult and profoundly important sense, pilgrimage is the very life of God himself, the Holy Trinity: the outgoing of God the Father in his own self-knowing, which is the eternal begetting of his Word; and the eternal procession of God the Holy Spirit, whereby the knower and the known are bound in mutual love. Thus, the very name of God, as love, bespeaks the timeless pilgrimage of God. What, then, is man's imaging of God, but a timely imitation of that eternal pilgrimage? What is man's vocation, but the call to take the pilgrim's way, to be caught up in the drawing of that supernal triune love which (as Dante puts it) "moves the sun and the other stars"?
Robert Crouse: Images of Pilgrimage: Paradise and Wilderness in Christian Spirituality[could only find the Google cache of the original...] will search further...
a copy of this fine short book should be available through St Peter Publications.
Itinerary and registration info can be downloaded here.
I hope to have the detailed packing list & visa info etc, up there soon.
related posts: patristics blog carnival at hyperekperisou,
That also sounds like it would work well as a description of our time in Advent. Hmm, maybe I'll use that in a sermon... :)
Posted by: Stephen London | December 03, 2006 at 07:09 AM
I think the whole notion of the life of Christ as "pilgrimage" is marvellous. it requires much further thought.
Posted by: joseph | December 03, 2006 at 09:39 PM